A case against behavior modification in the ‘ordinary’ classroom

It is argued that while behavior modification techniques have proved tremendously valuable in the teaching of problem learners, there are good grounds for resisting the use of these same procedures on a casual basis with normal children in ordinary classrooms. Aside from questioning the necessity of setting up a behavioral classroom for the majority of children, it is pointed out that (a) powerful reinforcers can limit the range of behaviors in which a child will engage, and (b) in some circumstances extrinsic rewards may undermine a child's willingness to become involved in some activities.     

Teachers’ awareness in identifying microaggressive behaviors within the K-12 classroom

In the field of education, teachers are sentries for maintaining proper decorum, upholding school policies, and maintaining a social justice classroom, free of adversarial behaviors. While the premise of proper social and academic student engagement is expected, teachers are not always aware of or able to respond to inappropriate social interactions. This qualitative study using a narrative inquiry approach investigates and portrays the levels of awareness and decision-making processes teachers possess when addressing microaggression and microaggressive behaviors. Five public school teachers from varying grade levels in a culturally diverse school district participated in semi-structured, in-depth interviews for this study. Emergent themes included: (a) awareness and recognition of microaggression as related to bullying, (b) microaggression as denigrating behavior directed toward others, and (c) microaggression with the school discipline framework. Findings suggest that teachers often lack awareness of microaggression as a concept distinct from bullying. But when the distinction is evident, teachers understand how microaggression can be a precursor to bullying which, if proactively addressed within the school discipline framework, may result in preventing bullying incidents before they start. Teachers were interested in receiving targeted professional development and adjusting school discipline policy to consider microaggression a unique concept. Guidance is offered to support educators, schools, and districts as clear guidelines and policies are established pertaining to identifying and addressing microaggression within the school community, thereby ensuring social and behavioral awareness.

     

Does classroom social comparison bias students’ evaluation of their own competence?

Social Psychology of Education - Overestimation and underestimation of students’ own competence result from social comparison in the classroom. There is some evidence that secondary school...     

Teachers’ academic and behavioral expectations and girls’ pubertal development: Does the classroom learning environment matter?

Experiencing puberty earlier than one’s peers has been linked with behavioral and academic problems in school, particularly among girls. Previously, we reported that practicing elementary school teachers expect girls who develop early to have more academic and social problems in the future, with girls’ race exacerbating these effects (Carter et al. 2017). The present study extends this previous research by examining whether characteristics within classroom learning environments (i.e., Competition, Order and Organization, Innovation, and Rule Clarity) affect the extent to which teachers use girls’ race and pubertal timing as a basis for their expectations. Practicing elementary school teachers (N?=?220; M_age?=?43 years; 91% female; 84% White) were randomly shown behavioral vignettes in two conditions (academic, externalizing) with drawings of fourth-grade Black and White pubertal-age girls, and were asked to report their academic and social expectations of the girls shown in the vignettes. Findings highlight the nuanced ways that classroom environments, girls’ race, and pubertal timing influence educators’ expectations. For example, in the academic condition, teachers who were highly innovative and orderly in the classroom expected Black relative to White early-developing girls to have more problems acquiring and using information (i.e., academic problems); however, White late-developing girls were expected to have more problems acquiring and using information. Conversely, in the externalizing condition, teachers who were highly innovative and orderly in the classroom expected Black late-developing girls to have more problems interacting and relating to others (i.e., social problems). These results highlight the importance of a multifaceted approach to studying race, biological sex, and puberty-related effects in schools.     

A consequence of school grade labels: preservice teachers’ interpretations and recall of children’s classroom behavior

This study investigated whether preservice teachers’ attitudes surrounding school grade labels influenced interpretations and recall of children’s classroom behavior using the automatic attitude activation model (Fazio, In R. M. Sorrentino & E. T. Higgins (Eds.), Handbook of motivation and cognition: Foundations of social behavior, 1986) as a theoretical framework. Participants were randomly assigned to one of three conditions: The expectation of viewing a video of children in schools labeled as “A,” “F,” or “typical” as a result of the school’s aggregated student performance on standardized tests. Results indicated that participants who believed that they were viewing a video of an “F” classroom recalled more negative and fewer positive behaviors compared to the “typical” classroom. Likewise, there was a trend for participants to recall more negative and fewer positive behaviors when viewing a video of an “F” compared to an “A” school. Therefore, negative attitudes about a school label of “F” biased preservice teachers’ perceptions and memories of children’s classroom behaviors.

From Searle’s Chinese room to the mathematics classroom: technical and cognitive mathematics

Employing Searle’s views, I begin by arguing that students of Mathematics behave similarly to machines that manage symbols using a set of rules. I then consider two types of Mathematics, which I call Cognitive Mathematics and Technical Mathematics respectively. The former type relates to concepts and meanings, logic and sense, whilst the latter relates to algorithms, heuristics, rules and application of various techniques. I claim that an upgrade in the school teaching of Cognitive Mathematics is necessary. The aim is to change the current mentality of the stakeholders so as to compensate for the undue value presently attached to Technical Mathematics, due to advances in technology and its applications, and thus render the two sides of Mathematics equal. Furthermore, I suggest a reorganization/systematization of School Mathematics into a cognitive network to facilitate students’ understanding of the subject. The final goal is the transition from mechanical execution of rules to better understanding and in-depth knowledge of Mathematics.

Effects of classroom context on university students’ judgments about cheating: mediating and moderating processes

Hypothetical vignettes were used to examine the effects of classroom context variables (pedagogical quality and classroom goal structure) on undergraduate (study 1) and graduate (study 2) students’ judgments about cheating. Consistent with attribution theory and previous findings, poor (versus good) pedagogy and performance (versus mastery) goals structures resulted in more teacher blame and less student blame for cheating, and cheating was rated as more acceptable and more likely in these situations. Participants’ own prior cheating history but not their experience as a classroom teacher also affected these judgments. Relations between classroom context variables and assigned blame for cheating were mediated by students’ assessments of the fairness of the classroom situation.     

Metacognition in the classroom: The association between students’ exam predictions and their desired grades

Students are overconfident when making grade predictions, and worse, the lowest-performing students are generally the most overconfident. Because metacognitive accuracy is associated with academic performance, multiple studies have attempted to improve metacognitive accuracy with mixed results. However, these studies may be of limited use because we do not understand the types of information university students use to make performance predictions. The current studies examined the possibility that university students’ predictions are associated with their desires—the grade they want to receive. Studies 1–4 demonstrated that students’ desired grades were strongly associated with their grade predictions across different courses, universities, and measurement strategies. Study 4 also showed that, if warned about the previous results, students could reduce their reliance on their desired grades and improve the accuracy of their predictions relative to control. Together, results demonstrated that students’ exam predictions are associated with their desired grades.     

Gender stereotypes and belonging across high school girls’ social groups: beyond the STEM classroom

Social Psychology of Education - Previous research on the impact of gender stereotypes on female adolescents’ feeling of belonging to peer groups has focused on STEM classrooms and...     

How ‘other people matter’ in a classroom-based strengths intervention: Exploring interpersonal strategies and classroom outcomes

Interventions that identify and develop character strengths have been shown to benefit well-being, academic engagement and achievement. Strengths research within positive psychology has focused primarily on individual outcomes with less attention on group or relationships effects. This study (N?=?193) examined the effect of a classroom-based strengths intervention on class cohesion and friction, relatedness, engagement, well-being and strengths use. A six-session programme was trialled with 9–12-year-old students. Students learned to recognise strengths and practised strengths-related goal setting. At three-months post-test, multi-level modelling indicated that intervention group participants scored significantly higher on class cohesion and relatedness need satisfaction, and lower on class friction than the non-randomised control group. Programme participants also reported higher levels of positive affect, classroom engagement, autonomy need satisfaction and strengths use. School-based strengths interventions may influence individual perceptions of class climate, engagement and student relatedness in addition to individual well-being.     

School social climate and teachers’ perceptions of classroom behavior problems: a 10 year longitudinal and multilevel study

Using longitudinal and cross-sectional data, the present research sought to identify school social climate predictors of teachers’ perceptions of classroom behavior problems. The social climate and classroom behavior in 107 public and private French speaking Canadian high schools was evaluated by 1399 teachers. The present analysis is unique in its ability to control for school differences in the enrollment of students with a history of problem behavior. As hypothesized, between-school variation in the proportion of students with histories of disruptive problems predicted high school classroom behavior problems. Moreover, when controlling for these between-school differences, concurrently measured school-level variables (type of school, location of school, and academic emphasis) are found to be significant predictors of classroom behavior problems. The theoretical and practical implications of the present findings are examined and recommendations are made for future research.     

Classroom goal structures and communication style: the role of teacher immediacy and relevance-making in students’ perceptions of the classroom

Social Psychology of Education - We examined the relationships between teachers’ communication styles and students’ perceptions of the classroom goal structure. Within the context of...     

Relations between classroom goal structures and students’ goal orientations in mathematics classes: When is a mastery goal structure adaptive?

The purpose of this study was to test possible interactions between mastery and performance goal structures in mathematics classrooms when predicting students’ goal orientations. More specifically, we tested if the degree of performance goal structure moderated the associations between mastery goal structure and students’ goal orientations. Participants were 1628 5th to 10th grade students from eight elementary and middle schools from one large city in Norway. The data were analyzed by means of regression analysis. The results showed that the association between a mastery goal structure in the mathematics classrooms and students’ personal goal orientations were significantly moderated by the degree of performance goal structure. This was true for all dimensions of goal orientation tested in this study.     

Sex differences in student—teacher interactions in the college classroom

An observational analysis of student—teacher interactions in 60 college classes revealed sex differences in student behaviors. Male students were the majority sex more often than females in classes taught by male lecturers; there was no sex difference for classes taught by female lecturers. Male students engaged in proportionately more student—teacher interactions than female students in male-taught classes; there was no sex difference in female-taught classes. Neither male nor female professors appeared to respond differentially to male and female students. Possible causes and implications of these findings are discussed.Portions of this paper were presented at the biennial meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development, Denver, April 1975.     

What makes students feel authentic in an integrated RE classroom?

Abstract

The focus of this article is on 9th grade students’ (N = 9) perceptions on aspects that make them feel authentic in integrated religious education (RE) lessons among students of various faiths. All of the students had previously studied RE in segregated groups. The data was collected in a collaborative teaching experiment in Finland with student interviews. The students included young people between the ages of 15 and 16 from Lutheran RE, Orthodox RE and ethics instruction. The analysis identified five themes the students reported as having contributed to their sense of authenticity in RE: neutral pedagogical approach, approving social climate concerning diverse beliefs, space for different worldviews in instruction, group composition concerning beliefs and the position of the teacher regarding religion and his/her students.