USF St. Petersburg campus Faculty Publications

Optimistic teaching: Improving the capacity for teachers to reduce young children's challenging behavior.

SelectedWorks Author Profiles:

V. Mark Durand

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2013

ISSN

1866-2625

Abstract

This pilot study compared the differential impact of two professional development interventions to improve preschool teachers’ use of positive behavioral interventions and supports (PBIS) and decrease young children’s social emotional difficulties. Teachers were randomly assigned to one of two coaching interventions conducted over the course of one academic year. Teachers received either Optimistic Teaching, an approach combining traditional coaching in PBIS with a cognitive-behavioral component to address teachers’ self-efficacy, or traditional PBIS coaching. Teachers in the Optimistic Teaching condition implemented significantly more PBIS skills related to teaching children social skills and involving families in their children’s social emotional development when compared to teachers who were exposed to traditional PBIS coaching alone. Teachers in the Optimistic Teaching condition reported significantly fewer children with serious social emotional difficulties post-intervention. Teachers’ experience and self-reported self-efficacy were analyzed for their influence on teachers’ post-intervention use of PBIS skills. The results are discussed in light of how future professional development efforts might address preschool teachers’ motivation to adopt new practices such as PBIS.

Comments

Citation only. Full-text article is available through licensed access provided by the publisher. Published in School Mental Health, 5(1), 14-24. doi: 10.1007/s12310-012-9084-y

Language

en_US

Publisher

Springer

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.

This document is currently not available here.

Share

COinS