What Goes On In Montessori Classrooms?

John Chattin-McNichols, Ph.D. ©1995 ------------------------------------------------------------------------

To examine this, we need to look at the relatively few studies of Montessori classrooms. The single most important recent research study of Montessori preschools is Miller and Dyer (1975). The study took place in several phases. First, the sample (N = 248) was randomly assigned to one of four preschool treatments. The sample was composed of approximately 98 percent Black children, with mean family incomes of approximately $3,000 (in 1968). There were four school sites, and four replications of each program (Bereiter-Engelmann, traditional, DARCEE, and Montessori) except the Montessori pr ogram, for which there were only two replications.

The Bereiter-Engelmann (BE) program is a heavily didactic program with a behavioral orientation; it is the antecedent of the DISTAR program. The DARCEE program is another new program (in contrast to MONT and TRAD) , with some direct teaching and some ti me for children to use cognitively oriented materials. The TRAD (Traditional) program was based on the usual nursery school practices, and represents a typical Headstart program.

One of the very few flaws of the Miller and Dyer study was that only two Montessori classrooms were studied. This was because "none of the 22 Head Start teachers available was qualified for Montessori training," (p.17); two individuals, therefore, were r ecruited. These teachers substantially differed from the other teachers in age, experience, educational background, race, IQ, and personality variables. Perhaps more importantly, these women, with less experience than the other teachers, were in a summe r eight-week training program. The year of Montessori teaching on which the study is based was their internship year, but they were without an experienced head teachers in the classroom as is the usual practice.

In addition to the inexperience of the teachers in contrast to that of the teachers in other programs, it must be remembered that the Montessori program is designed as a three-year program, for the child from ages three to six, not for a single year, as w as the case in this study. For these reasons, the results of this study must be interpreted as representing the lower bounds of the effects of Montessori preschool experience. Miller and Dyer first conducted an examination of the different philosophies of the four models, by having the teachers report their agreement with a list of statements derived from each model. This part of their study showed that teachers from the four models did have differing views of the goals and means of preschool education. Next, consultants rated the classrooms on a variety of measures to determine the extent to which the classrooms could be judged to represent the models. Finally, both live a nd videotaped observations were conducted. This thorough job of assessing the programs, rather than assuming that a program labelled "Montessori" would be an adequate model, is one of the exemplary features of this study.

Child Activity variables were among the process variables studied. The Montessori program, as might have been predicted from Montessori's writings, shows the highest incidence of manipulation of materials. Large motor activities are, however, the least frequent in MONT classrooms. Somewhat surprisingly, MONT is second-ranked (after TRAD) in the amount of role play. Perhaps the fact that the most common comparison is between Montessori and traditional nursery schools has led to the over-generalization t hat Montessori classrooms are low in role playing. In comparison with academic preschools, Montessori children are, at least in this study, engaging in more role playing. This area--the frequency of role play--is addressed below in Torrence's (1988) wo rk.

In Verbal Child Activities, again, clear program differences, predictable from the models,were found. The BE program has large amounts of verbal recitation, the MONT program moderately large amounts, and low amounts of recitation were recorded for DAR an d TRAD. Despite the perception of little social behavior in the Montessori classroom, in fact MONT students are the highest (virtually tied with TRAD) on the amount of conversation recorded. This finding is made more clear in the light of Back's (1977) findings, discussed below. Other findings include: BE has by far the most group time, and MONT the least. DAR and MONT share first place in the amount of time alone. Also,TRAD was found to be the highest on conduct control, and MONT dramatically lower than other programs in the amount of language imitation requested. (BE was the highest.)

The behaviorally oriented BE program has large amounts of positive and negative reinforcement occurring. Surprisingly, at least in terms of common perceptions of Montessori, MONT teachers were providing more, not less, positive reinforcement than TRAD te achers, and less negative reinforcement.

Overall, the observation data from the Miller and Dyer study paint a complex picture. In most areas, Montessori classrooms are as Dr. Montessori described them decades ago: the children work with materials, often individually. The teachers very seldom give large group lessons. Little conduct control is needed from the teachers. But in two areas, these findings contradict the common view of Montessori: role play is not absent, but at a moderate level, in comparison with the other three programs, and conversations are going on at a fairly high rate. This second area, social interactions, was studied in more detail by Back (1977), Reuter and Yunik (1973), by Wirtz (1976), and by Baines and Snortum (1973).

Beck (11977) compared classrooms at each of three schools representing British Infant School and at three more representing Montessori. Her findings in the areas of outcome are presented later; her observational measures shed some light on social behavi ors:

"...British Infant subjects were more likely to engage in Social Activity (i.e. Game Playing, Conversation, and Social Interaction) than Montessori subjects (p < .025)... (p.83)

...of all the variables in the study, the one that best discriminated the two groups was Prepare and/or Clean Up... ...[Also differentiating the groups were] Requests Cognitive Information, Seeks Proximity to Adults, and Offers Cognitive Information to Pe er. These behaviors characterized the Montessori Ss. (p. 122)

...These categories [Seeks Attention and Seeks Attention from Adult] were more characteristic of the British Infant group. (p.122,123)

...The finding that Montessori Ss were high on Ratio of Peer to Adult Interactions appears to be in contradiction with the ANOVA result that the British Infant Ss were more likely to engage in social activity. It should be noted , however, that Social Ac tivity refers to types of activities, while the Ratio of Peer to Adult category refers to persons with whom the child interacts. Thus, Montessori children had a high ratio of peer interaction even though their activity was less play-oriented. (My emphasis) Apparently, they were more likely to work together in non-social situations. The criticisms cited by Miezitis (1972) that Montessori education isolates children from each other was not supported by the findings of this study. Rather , the results tend to support Montessori's (1967) view that work with materials leads to increased self-confidence which eventually results in mature social interaction with children." (page 123)

These findings are interesting to compare with Reuter and Yunik's 1973 findings. These researchers compared a Montessori preschool with a token economy laboratory preschool and a parent cooperative preschool using traditional nursery school methods. Con trary to their hypotheses, Reuter and Yunik found that it was the token economy classroom which spent the least time in social interaction (16.5%), with the Montessori children spending 25%. The parent cooperative group was not significantly different fr om either of the other two groups. Also, social interaction increased with age. This finding is confirmed by Wirtz (1976).

Baines and Snortum (1973) examined the behavior of children in a traditional public elementary school and a Montessori elementary classroom, using time sampling methods similar to those of Wirtz. Montessori children (N=8) spent the largest percentage of time (44%) in self directed study. The traditional school children spent over 90% of their time under direct supervision of the teacher. One of the most interesting findings from Baines and Snortum is that the Montessori children spent sizable amounts of time teaching each other (and being taught)

Feltin (1987) documented what occurred in four elementary classes in her dissertation titled, "Independent Learning in Four Montessori Elementary Classrooms". The pattern reported is the familiar one; Montessori children appear to be spending their time as Montessori predicted, moving independently, doing work, talking with each other about both work and social topics, and requiring relatively little conduct control.

In a recent study, DeVries & Goncu (1988) compared forty 4-year-old children from constructivist and Montessori preschool programs on socio-moral development. The children were assessed for three specific hypotheses: children from Montessori and construc tivist programs would perform equally well on cognitive measures; children from constructivist programs would use higher levels of interpersonal negotiation strategies; children from Montessori and constructivist programs would engage equally often in con flict but children from constructivist programs will resolve conflicts more cooperatively. The assessment situation consisted of a board game played in a room within the children's school, without adult regulation. The assumption was that the children w ould be motivated to cooperate (in order to have fun), and would be likely to have interpersonal conflicts (out of a desire to win). The children's verbal and non-verbal interactions were videotaped and transcribed for coding and analysis. The instrumen t divided social-cognitive interactions into 4 levels: level 0 perceives self and others as non-psychological objects; levels 1-3 consist of higher levels of increasing coordination and valuation of thoughts, feelings, and wishes of self and others. Fif ty-seven categories of behavior were operationally defined for the levels of interaction.

Results of the analysis of game play indicated that the children from the two programs did not differ from one another on general understandings of the game and ability to count. However, children from the constructivist program did significantly better on moving markers in the correct direction toward the goal, completing the game, and proposing new rules for the game. In comparison of the difference in number of times the die was rolled, children from the constructivist program took turns more effecti vely.

Results of the analysis of interactions of the pairs of children showed that Montessori pairs had a significantly higher proportion of Level 1 behaviors than constructivist pairs, and that constructivist pairs had a significantly higher proportion of Leve l 2 behaviors than Montessori pairs. Children from the constructivist program were generally more advanced in their use of interpersonal negotiation strategies than children from the Montessori program. Interpersonal negotiation strategies were signific antly higher-level for constructivist pairs than for Montessori pairs. Montessori pairs had a significantly higher proportion of Level 0 behaviors than constructivist pairs. No significant difference in percentage of Level 1 behaviors was found. Constr uctivist pairs had a significantly higher proportion of Level 2 behaviors than Montessori pairs.

DeVries and Goncu interpret the findings of this study to suggest that socio-moral development in young children may be affected positively by preschool experience such as that provided by constructivist education with its emphasis on child autonomy and r ich interpersonal experience. The authors contrast this with experience in Montessori classroom, which they see as quiet, orderly, and controlled by teacher authority with little social interaction. In particular, they stress the teacher's reactions to and encouragement of children's autonomy in contexts of interpersonal conflict as critical to the children's socio-moral development. This may in fact be the most important factor, given the other research that suggests that social interaction is takin g place in Montessori classrooms. As with all of the research on Montessori based on a single school, the use of any particular Montessori school as representative of American Montessori practices must be considered.

In conclusion, is clear that more and better research into the processes of Montessori environments is needed. The Montessori environments studied so far have revealed that students are spending relatively little time in whole group instruction. Rather, they move about the classroom, choose their work, work individually, and talk with each other. They do spend significant amounts of time conversing, but a relatively high portion of this is either related to school work or actual peer teaching. Lack of similarity in observation instruments obscures the extent to which this is true at different age levels.

Lastly, some of the ideas about what goes on in Montessori classrooms--such as little social interaction and role play--must be be carefully reexamined. More research is needed here in particular, to examine the extent and depth of role play at various a ge levels, and to examine social interactions in even greater detail. Their findings seem to indicate that Montessori classroom life is much more open than many educators believe.

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