The Influence of Classroom Management and Positive Behavior Support On Language Learning Opportunities In Preschool

• In Event: 3-176 - Classrooms as Complex Ecologies: Relations between Teacher Behavior and Children’s Language, Behavior and Literacy

Integrative Statement

Introduction
A recent meta-analyses examining professional development (PD) efforts to enhance the quality of language instruction in preschool classrooms found that such trainings result in small, non-significant effects on child vocabulary (Markussen-Brown et al., 2017). In the language-focused PD literature, training is often primarily focused on specific conversational or instructional strategies related to promoting language development. Figure 1 presents a model that specifies hypothetical associations between classroom organization/Positive Behavior Support (PBS), child behavior and engagement, and teacher language support. We will present data from a project aiming to validate this model by answering the following research questions:
(1) Is teacher use of classroom organization and PBS procedures associated with (a) the quantity and quality of teacher language support and (b) the average duration of teacher-child shared engagement?
(2) Does training in the use of PBS strategies result in changes in teacher language support?

Method
Data were collected in 25 preschool classrooms. Teacher use of PBS was measured using the Teaching Pyramid Observation Tool (TPOT, Fox, Hemmeter, & Snyder, 2014). Video-recorded samples of teacher-child interactions during center-time were transcribed, and each teacher utterance was coded using adapted categories of language defined by the Code for Interactive Recording of Children’s Language Environment (CIRCLE; Atwater et al. 2014). Expansions, repetitions, recasts, open-ended questions/elicitations, and contingently related comments were considered language supportive (LS). Multi-level regression was used to estimate associations between TPOT scores and features of teacher language. A subset (N = 7) of teachers were also enrolled in the intervention group of a larger RCT examining the effects of program wide implementation of the Pyramid Model, a tiered PBS intervention. In these classrooms, language samples were collected pre- and post-intervention. Changes in teacher language from pre- to post-test were analyzed.
In order to further inform our conceptual model, a measure of shared teacher-child engagement is being coded from the video samples collected in the analysis described above. We hypothesize that increases in shared attention will be associated with changes in teacher language, and that potentially these changes mediate the association between PBS strategies and quality of teacher language. Duration of shared engagement will be coded using a momentary time sampling procedure (using the CIRCLE; Atwater, et al., 2014). A summary score of engagement will be obtained by calculating the percentage of total intervals in which the teacher was actively participating in an activity with a child through shared physical activity or materials.
Results
TPOT scores were a significant, positive predictor of: (1) frequency of child directed utterances (=1.87, p=0.014), (2) number of different words modeled (=1.36, p=0.007), and (3) frequency of LS strategy use (=1.36, p=0.008). Additionally, teachers in the Pyramid Model intervention group demonstrated an average increase of 27.85 more LS utterances from pre- to post-test. The findings from these analyses indicate that classroom organization and PBS may “set the stage” for more frequent high-quality interactions. The shared engagement data could further support this hypothesis by demonstrating that teachers with higher TPOT scores spend more time actively engaging with children in their play, creating more opportunities for sustained, quality, language interactions

Authors

• Jennifer Elizabeth Cunningham, Vanderbilt University
  Presenting Author

• Ann Kaiser, Vanderbilt University
  Non-Presenting Author