UROP Project

Observing African classrooms through the Teaching Through Interactions Framework lens

African classes, teaching quality, qualitative research, behavior observation

Research Mentor: Dr. Adrienne Barnes-Story,
Department, College, Affiliation: Learning Systems Institute, N/A
Contact Email: abarnes@lsi.fsu.edu
Research Assistant Supervisor (if different from mentor):
Research Assistant Supervisor Email:
Faculty Collaborators:
Faculty Collaborators Email:

Looking for Research Assistants: Yes
Number of Research Assistants: 6
Relevant Majors: Open to all majors.
Project Location: On FSU Main Campus
Research Assistant Transportation Required:
Remote or In-person: Fully Remote
Approximate Weekly Hours: 8-10, Flexible schedule (Combination of business and outside of business. TBD between student and research mentor.)
Roundtable Times and Zoom Link:
Not participating in the roundtable

Project Description

The quality of teacher-student interactions directly impacts learner experiences across their school years. Our team is working to use the Teaching Through Interactions Framework (TTIF) to develop a rating scale for classrooms in Africa. We have collected 85 classroom lesson videos with teachers in Malawi and Kenya, and aim to code these lessons for qualitative TTIF components: emotional support, classroom organization, and instructional support. This line of research opens the door to further study how student-teacher classroom interactions in low-resource environments shape student learning outcomes across the world.


Research Tasks: UROP students will be engaged in the process of finalizing the qualitative rating scale, in collaboratively developing the lesson rating process, and in completing qualitative scoring of various lesson observations from Malawi and Kenya.

Skills that research assistant(s) may need: No previous experience is required - only an interest in qualitative research and scoring processes.