Implementation of a Model-Based Programme to Promote Personal and Social Responsibility and Its Effects on Motivation, Prosocial Behaviours, Violence and Classroom Climate in Primary and Secondary Education

Abstract

The present study aimed to apply a programme based on Hellison’s Teaching Personal and Social Responsibility model (TPSR), traditionally used in Physical Education, to other school subjects and analyse aspects related to motivation and satisfaction of basic psychological needs among other variables. The programme was applied for 7 months during one academic year, all students receiving at least 60% of the lessons through this teaching methodology. A mixed method research methodology and quasiexperimental design was implemented in three schools (two primary, one secondary), with a total of 29 teachers and 272 students (45 control, 227 experimental group) involved. The students completed a questionnaire before and after the study and the teachers underwent semi-structured interviews at the end of the intervention. The results indicated improvements for the experimental group in personal and social responsibility, the psychological mediator index, the self-determination index, prosocial behaviours and teacher climate, as well as a reduction in amotivation and antisocial behaviours. The results were similar for primary and secondary school. The interviews yielded positive opinions and showed suitability of the method to be applied in the rest of subjects. It is concluded that TPSR can be an appropriate methodology to be implemented in the different curriculum subjects to improve basic psychological need satisfaction, motivation, prosocial behaviours and classroom climate.

Enhancing Learner Motivation and Classroom Social Climate: A Mixed Methods Approach

“…On the other hand, no improvements were found in the violence perception, despite the fact that former studies in the PE field, such as [55][56][57][58], related higher responsibility and sportsmanship levels with lower violence and disruptive behavior levels. In line with the present work, similar results have been already obtained without changes in the violence perception in the study by Manzano-Sánchez and Valero-Valenzuela [54], where, despite the decrease in antisocial behavior, there was no change in the student violence perception who received the TPSR program. It should be noted that the same results were also reported in studies focused only on the PE field, where it was found that personal and social responsibility is capable of negatively predicting attitudes of violence, but where the intervention study that was associated with it did not find decreases in this variable [21].…”

“…With regard to the basic psychological needs satisfaction, improvements were obtained in autonomy and competence, as well as in the psychological mediators' index. These results are positive and are in line with those found by Manzano and Valero-Valenzuela [53], who achieved improvements in the only basic psychological need measured, which was autonomy, and with Manzano-Sánchez and Valero-Valenzuela [54], who found improvements in the psychological mediators index for both primary and secondary school students. Some research in the PE field, when they applied the TPSR, obtained higher values in all, [32] or at least in some of them [57].…”

“…Despite the fact that there are still few former studies that have implemented the TPSR in different subjects, they reported improvements in some of the student motivation dimensions, specifically, improvements in intrinsic and introjected motivation [53] or in the self-determination index and reduction in the amotivation values [54]. However, in the present work, no significant changes over time were achieved in students who received this program, also reporting a low effect size in all its dimensions; therefore, it is not attributable to the sample size either.…”

“…In some studies, the lack of improvements in the motivation variable that have been reported could be due to the short time of the intervention. There are several studies which alluded to the lack of time during the implementation for the program as the main reason why no significant changes are achieved in the variables studies [54,59,60], despite the fact that for teachers who implement this new program, it is motivating [61]. However, in this research, the intervention program lasted a whole school year, so other factors such as the kind of motivation measured (PE motivation versus academic motivation), instruments used (questionnaire to assess motivation in the PE class or perceived locus of causality versus EME) [62,63], or the sample size could be behind these results [53].…”

Influence of Some Personal and Family Variables on Social Responsibility Among Primary Education Students

“…These programs have had very positive results (Ruiz et al, 2006;Caballero et al, 2013;Gordon and Doyle, 2015;Sánchez-Alcaraz et al, 2016;Andrew et al, 2018). The benefits go beyond an overall improvement in students' social responsibility, also obtaining positive effects in the motivation, prosocial behaviors, reduction of violent behaviors, or improvements in the classroom climate (Manzano-Sánchez and Valero-Valenzuela, 2019). This can even be the basis of trauma-informed practice (TIP), aimed at ensuring the physical and emotional safety of disadvantaged students (Ellison et al, 2019).…”