{"id":7195,"date":"2009-11-19T15:00:39","date_gmt":"2009-11-19T19:00:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=7195"},"modified":"2023-08-29T16:09:56","modified_gmt":"2023-08-29T20:09:56","slug":"helping-teachers-assess-improve-student-behavior","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2009\/11\/helping-teachers-assess-improve-student-behavior\/","title":{"rendered":"Helping Teachers Assess, Improve Student Behavior"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"<p>Sandra<\/a>
Sandra Chafouleas, center, associate professor of educational psychology, speaks with members of her Direct Behavior Rating research team, including Rose Jaffery, left, a graduate assistant, and Jamison Judd, Neag School webmaster. Photo by Janice Palmer<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Schools gather reams of test data to measure how well students read or do math, but can they also gather reliable data on how children behave?<\/p>\n

Yes, says a researcher in the Neag School of Education who has helped develop a rating system that offers teachers a practical method for charting and improving their students\u2019 behavior.<\/p>\n

Sandra Chafouleas, an associate professor in the Department of Educational Psychology, is recognized as a national authority on Direct Behavior Rating, a tool designed to detect patterns of both positive and negative classroom behavior.<\/p>\n

The need for better data on student behavior, according to Chafouleas, is \u201cpart of a growing emphasis on the importance of mental health and how social, emotional, and behavioral skills fit into school systems.\u201d<\/p>\n

Not only are schools accountable for students\u2019 academic progress, they are increasingly expected to develop children\u2019s behavioral and social skills, too, she says.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe expectations on schools have changed dramatically,\u201d she says. \u201cIn order to pay attention to behavior in a more pro-active way, we need to be able to assess it directly. If we wait until a student gets an office disciplinary referral, there\u2019s already a problem.\u201d<\/p>\n

Classroom discipline has been at or near the top of the list of concerns by Americans in annual Gallup Polls, yet schools often have little reliable data on patterns of student behavior. Although some behavioral tests do exist, many of those tests are time-consuming, are not designed specifically for schools, and do not screen classroom behavior quickly, Chafouleas says.<\/p>\n

In 2006, Chafouleas and researchers from the University of Minnesota and East Carolina University began work under a four-year, $1.7 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education to examine Direct Behavior Rating as a means of assessing classroom behavior more easily. Chafouleas is the project director.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe is one of the first researchers to figure out how to address the excessive and unsustainable amounts of effort required by educators and school psychologists to collect behavioral assessment information,\u201d says George Sugai, director of UConn\u2019s Center for Behavioral Education and Research.<\/p>\n

Her project has become a focal point for the study of Direct Behavior Rating. Chafouleas and her colleagues wrote a series of articles about Direct Behavior Rating for a special issue of the academic journal Assessment for Effective Intervention<\/em><\/a> published in September.<\/p>\n

Chafouleas describes Direct Behavior Rating as a simple method of classroom observation similar to medical rating scales in which physicians ask patients to rate their level of pain.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve settled on a zero-to-10 scale\u201d for Direct Behavior Rating, Chafouleas says. Teachers rate students at regular intervals, such as the end of each class period. The observations include not only disruptive behavior but positive conduct, such as paying attention, following directions, and acting respectfully.<\/p>\n

Although similar approaches have been tried in the past, Chafouleas says there has been little research on whether such methods produce reliable data. \u201cWe are finding out that it does work,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

The researchers are studying ways to train teachers to improve the accuracy of their observations. In addition, Chafouleas has been working with Professor Steven Demurjian and his students in UConn\u2019s computer science and engineering department to develop web-based software for collecting and reporting the data.<\/p>\n

The idea behind Direct Behavior Rating is to help teachers get an accurate picture of classroom behavior instead of simply relying on sporadic, subjective judgments.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s quick, it\u2019s easy, it\u2019s immediate,\u201d says Gussie Gilberti, a Colchester Elementary School teacher who has been testing Direct Behavior Rating along with fellow kindergarten teacher Sue Arntsen. Last year, the teachers used the rating to assess behavior with an entire class. This year, they are using it to focus on a single student, a kindergarten girl who has shown antisocial, aggressive behavior.<\/p>\n

The teachers say the method has helped them identify what triggers the girl\u2019s outbursts and what type of classroom organization works best for her. \u201cIt helped us look at structuring her day,\u201d Gilberti says.<\/p>\n

Chafouleas, a former school psychologist, says, \u201cI sat around many team meetings focusing on \u2018What\u2019s wrong with Johnny?\u2019\u201d If schools had gathered enough data, they could have taken steps to teach Johnny a better way to do something, she says.<\/p>\n

With the data, she says, \u201cyou\u2019ve got accountability to show the practices you\u2019re doing in your classroom are working.\u201d<\/p>\n

Chafouleas, 37, came to UConn in 2000 and quickly established herself as a prolific young researcher. She has written or co-authored more than 70 scholarly articles and has won research grants totaling nearly $3.5 million.<\/p>\n

The Neag School selected her for its Outstanding Young Investigator Award in 2003 and the UConn Alumni Association this year named her the winner of the Faculty Excellence in Teaching (Graduate Level) Award.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Educational psychology professor Sandra Chafouleas is heading a U.S. Department of Education-funded project that will help teachers gather data on behavior in the classroom.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2428,1855],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[43],"class_list":["post-7195","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-educational-psychology","category-neag"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-13 12:41:14","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7195","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7195"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7195\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":204118,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7195\/revisions\/204118"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7195"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7195"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7195"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=7195"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=7195"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}