Disciplinary practices and protocols in schools have been a notable concern over the past 30 years. The traditional punitive punishment-based tactics have not proven to be effective in changing student behavior. Positive Behavior Intervention Supports (PBIS) is a proactive alternative that puts whole school systems in a place wherein students and teachers share in the responsibility of building a culture and climate of behaviors that produce positive outcomes. Research based on the implementation of PBIS in schools has concluded that problem behaviors decrease, students and staff feel safe, and attendance improves. There is a body of research that concludes that implementing such changes is effective in reducing office discipline referrals in major disciplinary actions and in creating a positive school climate. The current study examined the effectiveness of changing from reactive, punitive, zero-tolerance practices to proactive positive behavioral interventions. The research focused on the effects of PBIS on the percentage and number of office discipline referrals (ODRs) for African-American and special education students after the first year’s implementation of PBIS in a school district of approximately 6,000 students. The results indicate that ODRs decreased during the implementation of PBIS.

The object mouthing of a developmentally delayed 8-year-old girl was assessed and treated in a classroom setting. Two pretreatment assessments were conducted: A functional analysis indicated that object mouthing occurred across test conditions and persisted in the absence of social contingencies, and assessment of stimulus preference identified reinforcers to be used during treatments. Based on assessment outcomes, two treatments were implemented. Noncontingent sensory reinforcement was implemented during free-time and group activities, resulting in a 74.3% decrease in object mouthing across three settings. During one-on-one educational activities, presentation of academic task-trials at a high rate decreased object mouthing by 85.7%, relative to a condition in which tasks were presented at a slower rate.

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Tailored communications have been effective in increasing both recall and readership of health information. However, there is no clear evidence that tailoring is necessary or beneficial in creating behavior change. There are many possible sources for the inconsistencies in the empirical literature. This current research explores possible approaches to increase the effectiveness of message tailoring by incorporating components from the four main conceptual structures found in the literature. In the first study, the Stages of Change Model was used to segment the sample into four distinct groups (precontemplative, contemplative, action, and maintenance). The behavioral determinants for respondents in each group were then identified. The differences between the precontemplative and contemplative segment suggest that an affective message will be more effective in changing intention for precontemplative respondents and a cognitive message will be more effective for the respondents in the contemplative segment. In a second study, an experimental study was conducted to test these alternative approaches. Results show that the proposed approaches did influence males as expected. However, females did not behave in the manner expected. Possible explanations for the differences between gender, such as behavior salience and information processing styles, are discussed. Overall, support is found for the use of tailoring messages to create behavior change. / Master of Science

This capstone project was part of a group project completed by five school and district administrators in Hillsborough County, Florida. The project began because of our passion for teachers who are able to establish a culture of care in their classrooms that support students academically but transform their learning through experiences that enable them to be more highly engaged and productive students, regardless of ethnicity, socioeconomic status, perceived academic abilities, and backgrounds. My focus in this group project looked at school climate, culture and student behavior in high needs schools. I asked, what steps can be taken by a school leader to improve school climate and culture in turnaround schools? What happens with student behavior as school climate and culture improve? Selected literature was reviewed that concentrated on current issues with school discipline, multi-tiered approaches for support, and the role of school-based leadership in student success (mediated by the size of student enrollment). I applied what I learned to developing a collaborative working environment for teachers, implementing school uniforms, developing discipline procedures for managing student behavior, and looking for ways to encourage positive student behaviors. Key findings in my area of focus included development of a common understanding of discipline infractions and procedures, decrease in discipline referrals, increase in teacher satisfaction with discipline processes, and improved school grade.

abstract: The lack of healthy behaviors - such as physical activity and balanced diet - in modern society is responsible for a large number of diseases and high mortality rates in the world. Adaptive behavioral interventions have been suggested as a way to promote sustained behavioral changes to address these issues. These adaptive interventions can be modeled as closed-loop control systems, and thus applying control systems engineering and system identification principles to behavioral settings might provide a novel way of improving the quality of such interventions. Good understanding of the dynamic processes involved in behavioral experiments is a fundamental step in order to design such interventions with control systems ideas. In the present work, two different behavioral experiments were analyzed under the light of system identification principles and modelled as dynamic systems. In the first study, data gathered over the course of four days served as the basis for ARX modeling of the relationship between psychological constructs (negative affect and self-efficacy) and the intensity of physical activity. The identified models suggest that this behavioral process happens with self-regulation, and that the relationship between negative affect and self-efficacy is represented by a second order underdamped system with negative gain, while the relationship between self-efficacy and physical activity level is an overdamped second order system with positive gain. In the second study, which consisted of single-bouts of intense physical activity, the relation between a more complex set of behavioral variables was identified as a semi-physical model, with a theoretical set of system equations derived from behavioral theory. With a prescribed set of physical activity intensities, it was found that less fit participants were able to get higher increases in affective state, and that self-regulation processes are also involved in the system. / Dissertation/Thesis / Masters Thesis Chemical Engineering 2016

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