General Education Teachers' Natural Rates of Praise: A Preliminary Investigation. (August 2018)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Floress, Margaret T.; Jenkins, Lyndsay N.; Reinke, Wendy M.; McKown, Lorena
• Is Part Of: Behavioral disorders. Volume 43:Number 4(2018)
• Page Start: 411
• Page End: 422
• Publication Date: 2018-08
• Subjects: teacher praise -- behavior-specific praise -- praise -- classroom management -- direct observation; Behavior disorders in children -- Periodicals; Child Behavior Disorders; Comportement, Troubles du, chez l'enfant -- Périodiques; Behavior disorders in children; Trouble du comportement; Trouble affectif; Jeune; Periodicals; Periodicals; 618.9289005
• DOI: 10.1177/0198742917709472
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0198-7429

Abstract

Many studies have demonstrated that when teachers are trained to increase their use of praise, student misbehavior improves; however, few studies have examined teachers' natural use of praise and no study has examined the relation between teachers' natural use of praise and classroom behavior. The purpose of the current study was to examine general education teachers' natural use of praise in elementary classrooms. One hundred forty direct behavioral observation hours were used to collect praise rates and student behavior across 28 general education classrooms (kindergarten to fifth grade). Across all grade levels, results suggest that teachers' use of praise was low (grade-level mean rates ranging from 0.38 per minute in the fourth grade to 0.75 per minute in kindergarten) and teachers used general praise more frequently than behavior-specific praise (BSP). A significant, negative relation was found between off-task behavior and BSP ( r = −.37, p = .05), indicating that teachers who used more BSP tended to have less off-task behavior in their classrooms. Implications for training teachers to increase their use of BSP as a universal strategy are discussed.