Educational Psychology study Essay

The study was done by Penny Clunies-Ross, Emma Little and Mandy Kienhuis, (2008). It is titled ‘Self-reported and actual use of proactive and reactive classroom management strategies and their relationship with teacher stress and student behavior’. The study was done with primary school teachers in Australia and examined the teachers’ self-report on the behavior management strategies that they use in the classroom and how these affect their stress level and the students’ behavior. The literature reviewed for this study discussed research done in four areas which were used as the theoretical base for the study. One is the level of disruptive behavior in schools. The second is the teacher stress and its causes. Third is the relationship between the two. And fourth is the type of classroom strategies that teachers use which are categorized as proactive and reactive. The proactive strategies have been described as a more positive approach that is preventive. The reactive strategies are more negative and remedial. The proactive strategies have been found to be more effective. This study therefore aims to â€Å"investigate the relationship between primary school teachers’ self-reported and actual use of management strategies, and to identify how the use of proactive and reactive strategies is related to teacher stress and student behavior†. The hypothesis was that using reactive strategies would result in higher levels of teacher stress and lower on-task behavior of the students. Also that using proactive strategies would result in lower levels of teacher stress and higher on-task behavior of the students. The sample was obtained by contacting principals of the schools. First convenience sampling was used, and then random phone calls to ensure that five schools from each district in Melbourne were included in the study. Data was collected by questionnaires to all teachers and observations of those who volunteered to participate. The data was collected and analyzed by SPSS. In general the results showed that hypothesis one was supported while hypothesis two was not supported. The study was generally well done. The literature review was comprehensive and discussed a wide range of studies from as early as 1986 to 2003, showing the range of research on the topic over the period of time. It was also well organized into sections. The sampling technique was straightforward. Persisting until each district was represented by five schools was good. However the final sample was ninety seven participants from twenty one schools. This means an average of less than five teachers from each school. It may have been better to have surveyed fewer schools but more teachers from each school. The culture of the school often affects teacher stress so that the small number of teachers from a large number of schools may not be reflective of the levels and causes of stress in any one of the schools. The effect of the classroom management strategies used in one school may not completely relate to the teacher stress at that school. The results were analyzed as one sample, rather than analysis by school. Therefore there is no examination of whether the difference in school culture, (if in fact any differences exist) affected the study. However, the study did an analysis of the multivariate effects of gender, level of qualifications and years of teaching experience and found that they were not predictors of teacher stress. These are important variables to include as possible effectors of teacher stress. The study presented a lot of detail on the sample and the materials. However there should have been more detail on the procedure- how exactly were the observations set up and carried out. The report only says â€Å"After the 30-minute observation had been conducted in the teacher’s classroom, observation and questionnaire data were matched using the four-digit code†. The analysis of data was another section that was well presented. This section was again well organized into sub- sections which made reading and following the results much easier. All the data were represented by well-laid out and well- labeled tables which were easy to read. This structure was repeated even in the discussion so that the reader was able to follow the analysis of the results and the discussion for each research question or issue. That was in fact one of the key aspects that made this study encouraging to read- that the subsections were repeated in each part of the study- literature review, data analysis and discussion. An important aspect of this study was the use of both questionnaires (self-report) for teacher behavior and observations. It was significant to educational research on the whole to examine the relationship between the two, since generally self-reports alone cannot be relied upon for accurate measures of behavior. The significant positive correlation between the teachers’ reported use of strategies, both proactive and reactive, and what the researchers observed helps to make self-reports a more reliable tool in educational research. The study ends with two important sections- methodological limitations and suggestions for further research. Discussions in these two sections show the researchers’ awareness of the limitations of the study despite the fact that it is a good piece of research and it helps the reader to understand why certain things were not done in a particular way. One example is this study is the mention that the sampling though it seemed random in fact was not completely random as the teachers who volunteered for the study may be teachers who are not particularly stressed, or that the stressed teachers may not have been so willing to participate. Secondly the number of teachers volunteering to be observed was quite small. The study does not mention the actual number. A section that I would have liked to see included in this study was one on ethical considerations. In general the study was a useful one, well conducted and reported. It investigated the effect of proactive and reactive strategies as classroom management techniques on teachers’ stress levels. The study did in fact find that the use of proactive strategies had less effect on teachers’ stress. This would be the most important benefit to teachers to help them to keep the stress of teaching to a minimum. They could be encouraged by these results to focus on implementing activities in the classroom that would prevent classroom disruptions, rather than having to use their attention and energy intervening in classroom disruptions and losing teaching time. The study also looked at the effect of these strategies on students’ on-task behavior, and again found that the proactive strategies fostered more on-task behavior. This is also useful to the teachers to keep students focused on their work and lessen the disruptions in the classroom. Reference Clunies-Ross, P. , Little, E. and Kienhuis, M. (2008) Self-reported and actual use of proactive and reactive classroom management strategies and their relationship with teacher stress and student behavior, Educational Psychology, 28:6,693 — 710