A naturalistic observation of verbal discipline modeling in a first grade classroom

Within the context of illustrating three observational techniques: Ad Lib., Focal Child, and All Occurrences of Some Behaviors, verbal disciplinary techniques as used by a regular classroom teacher and a student teacher are compared. Managing, Threatening, and Describing behaviors were observed as these were used as desist attempts by the teachers to stop inappropriate behaviors, and, presumably, to return the children to on-task behaviors.Since discipline is frequently a student teacher's most difficult task, some modeling of the classroom teacher's behaviors were expected to occur. This was found for discipline directed at individual children, but not total group disciplinary attempts. While the regular teacher produced more desists and was more effective in returning the children to on-task behavior, when disruptive children's sequential patterns of behavior were examined the most frequent response was something other than on-task behaviors. Questions are raised about what should be modeled, and when in a sequence of behaviors a teacher should intervene.University of Illinois