TEACHERS' EDUCATIONAL AND MISBEHAVIOR MANAGEMENT STRATEGIES IN WORKING WITH PRIMARY SCHOOL STUDENTS WITH ATTENTION DEFICITS

Abstract

Children with attention deficits are usually integrated in regular primary school classes in Croatia, without any special educational treatment nor interventions. Teachers, whose primary education does not include educational methods for working with children with developmental disabilities or procedures of inclusion of such children in regular classes, must do their best to be successful in education and integration of this specific group of children. The main objective of this research was to determine the differences in use of educational strategies (upbringing and teaching) and misbehavior management (positive and negative) among primary school teachers working with children with attention deficits in respect of their gender, level of education, years of work experience and whether they teach in lower or upper grades of primary school. The research covered 31 primary schools from 3 counties of the eastern part of the Republic of Croatia. Participants were teachers (N=103) teaching in lower grades (from 1st to 4th) (51%), and in higher grades (from 5th to 8th) (49%) of primary schools. 12.8% of them were male and 87.2% female teachers. Teachers gave estimations for their students who had attention deficits (N=305), 85.6% (N=261) were male and 14.4% (N=44) were female students. The age span of estimated students was 7 to 15 years, and the average age was 10.69 years (SD=2.26). Teachers filled out the Educational desirable behavior-oriented strategy scale (upbringing and teaching subscales) and the Scale of misbehavior management strategy (positive and negative discipline subscales). The results implicate that teachers in the lower grades of primary school use more positive disciplinary strategy than teachers in the higher grades of primary school. The results of the research have shown that teachers working with children having attention deficits more often use the educational strategy of upbringing than teaching. Teachers from lower grades of primary school and also female teachers more often used the educational strategy of upbringing. As in Croatia formal education for primary school teachers teaching in lower grades of primary school differ from the education for teachers teaching in higher grades of primary school, it can be concluded that teachers in lower grades of primary schools are more sensitive and better educated for working with children with attention deficits.