PsychologicalReports, 1997.81, 272-274. O Psychological Reports 1997 THE LESSON INTERRUPTION METHOD IN ASSESSING SITUATION-SPECIFIC BEHAVIOR IN CLASSROOMS ' JEAN-LUC PATRY Universi~ of Salzburg, Austria Summary.-The lesson interruption method consists in interrupting the lesson at predetermined occasions on which students respond to a short questionnaire about the teacher's or the students' behaviors. Some experiences with this method are re- ported; it can be a useFul tool both for research on teaching particularly when the behavior is situation-specific and when feedback to teachers is desired. Classroom clunates and teachers' and students' behaviors are usually either assessed through observation by an external person or with a ques- tionnaire to be answered by the students or by the teacher; in the latter case, typically, assessment is global and does not account for differences between lessons or situations (Saldern, 1992). However, some dimensions of the class- room climate and of teachers' and students' behaviors may be dependent upon the particularities of the situation and differ from lesson to lesson (Pa- try, 1995). This is not accounted for in the global assessment. On the other hand, systematic observation with which situation-specificity could be assess- ed is expensive and has reactive effects. These observations do not allow as- sessing the perception of the students. To deal with this problem we have developed the lesson interruption method. Several copies of a one-page questionnaire with items concerning the constructs of interest are assembled in a booklet and given to the stu- dents. At a given time during the lesson the teacher interrupts her lesson and asks the students to respond to the items on the next page of the book- let, which takes a half minute or so; then the teacher continues with the les- son. When the students get accustomed to this observational technique, the disturbance in the classroom is minimal if the students are fairly disciplined. We have used the method to analyze descriptions and evaluations of teachers' and the students' behaviors. Among others, teachers' control (amount of direct teaching), difficulty of the subject matter, cooperation among students and between students and teacher, disciphe, attention, self- efficacy, concentration, feelings, students' thoughts, etc., were assessed this way. The method is not lunited to particular features but can be used to as- sess a broad range of characteristics of behaviors of teachers and students. 'Send requests For reprints to J.-L. Patry, University of Salzburg, Department of Education, Akademiestrasse 26, A-5020 Salzburg, Austria.