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the impact of the Good Behavior Game
Introduction
The study evaluates the impact of the Good Behavior Game adopted to help deal with disruptive behaviors experienced in urban elementary schools. To help conduct the study, the Good Behavior Game was applied on an urban class with a population of students with high poverty levels and the results noted down to help come up with a good conclusion. The study was also used to help evaluate the collateraleffects faced by teachers following some of their behaviors while in class.
Summary
According to the article, an achievement gap exists between urban and non-urban schools. Some of the things that contribute to this gap revolve around the high percentage rate of non-English, poor, minority and students with special needs in the urban schools. Researchers point out the main reason for the poor achievements by the urban schools as the deterioration state which the schools are in. This deterioration is caused by the mobility of urban schooling students, difficulties in recruiting teachers and the major cause being the discipline problems of the students.
The student’s disciplinary problems result from the academic diversity and behavioral needs required by them. To deal with these problems, teachers need to possess behavior management and pedagogy skills. Urban school going children’s’ ability to adjusting to the school environment has been negatively impacted by the early exposure to risk factors such as being raised by a single parent, being born by a teenage mother and child maltreatment. Poorly prepared unprofessional teachers with little knowledge of the city contribute further to the indiscipline of the students. Teacher’s preparation on how to deal with these behaviors is the key of bringing the perceived changes. Teachers should formulate strategies that would help in dealing with these intolerable behaviors.
The intolerable behaviors have taken a toll on teachers and this has led to some of them tendering their resignation letters or walking out of the school informally. To help deal with slow destruction that forces the teachers to quit from their work places, a researcher suggested that a training in learning theory massively helps reduce the attrition. Teachers have tried developing functional relationships using performance feedback that includes an observer trained to access the appraisal rate and the behavior-specific praise. The results revealed that the praising students by teachers put them in a risk of more aggression in their behavior.
Urban teachers have ill prepared strategies which often require following up, intended to help them manage their classes. The negative thing about these strategies is that with time they have been proven in effective. These failed strategies have resulted to the need of adopting an easily implementable intervention that has over the time demonstrated its effectiveness in dealing with problem behavior. The best strategy would be the Good Behavior Game that can be class wide applied and is user friendly. The reason for considering it as the best strategy is that there has been conducting of several studies intended to demonstrate its effectiveness in dealing with disruptive behavior. Its first successful application was conducted on fourth grade students who had high rates of out-of-seat and talk-outs behaviors. The proven success of the method has led to an increase of its application in school settings which include special and regular education classroom.
Type of design
This type of design is similar to the one indicated as it deals with the students who have the bad behaviors. This would help understand their problems and come up with suitable solutions.
Research hypotheses
The study was intended to show the impact of the Good Behavior Game in dealing with disruptive behaviors by students of an urban elementary school class. The research hypothesis was that increase of on-task behavior during the implementation of the game would help reduce the disruptive behavior. Concerning the evaluation of the effects led by the application of the game on the teacher’s praise strategies, they shared the hypotheses that an improvement on the behavior of students which characterized by the student’s frequent opportunities to respond led to higher teacher’s praise rates.
Methodology: description of the participants
The venue of the study was a first-grade classroom in an elementary school located in an urban area. The school was situated in the North Eastern region of the country and it offered general education. The participants were in grades raging from K to 5 with 92% of them benefiting from free lunch while some bought lunch at a reduced price. 16% of the students knew how to read and were proficient in mathematics. The class used for the study had 11 females and 11 males which totaled to 22 the number of students used in the study.
Description of the used variables
The study used variables such as disruptive behaviors, statements based on teacher’s responses and student-on-task. Student’s attendance to the assigned tasks by their teachers was the definition of student-on-task behavior. They were passive and active forms of students-on-task-behavior which included things such as writing answerson mathematics worksheet or maintaining an eye contact with the teacher during a lecture. Students’ disruptive behaviors were made up of academically unrelated things like talking amongst themselves, throwing objects and moving from one sitting position to another during a class session. These were the behaviors chosen to represent a host of other behaviors noted by the teachers during a class session.A teacher’s response was categorized either as a positive, neutral and negative response. A positive statement was a praise statement to a student in relation to his or her behavior. A neutral statement consisted neither of a positive or negative remark regarding a student’s behavior while a negative was a warning to a student in relation to his or her behavior.
Description of the used instruments
One of the materials approved by the teacher for use in the study was the reinforce preference assessment created on aneight and a half by 11 paper. The training material used to train the students and teachers was a script, which outlined and explained the rules and procedures of the game. There was the use of a recording sheet containing the names of the participating namesmade on a 17 by 11 paper. The sheet had a space where the recording of the team’s tally took place and entry spaces for the starting and stoppage time. Kitchen timers were also used to ensure that the game took place for 30mins. The experimenter used an audio cuing tape, recording sheet and earphones. The audio cueing tape had cues set at 10-secs under fixed time intervals. The recording had 60 divisions set at 10-sec intervals. Students used erasers, pencils and candy to help them fill the di-rections.
Description of the study procedures
Conduction of a preliminary assessment was the first procedure and this was done through the distribution of a reinforce survey to students. For the purposes of order ranking the students’ choices made in relation to the rewards given out, all students were given di-rections. A 30 minute math session with the teacher instructing the students in math was used to collect data on disruptive behaviors, students-on-task and teacher’s response statements. After the baseline setting, the experimenter trained the teacher in the procedures that help in the implementation of the Game. The procedures included reviewing of the Game’s rules with the class, accurate recording of occurrences of disruptive behavior and identifying the victor teams.
The implementation of the game happened daily during a 30-minute long math class which a 10-minute observation period. The 10-min observation varied throughout the 30-min math period to sample the experimental session. Prior to the Game implementation, the teacher had placed a recording sheet next to the blackboard. There was also the placement of a large envelop which contained numerical criterion coinciding with the Game’s period. This criterion was to remain a mystery to the participating students. The timer was set at the start of the Game and in the event of an occurrence of a disruptive behavior the teacher recorded this by marking the recording sheet under the team, which the student belonged. The teacher tallied the marks for each team and in the process revealing the criterion, which would be used, in the rewarding process. Finally, the teacher announced the results got by the all the teams announcing the winner in the process.
The person who collected all data and served as the experimenter was referred to as the primary observer while 2 graduate-level students blind to the study purpose served as observers. The observer had to be trained first on the observation treatment hence achieving proficiency. Scripted protocols were developed by the primary investigator to help evaluate observance of the Game’s procedures. The primary was to record during the 29% of each game play the whether the teacher was following the game procedures. The teacher’s behavior was also observed on a four minute interval.
Findings
The initial stages of the Game provided stable student’s on-task behavior at 53.25% while the disruptive behavior gradually increased to 36.5%. As the Game implementation went on, the trend for task-on-behavior increased to 68% except for activities during the 7th session while the disruptive behavior decreased to 22.33%. On the teacher behavior changes, they found out little change in relation to positive statements which they made.
Major conclusion
The results reveal that conducted study proved that the Game helped increase student’s on-task behavior and reduce disruptive behavior. There is also a link between first grade classrooms, which are poorly managed, and the continued academic problems among boys who have been aggressive from first grade. This link becomes stronger to boys who are from impoverished families.The study reveals that the proper management of classrooms is one of the important components of teaching.
Logic of the conclusions
The conclusions are logical as the results are got from practical implementation of the game. From the game, an individual can conclude that the increase in on-task students’ behavior activities reduces the rate of disruptive behaviors by students.
Educational implications
The researchers found out that the Good Behavior Game is instrumental in the establishment of on-task behavior which leads to more coverage of the syllabus. This is achieved by the extra work covered by the students in the different groups. Students become more involved in the learning process and thus they get clearer the concepts taught. The Game however requires high-quality institutional practices for the maintenance of the practice. This institutional improvement leads to better management of the schools improving the level of education in the schools.
Strengths and limitations
The study helped come up with ways of effectively manage indiscipline in classes. Teacher easily controls distraction behavior during class time and this lead to good coverage of the syllabus. This also helps reduce the resignation rate of teachers brought about by the high cases of indiscipline. Teachers who arenot from the urban areas can succeed teaching in urban schools if they apply the Game method in dealing with disruptive behavior.
One limitation of the study fails to provide for the control of the institutional activities. Institutional activities are partially responsible for student’s behavior and failure to include them in the study may lead o wrong conclusions. The timing aspect of the data is a limitation of the study. The observation time is short and this may not provide the correct results. Use of a long time observation period provides results different to the ones provide by a 10 min observation period.
Personal perceptions
The authors’ failure to conduct the study on an extended time makes the study results unreliable. The 30min observation frame is a short period as time goes by, things such as fatigue leads to increase is disruptive behavior. The conduction of the study was done only once a day and this makes the results not be very correct. Students’ behavior in classes change during the course of the day, which has not been covered in the study.
I learnt that engaging students during teaching helps reduce distractions in classes. The group work make is easier for the coverage of the curriculum in time. This enables for smooth learning as the teacher can control the students easily.
As a teacher, I can relate with the topic when it comes to ways of using effective and easy to apply methods of controlling bad behavior in classes.
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