Chapter 2 examined the role that beliefs play in shaping the instructional decisions and practices that teachers make use of in teaching. This chapter examines the nature of teacher decision making in more detail and the effects of these decisions on teaching and learning. For many educationists, decision making is viewed as an essential teaching competency. Shavelson (1973: 143–5) observed:

From this perspective, teaching is essentially a thinking process. Teachers are constantly confronted with a range of different options and are required to select from among these options the ones they think are best suited to a particular goal. The option the teacher selects is known as a decision (Kindsvatter, Wilen, and Ishler 1988). Teaching involves making a great number of individual decisions. Before a lesson can be taught it must be planned. Decisions at this stage are called planning decisions. During the lesson itself, another level of decision making is involved. The teacher has to make on-the-spot decisions concerning different aspects of the lesson, many of which may not have been planned. These are known as interactive decisions. After the lesson, the teacher must make decisions about its effectiveness and what the follow-up to the lesson will be. These are known as evaluative decisions. These three types of decisions form the focus of this chapter.