INATTENTION IN PRIMARY-SCHOOL CLASSROOMS - PUPIL OR TEACHER PROBLEM

The objective of the present study was to compare the impact of instru ctional versus classroom composition variables on the time-on-task rat e in classrooms. Instructional variables were classroom management, ad aptivity, and social climate; classroom context variables were the lev el and heterogeneity of cognitive prerequisites, class size, percentag e of girls and of students with German as a second language. The data base was the project SCHOLASTIC, a 4-year longitudinal study on studen ts' cognitive and motivational development during elementary school. T he sample comprised all students from 52 classrooms and their teachers . The results showed that the differences in time-on-task level were m ainly due to differences in teachers' classroom management and in the adaptivity of instruction. In contrast, only one of the classroom cont ext variables showed a (negative) impact on time-on-task, namely the h eterogeneity with regard to different languages spoken in the classroo m. However, the relevance of this risk factor for the attentional leve l decreased from 2nd to 4th grade; simultaneously, the pattern of rela tive impact of adaptive instruction and of classroom management change d in favor of the latter.