Teachers perceptions of students with emotional and behavioural difficulties: severity and prevalence

This study aimed to identify the types of emotional and behavioural difficulties that Greek primary teachers saw as problematic in their teaching; and also to identify their perceptions of the prevalence of these difficulties. A Behaviour Inventory was administered to 170 elementary teachers from 23 randomly selected schools in Athens. Analysis showed that teachers found work avoidance, depressive mood, negativism, physical aggression and lack of concentration as most problematic. By contrast, they found excessive shyness and attention seeking as least problematic. However, only one of the most problematic behaviours, lack of concentration, was among the highly frequent behaviours. The other highly frequent behaviours were talking without permission, untidiness and fidgeting. The least frequent behaviours were over-dependence on teacher and school phobia. The findings are discussed in terms of historical and international patterns and trends in teachers perceptions of emotional and behavioural difficulties. The significance of the study for the professional development of teachers and for policy-makers is also examined.     

The management of ‘emotional labour’ in the corporate re-imagining of primary education in England

The last 20 years has witnessed the spread of corporatism in education on a global scale. In England, this trend is characterised by new structural and cultural approaches to education found in the ‘academies’ programme and the adoption of private sector management styles. The corporate re-imagining of schools has also led to the introduction into the curriculum of particular forms of character education aimed at managing the ‘emotional labour’ of children. This paper argues that character education rests on a fallacy that the development of desirable character traits in children can be engineered by mimicking certain behaviours from the adult world. The weaknesses in the corporate approach to managing ‘emotional labour’ are illustrated with empirical data from two primary schools. An alternative paradigm is presented which locates the ‘emotional labour’ of children within a ‘holding environment’ that places children’s well-being at its core.     

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder,behavioural and emotional problems in children excluded from mainstream education: a preliminary study of teachers' ratings

The aim of this study was to measure the rates of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), and behavioural and emotional problems in children attending Behavioural Support Units (BSUs), as rated by teachers. Children (N=45) were selected from two Behavioural Support Units (primary and secondary education). Teachers completed the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) and the ADHD Rating Scale. The levels of hyperactivity and emotional problems were high among primary school age children. Children attending primary school age BSUs had significantly higher hyperactivity and emotional scores than their older counterparts. The findings are discussed in relation to the literature on ADHD and other mental health problems in children. The implications for the provision of services for children excluded from mainstream education are also discussed.     

The relationships between emotional competence and team learning behaviours

This study provides a systematic review on the relationships between emotional competence and team learning behaviours, with 32 studies identified as addressing these relationships within teams whose team members are interdependent in the fulfilment of their work tasks and goals. By examining the selected studies' findings, positive relationships between emotional competence and its dimensions and various team learning behaviours were identified. Focussed on emotional competence, the perception of own emotions and others’ emotions supports teams and their members by recognising the emotions that surface during teamwork, while emotional management helps teams deal with these emotions. Although emotional expressiveness as a fourth dimension hardly has been investigated, it plays a key role and is essential to the perception of emotions in a team. Expressing, perceiving and dealing with emotions within a team enables teams and their members to work openly with each other, share and create knowledge, reflect upon teamwork and discuss constructively with each other instead of against each other. Considering the different levels of measurement and analysis, this systematic review provides an in-depth insight into the relationships between emotional competence and team learning behaviours and identifies research gaps such as implications for methodological and future research as well as practical implications for organisational practitioners and teams.     

The effects of function-based communication intervention for a student with emotional disturbance in a general education setting

Research has shown that most children with emotional disturbance (ED) are struggling to use communication skills and they may tend to use inappropriate behaviours as a form of communication to disclose their needs. A function-based communication intervention might be an effective approach to decrease inappropriate behaviours of children with ED. The purpose of this single-case multiple baseline reversal design (ABAB) study was to examine the effectiveness of the function-based communication intervention for on-task and disruptive behaviours of an 8-year-old student with ED. Functional behavioural assessment (FBA) was conducted and based on the findings of FBA, a colour-coded communication system, was implemented during reading and math classes. The findings indicated that function-based communication intervention was effective in increasing on-task as well as decreasing disruptive behaviours. Furthermore, the function-based communication intervention improved communication between the teacher and the student that resulted in decreasing disruptive behaviours in a general classroom setting. The generalisability of the findings due to the limited number of participants was an important limitation for this study. Future directions, as well as implications for practices, are discussed.     

情绪智力与心理适应的契合

长期以来,情绪智力研究忽略了对其适应性功能的思考。通过对情绪智力结构和心理适应机制的分析发现,情绪智力的主要成分和心理适应两者之间存在着吻合之处。情绪智力所强调的情绪觉知和理解、情绪的恰当表达以及对情绪行为的控制等方面是心理适应能力的体现。教育者有必要在心理健康教育中加强对儿童的情绪智力培养。     

Exploring children’s perceptions of the perceived seriousness of disruptive classroom behaviours

Children’s reports of the perceived seriousness of disruptive classroom behaviours were examined from their own perspective and from their perceptions of their peers’ beliefs about the same behaviour. Two hundred and seventy-six (116 female and 161 male, M_age?=?11.00?years, SD_age?=?1.29) children recruited from a primary and a secondary school in the UK completed measures of the perceived seriousness of disruptive classroom behaviours from their own perspective and also their beliefs about their peers’ perceptions, social desirability and social behaviour. A three-factor structure of disruptive classroom behaviours emerged encompassing: Imprudent behaviours, negative behaviours and expressed emotions. Children judged the disruptive classroom behaviours as more serious compared to how they thought their peers would judge the same behaviour. Gender and age differences also emerged. The findings support the conclusion that children regard disruptive classroom behaviours as more serious than they believe their peers do.     

Special education teachers' relationships with students and self-efficacy moderate associations between classroom-level disruptive behaviors and emotional exhaustion

This study examined the moderating role of teachers' relationship with students and their self-efficacy in the association between classroom-level disruptive behaviors and emotional exhaustion. Two measurement occasions were completed by 98 teachers from fourteen Dutch special education schools for adolescent students with psychiatric disabilities. Results show that by the end of the school year, teachers with high levels of closeness and self-efficacy reported increases in emotional exhaustion as a function of classroom-level disruptive behaviors, which is in line with research conducted in general education studies. Unexpectedly, emotional exhaustion decreased in low-involved teachers experiencing more classroom disruption.     

Auto-Graph: considering the utility of student behaviour self-monitoring for inclusive schools

This paper reports the outcomes of a small-scale exploratory study that examined the utility of a novel computer-supported student behaviour self-monitoring procedure called Auto-Graph. The Auto-Graph procedure is a universal classroom behaviour management strategy for responding to disruptive antisocial behaviours. It was designed to provide up-to-date information on student behaviours over time that might alert students and school staff to emerging problematic behavioural patterns. This strategy is consistent with an interest in school-based early intervention. Furthermore, the Auto-Graph design assumes generalised benefits of a continuous cycle of monitoring and feedback/reflection that might inform understandings regarding goodness-of-fit between student needs and educational provision. The present study explored basic questions pertaining to the utility of Auto-Graph as a universal procedure in two 'inclusive' mainstream primary school classrooms. Results suggest a potential utility of the procedure in terms of supporting teachers and students in efforts directed at reducing disruptive antisocial behaviours, and by effect mediating the inclusion of potentially disruptive students in mainstream schools particularly when considering those identified with emotional and behavioural difficulties (EBD).     

Emotional Climate and Behavioral Management during Sleep Time in Early Childhood Education Settings

The majority of children cease napping between 3 and 5 years of age yet, internationally, the allocation of a sleep time during the day for children of this age remains a practice in many early childhood education (ECE) settings. These dual circumstances present a disjuncture between children's sleep needs and center practices, that may cause conflict for staff, increase stress for children and escalate negative emotional climate in the room. Testing this hypothesis requires observation of both the emotional climate and behavioral management used in ECE rooms that extends into the sleep time. This study was the first to apply the Classroom Assessment and Scoring System (CLASS) Pre-K (Pianta, La Paro, & Hamre, 2008) to observe the emotional climate and behavioral management during sleep time. Pilot results indicated that the CLASS Pre-K functioned reliably to measure emotional climate and behavioral management in sleep time. However, new sleep-specific examples of the dimensions used were developed, to help orient fieldworkers to the CLASS Pre-K rating system in the sleep time context. The CLASS was then used to assess emotional climate and behavior management between the non-sleep and sleep time sessions, in 113 ECE rooms in Queensland, Australia. In these rooms 2.114 children were observed. Of these children, 71% did not sleep at any point during the allotted sleep times. There was a significant drop in emotional climate and behavioral management between the non-sleep and sleep-time sessions. Furthermore, the duration of mandated sleep time (a period of time where no activities are provided to non-sleeping children) accounted for significant independent variance in the observed emotional climate during sleep-time. The CLASS Pre-K presents a valuable tool to assess the emotional climate and behavior management during sleep-time and draws attention to the need for further studies of sleep time in ECE settings.     

The Influences of Brain Dominance and Biological Sex on Emotional Expressivity,Sensitivity, and Control

Nonverbal communication is the primary channel for the communication of emotion. The abilities to express, control, and decode emotions are important social skills. In this study, we investigated the effects of hemispheric brain dominance and sex on emotional social skills, specifically emotional expressivity, sensitivity, and control. Using the measurements of handedness, we classified participants as being standard, mixed, or anomalous dominant. We presumed that hemispheric brain dominance and sex would interact to influence emotional expressivity, sensitivity, and control. Analysis revealed that brain dominance and sex interacted to influence negative emotional expressivity and emotional control. Specifically, mixed dominant (MD) males scored highest in negative emotional expressivity and lowest in emotional control, whereas MD females scored lowest on negative emotional expressivity and second highest on emotional control. In general, MD men and women reported behaviors opposite of traditional sex differences in emotional expression.     

JME referees in 2003

This study examined the hypothesis that religiosity would be differentially related to six types of adolescent prosocial behaviour, and that these relations would be mediated by the prosocial value of kindness. Self‐report data were collected from 142 high school students (63 per cent female; 91 per cent White; M age?=?16.8, S?=?.80). Religiosity was a significant positive predictor of kindness, as well as compliant, anonymous and altruistic prosocial behaviour, but not public, dire and emotional prosocial behaviour. Associations between religiosity and both compliant and altruistic prosocial behaviours were mediated by kindness. Direct and indirect paths were found between religiosity and anonymous prosocial behaviour. Thus, partial support was found for the mediational hypothesis. Discussion focused on the utility of distinguishing among different types of prosocial behaviours and on the role of religion and values in promoting moral education.     

Emotion dysregulation as a mediator between childhood emotional abuse and current depression in a low-income African-American sample

Abuse and neglect in childhood are well-established risk factors for later psychopathology. Past research has suggested that childhood emotional abuse may be particularly harmful to psychological development. The current cross-sectional study employed multiple regression techniques to assess the effects of childhood trauma on adulthood depression and emotion dysregulation in a large sample of mostly low-income African Americans recruited in an urban hospital. Bootstrap analyses were used to test emotion dysregulation as a potential mediator between emotional abuse in childhood and current depression. Childhood emotional abuse significantly predicted depressive symptoms even when accounting for all other childhood trauma types, and we found support for a complementary mediation of this relationship by emotion dysregulation. Our findings highlight the importance of emotion dysregulation and childhood emotional abuse in relation to adult depression. Moving forward, clinicians should consider the particular importance of emotional abuse in the development of depression, and future research should seek to identify mechanisms through which emotional abuse increases risk for depression and emotion dysregulation.     

Malaysian primary pre-service teachers’ perceptions of students’ disruptive behaviour

The purpose of this paper was to investigate Malaysian primary pre-service teachers’ perceptions of students’ disruptive behaviour and their self-reported strategies to prevent and to manage such behaviours. Results indicate that Malaysian pre-service teachers understand disruptive behaviours to be those that disrupt the learning and teaching process. They identified the cause of student disruptive behaviour as factors residing within the individual student. Pre-service teachers here reported preventative strategies in terms of changing teaching strategies and threats to use punishment. When addressing students’ disruptive behaviour, pre-service teachers reported that they would use one-to-one counselling with students and remove tokens or hold back rewards. A discussion regarding the implications for teacher education institutions and future research concludes this paper.     

Exploring the relationship among teachers' emotional intelligence,emotional labor strategies and teaching satisfaction

The results of a survey of 1281 Chinese school teachers support a second-order factor structure of emotional intelligence. It is found that teachers' emotional intelligence has a significant impact on teaching satisfaction and their use of two emotional labor strategies, i.e., deep acting and expression of naturally felt emotions, but it is not a significant predictor of surface acting. Among the three emotional labor strategies, only expression of naturally felt emotion significantly influences teaching satisfaction. These findings could be explained by differences in the nature of various emotional labor strategies. Implications for teaching and teacher education are put forward.     

Negative parental attribution and emotional dysregulation in Chinese early adolescents: Harsh fathering and harsh mothering as potential mediators

The current study examined the potential mediating roles of harsh fathering and harsh mothering in the association between negative parental attribution and emotional dysregulation in Chinese adolescents and explored the moderating role of child gender on this indirect association. 864 students (367 girls, mean age = 13.55 years) with their parents were recruited as participants from two middle schools in Shandong Province, People’s Republic of China. The results demonstrated that both harsh fathering and harsh mothering could partially mediate the association between negative maternal attribution and child emotional dysregulation, whereas only harsh fathering could partially mediate the association between negative paternal attribution and child emotional dysregulation. Moreover, we found the moderating role of child gender only for the association between harsh fathering and child emotional dysregulation, in that harsh fathering could be associated with higher levels of emotional dysregulation in girls. These results shed light on efforts to prevent harsh parenting and child emotional dysregulation.     

西方情感教育思想对我国的影响论析

自上个世纪70、80年代和90年代始,西方和我国分别兴起了情感教育热潮。总体来看,中国受西方影响很大,主要表现在情感教育内容心理化、情感教育目的快乐化、情感教育性质手段化、情感教育价值取向社会化等方面,因此产生了很多亟待解决的问题,需要进一步深入研究。     

普适计算环境下远程教育情感交互的设计模型

普适计算强调把计算机嵌入到环境中去,让人们关注的中心能从计算机回归到任务本身,这种理念对远程教育情感交互的实现有很强的促进作用。文章认为制约当前远程教育情感缺失的三大成因是技术主义思潮、师生分离和计算技术的发展水平;而普适计算却能突破传统桌面计算的局限,使得远程教育在情感表达、情感传递和情感识别等的技术实现上有着无比的优势。文章在作者所构建的情感三维模型的基础上,设计了普适计算支持的远程教育人机情感交互模型和人际情感交互模型。     

Self-perception of emotional development in individuals attending university programmes for seniors: training needs and answers

In older adults, emotional competencies become the most important reason to preserve quality of life. In this study we focused on Emotional Intelligence in a group of older adults. by means of examining the relationship between perceived emotional competencies and sociodemographic variables. A total of 255 older participants (72.2% women), mean age?=?64.59 years old (SD?=?5.82, range?=?52–83 years old), who attended the University of the Experience in Salamanca (Spain), were evaluated. Information on sociodemographic data, perceived health and motivation to take part in university programmes, and perceived emotional competence was collected using self-reported questionnaires. Results show significant differences, mainly in relation with sex and perceived health in various areas of emotional competence. These results open the way to design and implement quality intervention programmes that enhance social-emotional skills and personal and social well-being to improve quality of life of older people.     

Longitudinal associations between physically abusive parents’ emotional expressiveness and children’s self-regulation

The present study took a developmental psychopathology approach to examine the longitudinal association between parents’ emotional expressiveness and children’s self-regulation. Data collection spanned from 2004 to 2008. Ninety-two physically abusive parents completed yearly assessments of their emotional expressiveness, as well as their children’s self-regulation abilities. Observational and behavioral measures were also obtained yearly to capture both parents’ emotional expressiveness and children’s self-regulation. Specifically, parents participated in a parent-child interaction task, which provided insight into their levels of flat affect. A puzzle box task was completed by each child to assess self-regulation. Results indicated, first, that greater parental expression of negative emotions predicted poorer self-regulation in children, both concurrently and across time. Second, parental expressions of positive emotions and parents’ flat affect were unrelated to children’s self-regulation. Findings inform our understanding of parental socialization of self-regulation and provide insight into the roles of distinct components of emotional expressiveness. Moreover, findings have crucial implications for understanding emotional expressiveness in high-risk samples and increase our understanding of within-group functioning among maltreating families that may serve as a means to direct intervention efforts.