Co-Principal Investigators: Herman, Keith; Thompson, Aaron

Purpose: Ineffective classroom behavior management practices interfere with instruction, child development, and academic achievement. Many teachers are not adequately trained to deal with behavior problems in the classroom, leading to many early career teachers leaving the field. The purpose of this project is to conduct an efficacy study of the Classroom Check-up (CCU), a web-based teacher training and coaching program to promote effective teacher classroom management skills with early career teachers (1 to 3 years of teaching).

Project Activities: During this project, researchers will implement a web-based modeling program focused on teacher classroom behavior management skills with early career teachers with teacher mentors acting as the CCU coach and complete the first randomized controlled evaluation of the CCU to determine its effects on levels of teacher classroom management behaviors and teacher and child outcomes. Researchers will also carry out a cost study.

Products: Researchers will generate evidence of the impact of CCU on student outcomes. They will report the findings of this study via conference presentations and peer-reviewed publications.

Structured Abstract

Setting: Researchers will implement the RCT in elementary classrooms across three school districts in Missouri with early career teachers in their first to third year of teaching. The school districts provide diversity in terms of geography, community (e.g., rural, suburban, urban), socio-economic status, and culture.

Sample: Approximately, 116 early career teachers placed in elementary classrooms (kindergarten through grade 5) and their students will participate.

Intervention: The CCU website was developed as an IES funded Development and Innovation project using an iterative process. The CCU provides coaches, in this case, seasoned teachers mentoring early career teachers, with a step-by-step process for determining areas of strength and concern within a teacher's classroom, providing feedback, and using a menu of options for new strategies based on the feedback, leading to the implementation of effective classroom management practices. The website provides instructions, tools, examples, and videos of exemplar teachers implementing each strategy. Coaches and teachers work together to identify strategies to implement in the classroom and action plan how to implement the strategy.

Research Design and Methods: Researchers will evaluate the efficacy of the CCU through a rigorous randomized control trial. They will compare 58 elementary classrooms of early career teachers participating in an induction program (kindergarten through grade 5) who receive the CCU program with 58 elementary classrooms of early career teachers also in an induction program who do not receive the CCU (i.e., comparison classrooms). They will collect observation and multiple informant data on teacher classroom practices and student academic and social behavior. Student assessments of academic and social behavior will occur pre- intervention, post-intervention, and in the spring of the following year.

Control Condition: Teachers assigned to the control condition will receive the standard teacher continuing education program offered by their school district (business as usual).

Key Measures: Primary outcomes will include academic achievement (Woodcock Johnson IV) and disruptive and off-task behaviors (direct observations and teacher ratings). Measures of social competence (teacher report) and discipline referrals/suspensions (archival) will also be gathered.

Data Analytic Strategy: Researchers will carry out two-level hierarchical linear models to compare the two conditions on academic performance and disruptive/off-task behavior to account for the nested data structure. They will use ANCOVA analyses to investigate the impact of the CCU on teacher practices, efficacy, and knowledge. In addition, researchers will use two-level hierarchical linear models to test for significant interaction effects of teacher and student characteristics and the intervention condition. They will use multilevel mediation models to test for evidence of mediation of student achievement and behavior by teacher management practices.

Cost Analysis: A cost analysis of adopting, implementing, and sustaining the CCU will be conducted to estimate costs associated with implementing the CCU within the context of an early career teacher induction program.

Related Projects: The Classroom Check-up: Supporting Elementary Teachers in Classroom Management Using a Web-based Coaching System (R305A130375)