Middle School Teachers’ Perceptions and Use of Classroom Management Strategies and Associations With Student Behavior

Abstract

Disruptive student behavior in middle school is associated with negative outcomes, including poor grades, low achievement scores, dropout, lost teaching time, teacher burnout, and societal expenditures. Classroom Behavior Management (CBM) strategies are effective at reducing disruptive behavior, decreasing teacher stress, and increasing achievement with elementary students, but less is known regarding these strategies for middle school students. The purpose of the current study was to assess (a) the rates of disruptive and on-task student behaviors in middle school classrooms, overall and by academic context that included individual seatwork, group/partner work, small-group instruction, and whole-group instruction; (b) the rates of observed (appropriate and inappropriate commands, labeled and unlabeled praise, opportunities to respond; appropriate response to rule violations) and self-reported (appropriate commands, reprimands for inappropriate behavior, strategic ignoring, if/then contingencies, and send to principal’s office) CBM strategies; and (c) relationships between observed teacher strategy use and rates of disruptive and on-task behaviors. The results indicated that there was wide variability in teachers’ use of CBM strategies, their perceptions of the effectiveness of CBM strategies, and the frequency of disruptive student behavior. In addition, overall, teachers demonstrated low rates of appropriate responses to disruptive behavior. Notably, appropriate responses to disruptive behavior had the strongest association with total rates of disruptive and on-task behaviors. The implications of these findings for teacher training are discussed.