A practical observation procedure for monitoring four behaviors relevant to classroom management

Abstract

The authors present a quick and simple procedure for observing four behaviors relevant to classroom management: student disruption, student altention, and the teacher's use of both poyitive and negative events. Five paraprofehsional teacher aides observed 28 elementary and middle-school teachers es on 10 occasions both at the beginning and at the end of the school year. The paraprofessiorial aides, quickly trained, manifested high interrater reliabilities. Stable estimates of all four target, behaviors were obtained by averaging the data from only four or five consecutive observations. Strong, consistent intercorre1:ttions between the four behaviors nei'e found, and the intel.c.orrelatioris were in the expected direct ions. Thus, the procedure yields reliable, stable nieasiires of four import ant c*lassroom behaviors, and it is practical to use. I n keeping with the trend in education ton ard accountability, many educators and school administrators arc concerned M ith thc objective evaluation of what goes on behind the classroom door. Many instruments are available that measure academic progress, but often a more immediate concern is classroom management. Anyone interested in nionitoririg and improving classroom management needs a source of periodic, objective, reliable information reflecting changes in student behavior and in the teacher's methods of managing that behavior. The authors have developed and tested a simple in-class observation procedure that is both objective and reliable and can be carried out by available school personnel quickly enough to permit frequent sampling.The procedure was originally designed to monitor a specific classroom management program; and it provided not only a continuous source of feedback on teacher and student behavior, but also data for program evaluation (see Rollins, McCandless, Thompson, & Brassell, 1974). Four behaviors relevant to classroom management are observed and recorded: student disruption, student attention, and the teacher's use of both positive and negative events (nontcchnically-teacher's use of reinforcement and punishment). The procedure is not suitable for answering questions concerning individual students, but it does yield data for the individual teacher and the behavior of his class as a whole.Most of the observation procedurcs reported in the literature are designed. to record the interactions betn-een a teacher and a particular problem student (c.g , Jfadsen, Becker, & Thomas, 196s). These instruments provide no systematic information about the behavior of the class as a whole. The procedures that do nieasure how the overall class is behaving (see, for example, Barrish, Saunders, & 'The authors wish to recognize the cooperation given them by t,he Atlanta Public Schools and t o express special thanks to the five paraprofessional teacher aides who so conscientiously collected the essential data.

Natural Rates of Teacher Approval and Disapproval in British Primary and Middle School Classrooms

“…One of our aims was to determine whether the findings of Persons et al (1976) would obtain with British teachers. Using data obtained from their schedules they found strong and stable correlations between measures suggesting that, "A teacher who maximises the use of positive events while minimising the use of negative events is likely to have less disruption and greater attention among students" (p. 70).…”