Increasing Preschool Student Engagement During Group Learning Activities Using a Group Contingency

Abstract

Preschool environments can be critical to academic success and risk reduction but disruptive behaviors can have significant and lasting negative effects on students as well as teachers. These behaviors may be pervasive in some classrooms and effective interventions are needed. A combined delayed multiple baseline and withdrawal design across a teacher's two classrooms (a.m. and p.m.) was used to monitor the effectiveness of an interdependent group contingency procedure used during circle time, a key learning activity. Results from the morning and afternoon half-day classrooms led by the lead teacher generally indicated that the intervention was effective at decreasing student disruptions. In addition, outcomes demonstrated increased student engagement and improvements in more positive teacher attention compared with negative attention. Teacher-directed instruction, on average, increased in the morning classroom during intervention conditions and remained high across conditions in the afternoon classroom.

The Good Behavior Game in preschool classrooms: An evaluation of feedback

“…Second, this study supports previous research (Foley et al, in press) demonstrating the effectiveness of the GBG with preschool students. Previous GBG research in preschool classrooms included the whole class as one team (Ling & Barnett, ) and established point criteria for individual students instead of groups of students combined (Murphy et al, ). Unlike the results of the current study, no feedback (i.e., clicker only) in the Ling and Barnett study may have been effective because students could not win if they exceeded the criterion (set at 20 and 10).…”

“…In addition, only a few studies have evaluated variations of the GBG (Foley et al, in press; Ling & Barnett, ) or interdependent group contingencies (Murphy, Theodore, Aloiso, Alric‐Edwards, & Hughes, ) with preschool‐aged students. For example, Ling and Barnett () conducted a version of the GBG with preschool students in which the whole class consisted of one team and the teacher used a clicker (i.e., no programmed visual or vocal feedback) to track disruptive behavior. Students received prizes if the class did not exceed the point criterion; however, no student received a prize if the class exceeded the criterion.…”

Managing Student Behavior with Class-Wide Function-Related Intervention Teams: An Observational Study in Early Elementary Classrooms

“…Group contingencies provide peer influence to help students avoid their challenging behaviors as well as motivate positive behavior among all students (Ling et al 2011). Group contingencies have been found to reduce disruptive behaviors throughout the class (Donaldson et al 2011;Hulac and Benson 2010;Ling and Barnett 2013) and improve classroom environments (Ö neren Sendil and Tantekin Erden 2014; Wright and McCurdy 2012).…”

Evaluation of the Good Behavior Game with a child with fetal alcohol syndrome in a small‐group context

“…The number of students with disabilities who are served under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act and who spend 80% or more of the day in a general education classroom has steadily increased from 33% of students in 1990-1991 to 61% of students in 2012-2013(U.S. Department of Education, 2015. However, the presence of disruptive behavior is a major barrier to inclusion of students with disabilities in the general education classroom (Carr, Ladd, & Schulte, 2008;Dunlap, Iovannone, Wilson, Kincaid, & Strain, 2010).…”

“…Given the potential benefits of implementing the GBG, additional research on the GBG with students with varying disabilities is warranted. Furthermore, few studies have implemented an interdependent group contingency like the GBG with students as young as prekindergarten (see Ling & Barnett, 2013;Murphy, Theodore, Aloiso, Alric-Edwards, & Hughes, 2007;Payne, Dozier, Briggs, & Newquist, 2017 for notable exceptions), but none of which included students with disabilities.…”