Naturalistic Assessment of Children's Compliance to Teachers' Requests and Consequences for Compliance

Abstract

Naturally occurring levels of teacher commands, child compliance to those commands, and positive and negative teacher feedback were studied in 19 teachers and 130 children in kindergarten through third grade. Seventy-five of the children had been identified as "making a good social adjustment" to school (high-rated) and 55 children were identified as "not making a good social adjustment" to school (low-rated). Results of intensive observation over a 4-wk period showed that: (a) individual teachers differed significantly in their overall use of commands; however, they did not differentially respond to high-versus low-rated children; (b) high-rated children were more likely to comply with commands than were low-rated children; (c) although the overall level of positive social consequences was extremely low, there was some indication that highrated children were more likely to receive positive feedback for compliance than were low-rated children; (d) low-rated children received significantly more positive feedback than high-rated children for noncompliance; (e) teachers gave negative feedback for noncompliance at an equal level to both groups of children; and (f) although repeated teacher commands following noncompliance were equal across groups, low-rated children were exposed to significantly higher levels of repeated commands following compliance than were high-rated youngsters.DESCRIPTORS: teacher behavior, classroom, assessment, childrenProbably the most readily available and on occasion a powerful influence on children's classroom behavior is social reinforcement from the teacher. Over the last decade literally hundreds of classroom-based studies have shown that teachers' delivery of social reinforcement can result in improved academic performance

The Efficacy of an All‐positive Approach to Classroom Management

“…The corollary was that punishment did not work. Accumulated data, however, attest to the continued frequent use of negative feedback in dassroom environments (Strain, Lambert, Kerr, Stagg, & Lenker, 1983;White, 1975), to the efficacy of negative consequences for managing problematic behavior (e.g., Azrin & Powers, 1975;Drabman & Spitalnik, 1973;Iwata & Bailey, 1974;Rapport, Murphy, & Bailey, 1982;Van Houten, Nau, MacKenzieKeating, Sameoto, & Colavecchia, 1982), and to the failure of attempts to conduct dasses using only positive consequences (e.g., Becker, Madsen, Arnold, & Thomas, 1967;Hall et al, 1971;Rosen, O'Leary, Joyce, Conway, & Pfiffner, 1984;Sajwaj, Twardosz, & Burke, 1972). In the most recent attempt, Rosen et al (1984) demonstrated repeatedly that when special education teachers stopped providing negative feedback to students This research was supported in part by a grant from the Middle Country School District No.…”

Teachers’ Commands and Their Role in Preschool Classrooms

“…Additionally, when the rate of instruction is too low (approximately .75) compliance also drops (Atwater & Morris, 1988). Strain et al (1983) observed the natural rate of instruction in kindergarten rooms and noted that all of the teachers they observed elicited commands averaging from .2 to 2.5 commands per minute. These results closely match the recommended instruction rates for optimal compliance; however, the current study identified somewhat different rates of instruction for average preschool age children.…”

“…While some studies look at commands as one category (Strain et al, 1983), others break commands into only those of alpha and beta type (Williams & Forehand, 1984;Forehand et al, 1979;Peed et al, 1977), while other studies have indicated that a more specific command type may effect compliance (Kuczynski & Kochanska, 1990b). Very few studies have combined command form (direct, indirect, question etc.…”

“…Although a large body of research exists looking at childhood compliance to commands, only a few studies have examined the types and rates of commands delivered naturally in classroom settings (Atwater & Morris, 1988;Ndoro et al, 2006;Strain et al, 1983). Strain et al observed kindergarten through third grade teachers and the natural rate with which they provided instructions to students.…”

“…Overall, throughout the vast array of command/compliance literature, only a few studies have studied commands in naturalistic classroom settings (Atwater & Morris, 1988;Matheson & Shriver, 2005;Ndoro, Hanley, Tiger, & Heal, 2006;Noell et al, 2001;Strain, Lambert, Kerr, Stagg, & Lenkner, 1983). Researchers have generally studied one command type at a time leading to the overlap in identification and description of commands and to some confusion regarding the role that command form, specificity, and rate play in a child's compliance to commands (Houlihan et al, 1992;Houlihan, Vincent, Ellison, & Jones, 1994).…”