Effects of a Behavior Management Strategy, CW-FIT, on High School Student and Teacher Behavior

Abstract

Challenging classroom behavior can interfere with learning. Fortunately known, positive, and proactive approaches to behavior management can improve student responding. Class-Wide Function-related Intervention Teams (CW-FIT) have led to improvement in student behavior across elementary and middle school contexts. However, little is known of the impact of the intervention on high school student behavior. This study evaluated CW-FIT’s utility in improving high school student and high school teacher behavior in a co-taught learning environment. A single-subject withdrawal design was used to evaluate improvements in on-task behavior for 14 high school students in one co-taught classroom. The impact on praise and reprimand statements of two high school teachers was also assessed. The findings showed improvement to student and teacher behavior and sustainability of the intervention. Further, teachers and students expressed satisfaction with the intervention and teachers maintained high levels of implementation fidelity. Limitations of the evaluation and areas for future research are presented.

Improving Secondary Student Classroom Behavior With an IGC

“…During implementation, teachers are encouraged to strive for a 4:1 praise to reprimand ratio (Speight et al, 2020(Speight et al, , 2021Wills et al, 2019)…”

“…Teams meeting the daily point goal earn preselected rewards in the form of a preferred item or activity. In secondary settings, CW-FIT has been associated with increased academic engagement and on-task behavior and reduced disruptive classroom behavior across classroom settings (e.g., self-contained, co-taught, general education; Orr et al, 2019; Speight et al, 2020, 2021; Wills et al, 2021). When seeking to improve student behavior with an IGC, teachers might choose to design their own IGC to align with their classroom and students’ needs or to use one of these IGC models (e.g., Tootles or CW-FIT) to ease implementation efforts.…”

“…When implementing the contingency, use the method identified during planning to monitor student adherence to the expectations (e.g., timer to cue evaluation of student behavior). During implementation, teachers are encouraged to strive for a 4:1 praise to reprimand ratio (Speight et al, 2020, 2021; Wills et al, 2019) to strengthen student demonstration of the expected behaviors. Feedback on behavior during the contingency might look like, “I appreciate you showing respect by following our procedure for submitting work.” In instances in which one or more students are not demonstrating the target behavior, provide specific corrections such as “Remember, we should follow directions the first time to work toward meeting goal.” When providing feedback and corrections, it is important to consider the current level of expected behavior demonstrated by the individual student.…”