A review, published in Review of Educational Research, analyzes the evidence on The Good Behavior Game (GBG), a classroom management program that has been used (and studied) for 40 years. Strategies in the program include acknowledging appropriate behavior, teaching classroom rules, providing feedback about inappropriate behavior, verbal praise, and providing rewards as reinforcement.

A total of 22 studies met the authors’ inclusion criteria. In these, the program was mainly being used in mainstream elementary schools with externalizing, challenging behaviors (e.g., disruptive behavior, off-task behavior, aggression, talking out, and out-of-seat behaviors).

The review aimed to describe and quantify the effect of the GBG on various challenging behaviors in school and classroom settings. The findings suggested that:

• The GBG had moderate to large effects on a range of challenging behaviors, and that these effects were immediate.
• Correct application of reward procedures was found to be important for intervention effectiveness.

The authors note that the GBG has been implemented by individuals in a variety of school roles (such as classroom teachers, student teachers, librarians, and lunchtime staff), and that this highlights the ease with which the GBG can be implemented under a variety of conditions. Additionally, the relatively brief training for practitioners in the studies suggests that the GBG can be used successfully without extensive training.

Few studies considered the long-term impact of the GBG, but the authors conclude that the effects were largely stable, with only a very slight decrease over time.

Source: Flower, A., McKenna, J. W., Bunuan, R. L., Muething, C. S., & Vega, R. (2014). Effects of The Good Behavior Game on challenging behaviors in school settings. Review of Educational Research, 84(4), 546–571. … Read the rest

An article co-authored by Johns Hopkins School of Education’s Lieny Jeon reports that teachers need emotional support to manage chaotic classrooms.

The finding comes from a study Jeon and her colleagues conducted that examined the role of teachers’ emotional abilities and classroom environments in how teachers respond to children’s negative emotions and disruptive behavior. The researchers sampled 1,129 teachers working with preschoolers in child-care centers or public pre-K programs across the U.S. Using a survey, the teachers were asked to rate their perceptions of environmental chaos and their responsiveness to children in early childcare settings.

The researchers found that

• Childcare chaos (e.g., crowdedness, unpredictability, and lack of routines and rules) was directly associated with teachers’ non-supportive reactions (e.g., distress reactions and punitive reactions) after controlling for multiple program and teacher characteristics.
• In addition, teachers in more chaotic childcare settings had less reappraisal and coping skills, which in turn was associated with lower levels of positive responsiveness to children.

The article suggests that intervention programs are needed to address teachers’ coping and emotion regulation strategies in early childhood education.

Source: Jeon, L., Hur, E., & Buettner, C. K. (2016). Child-care chaos and teachers’ responsiveness: The indirect associations through teachers’ emotion regulation and coping. Journal of School Psychology, 59, 83–96. … Read the rest

A meta-analysis of classroom management interventions has found that they improved academic, behavioral, and social-emotional outcomes.

Published in the Review of Educational Research, the study included 54 classroom management interventions in 47 studies published between 2003 and 2013. It included some interventions that had been evaluated several times (including Promoting Alternative Thinking Strategies (PATHS), the Good Behavior Game, and Zippy’s Friends). About three-quarters of the studies were carried out in the U.S., with the remainder in Europe and Canada.

Most interventions were focused on changing students’ behavior (85%), improving students’ social-emotional development (74%), or changing teachers’ behavior (54%). Only two interventions were specifically targeted to improving teacher–student relationships. The analysis found that:

• There was an overall effect size of +0.22 for the interventions, with a slightly higher effect on behavior (+0.24), and less on social-emotional (+0.21) and academic (+0.17) outcomes.
• There was no significant effect on motivational outcomes.
• The analysis also indicated that interventions focused on social-emotional development of the students were somewhat more effective than those without that component.

Source: Korpershoek, H., Harms, T., de Boer, H., van Kuijk, M., & Doolaard, S. (2016). A meta-analysis of the effects of classroom management strategies and classroom management programs on students’ academic, behavioral, emotional, and motivational outcomes. Review of Educational Research, 86(3), 643–680. … Read the rest

Researchers from the University of Oxford’s Department of Education conducted a meta-analysis to examine what effect peer assessment interventions have on academic performance.

Published in Educational Psychology Review, the meta-analysis evaluated the effect of peer assessment on academic performance when compared to no assessment and teacher assessment. Fifty-four studies were included in the meta-analysis, of which 45% were with school-age students. Studies had to examine the effect of peer assessment on non-self-reported measures of academic achievement and have a control or comparison group, using no assessment, teacher assessment, or self-assessment.

The findings from the analysis indicated that:

• Overall there was a significant positive effect of peer assessment on academic performance compared with no assessment (ES= +0.31) and teacher assessment (ES = +0.28).
• The effect size was similar when peer assessment compared with self-assessment (ES = +0.23) though this result was not significant.
• The effect sizes were slightly larger for school-age children than undergraduates.

The analysis concludes that peer assessment can be effective across a wide range of subject areas, education levels, and assessment types.

Source (Open Access): Double, K. S., McGrane, J. A., & Hopfenbeck, T. N. (2019). The impact of peer assessment on academic performance: A meta-analysis of control group studies. Educational Psychology Review. Advanced Online Publication: Doi: 10.1007/s10648-019-09510-3… Read the rest

A study published in the Journal of Research on Educational Effectiveness reports on the impact of Word Generation on academic language, vocabulary, and reading comprehension outcomes for students in grades 4 to 7.

Word Generation (WG) is a vocabulary program designed to teach academic vocabulary words through English, math, science, and social studies classroom activities. For this study, 7,725 4th to 7th grade students from 25 schools in the northeast U.S. were randomized within pairs to either treatment or business-as-usual control conditions. In treatment schools, the program was implemented throughout the school year. In grades 4 and 5, this involved 12 ten-day long units of 45-50 minutes per day. For grades 6 and 7, the program was implemented in six-week long units designed to take 45 minutes each day in science and social studies classes. The results showed:

• At the end of the first year, students in grades 4 and 5 also made improvements on their academic language skills (ES = +0.06), and in their reading comprehension at the end of the second year (ES = +0.15).
• Reading comprehension also improved at the end of the second year for students in grades 6 and 7 (ES = +0.10).

The study also showed gains on tests of the specific words emphasized in the program, but these effects are considered potentially inflated.

Source: Jones, S. M., LaRusso, M., Kim, J., Kim, H. Y., Selman, R., Uccelli, P., Barnes, S. P., Donovan, S., & Snow, C. (2019). Experimental effects of word generation on vocabulary, academic language, perspective taking, and reading comprehension in high-poverty schools. Journal of Research on Educational Effectiveness, 12(3), 448–483… Read the rest