Effects of Teacher Consultation on Evidence-Based Classroom Management Strategies: Teacher and Student Behavior

Abstract

The American Psychological Association (APA) conducted the online 2005-2006 Teacher Needs Survey wherein 52% of first year teachers, 28% of teachers with two to five years of experience, and 26% of teachers with 6 to 10 years experience ranked classroom management as their greatest need. Difficulty managing student behaviors leads to higher stress and burnout for teachers (Smith & Smith, 2006) as well as less instructional time, lower grades, and poorer performance on standardized tests for students (Shinn, Ramsey, Walker, Stieber, & O'Neill, 1987). When teachers are charged with managing their own classrooms in the field, they are often inadequately prepared (Bergeny & Martens, 2006) and professional development workshops and inservices on classroom management are often ineffective (Allen & Forman, 1984, Fixsen, Naoom, Blasé, Friedman, & Wallace, 2005). The focus of the current study was to evaluate the effectiveness of a checklist of evidence-based classroom management strategies both by itself and coupled with feedback and an action plan. Effectiveness was measured by the percentage of strategies from the checklist that were implemented by the teacher as well as the percentage of disruptive behavior by students in the classroom. The checklist consisted of 17 evidence-based classroom management strategies that were divided into three areas: Beginning of Class; During Instruction; and Responding to Student Behavior. The study consisted of four conditions: Baseline; Checklist; Checklist, Feedback, and Action Plan; and Maintenance. During the Checklist condition, the investigator and teacher read through evidence-based classroom management strategies on the checklist and reviewed examples and non-examples of the strategies. During the Checklist, Feedback, and Action Plan condition, the investigator and teacher reviewed the graphed data on the teacher's use of the strategies during Baseline and Checklist conditions. After reviewing the data, the teacher and investigator identified a maximum of three strategies from the checklist to implement and an action plan for how to implement those strategies was created. Then, after each observation, a checklist scored by the investigator was given to the teacher. During Maintenance, the teacher no longer received a scored checklist following the observations. Three elementary, self-contained classroom teachers of students with emotional and behavioral disorders participated in the study. During Baseline, the teachers used an average of 20% to 30% of the evidence-based classroom management strategies and the percentages of disruptive behavior ranged from an average of 60% to 90%. During the Checklist condition, the level of the data immediately increased for percentage of strategies used and the level of the data for disruptive behavior decreased, for two of the teachers. The changes in level for both percentage of strategies used and percentage of disruptive behavior, however, did not remain. One teacher returned to baseline levels for both percentage of strategies used and percentage of disruptive behavior. The other teacher showed a slight increase from baseline levels for percentage of strategies used, but the percentage of disruptive behavior returned to baseline levels. For the third teacher, no significant change in level was observed for percentage of strategies used and percentage of disruptive behavior. All three teachers, however, demonstrated increased use of the strategies and decreased percentages of disruptive behavior, when the checklist was coupled with feedback and an action plan. From Baseline to the Checklist, Feedback, Action Plan condition, the average percentages of strategies used were: Teacher A, 24% to 93%; Teacher B, 23% to 93%; and Teacher C, 33% to 88%. During Maintenance, Teacher A used an average of 92% of evidence-based classroom management strategies and Teachers B and C used 94% of evidence-based classroom management strategies. From Baseline to Maintenance, the average percentages of disruptive behavior were: Teacher A, 76% to 17%; Teacher B, 91% to 13%; and Teacher C, 64% to 12%. All three teachers found the intervention to be acceptable. Specifically, the teachers reported that: this intervention would be beneficial and appropriate for a variety of students; they were likely to use this intervention in the future; they liked the procedures used; and they were more likely to stay in their current teaching position after using this intervention.