Consultation for Classroom Management and Targeted Interventions: Examining Benchmarks for Teacher Practices That Produce Desired Change in Student Behavior

Abstract

In the context of best practices consultation with high needs teachers, we examined (a) relations between teachers’ appropriate response to student rule violations and rates of rule violations, and (b) rates of student misbehavior among teachers who do and do not achieve various benchmarks of integrity and/or growth in skills. Participants were 48 teachers, 48 target students with or at risk for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD; one per teacher), and remaining students in each classroom. Teachers received up to eight consultation sessions on classroom management and implementation of a daily report card (DRC) with the target student. We observed classwide rule violations, target student rule violations, and DRC violations, as well as the percentage of rule violations to which the teacher provided an appropriate response. Teachers who responded to a higher percentage of rule violations had fewer classwide rule violations ( rs = −.32 to –.53) and target student rule violations ( rs = −.22 to –.51) at baseline, Months 1 to 2, and Months 3 to 4 of consultation. Teachers who reached the minimum benchmark of 51% appropriate response and who demonstrated greater growth in appropriate responding witnessed fewer rule violations than teachers who did not achieve these benchmarks. Implications for preservice training, professional development, and consultation are discussed.

Elementary school teachers’ preferences for school‐based interventions for students with emotional and behavioral problems

“…Understanding that the majority of elementary school teachers prefer universal SEL programs suggests that teachers would have higher implementation integrity when utilizing this approach as opposed to targeted interventions or SPs. In turn, greater implementation integrity is more likely to have positive student outcomes (Conroy et al, ; Owens, Evans, et al, ).…”

Treatment Sensitivity of Direct Behavior Rating–Multi-Item Scales in the Context of a Daily Report Card Intervention

“…The average ES for DRC targets associated with teachers whose adherence was 65% or higher was .72 ( SD = 0.21) compared with an average ES of .46 ( SD = .30) for targets associated with teachers falling below 65% adherence. This level (65% adherence) was selected because it provided an even split across cases and it is in alignment with emerging evidence of minimum benchmarks of classroom intervention integrity associated with change in child behavior (Owens et al, in press). DBR-MIS sensitivity was interpreted while considering these levels of integrity.…”

“…We evaluated integrity with regard to percent observed adherence, average observed implementation quality, and percent of days with data tracked by the teacher. These indicators of integrity were examined for trends and in relation to emerging evidence regarding acceptable levels of intervention integrity (Owens, et al, in press).…”

Motivational Ruler Ratings among Teachers Receiving Coaching in Classroom Management: Measurement and Relationship to Implementation Integrity

“…We examined change in six teacher behaviors between the baseline period and the session 2 observations. Baseline and end of consultation data provided elsewhere (Owens et al 2017;Owens et al 2019) document that teachers had room for growth in these behaviors. Cell sizes (see Table 2) vary for each strategy due to missing observation data (e.g., if there were no target student rule violations in an observation, there were no data for percent appropriate response).…”

“…One means to support teachers' use of interventions is via problem-solving consultation with performance feedback (also referred to as coaching) to improve teacher knowledge about the interventions and skills in applying the interventions (Frank and Kratochwill 2014). Yet, even when teachers receive this support, intervention implementation is variable (Fabiano et al 2010;Owens et al 2019), suggesting that other factors (in addition to teacher knowledge and skills) may influence implementation (Han and Weiss 2005). One hypothesized variable is teacher beliefs (e.g., about the importance of the intervention or confidence in their own skills).…”