The purpose of this study was to examine the grades and demographic characteristics of students involved with the residence hall disciplinary process during the 2005 fall semester at Ball State University. These characteristics were studied to determine if differences existed in the academic performance and demographic characteristics of disciplinary students and the general residence hall population. Differences between the disciplinary sample and residence hall population were found to exist. Freshmen and sophomores in the disciplinary sample achieved lower mean grade point averages. Freshmen and males were over-represented in the disciplinary sample. / Department of Educational Studies

Most teachers want to create classrooms that promote the achievement of learners’ full potential. Learners’ behaviour, however, often disrupts the teaching and learning. Instead, the fact that those teachers have to spend so much time sorting out disruptive behaviour makes the classroom a place filled with tension and unpleasantness. Various studies have shown that children’s troublesome behaviour shows no sign of decreasing and teaching has become more complex and more demanding than ever. Although the teacher brings an enormous amount of expertise to the classroom, this is not enough to ensure that effective teaching and learning will take place. Various, ongoing changes in society and education require teachers to add new understandings about learners’ behaviour and the complexities thereof in the classroom. Teachers are thus required to devise practices and techniques to manage their classrooms to promote teaching and learning. Teachers have to employ methods and techniques to ensure that they create a classroom that is conducive to teaching and learning. Some researchers have suggested that teachers become ‘classroom researchers’ to look at their own practice and then evaluate means and ways to improve on it. Teachers are required to become ‘reflective practitioners’ to improve their classroom management skills through reflection and self evaluation. Teachers are also required to teach with influence and care. The classroom context and the relationship between teachers and learners are cited as particularly important in shaping the way that the teacher manages the classroom to achieve teaching and learning. I have adapted a particular approach to my classroom management that is very specific. This approach focuses on group work, social learning and guided interaction between learners. My method however is not perfect and thus I have set out to review other classroom management approaches with the aim of improving my own practice. To achieve this I have looked at the way in which three of my colleagues manage their classrooms and I have aimed to employ some of their tactics in my personal classroom management. The research was approached using three research questions as a basis. These were as follows: 1. What methods do teachers use to manage their classrooms? 2. What do teachers perceive as effective classroom management? 3. How can the environment be adapted to achieve effective classroom management? To explore these critical questions, the case study approach was adopted. The participants were observed in their classrooms and interviews were conducted to get a holistic picture of the classroom management approaches used by the selected participants. The participants in this study displayed diverse backgrounds, classroom management approaches and personalities. The study revealed that these teachers employed various methods in their classroom management. Group work, reciting of rhymes, arranging the classroom in certain ways, maintaining good human relations and keeping learners gainfully occupied were some of the methods that the participants in the study have employed to achieve effective classroom management. These teachers perceived effective classroom management very differently. Some saw it as a way of getting learners involved in the lesson to minimise distraction, while others had a somewhat idealistic view on this issue. The study also revealed that the teachers involved had reorganised their classrooms, divided their classes into manageable smaller groups and even flooded their learners with work to change the environment to achieve effective classroom management. The findings of this study can be of value in discussion to seek solutions or alternatives to address effective classroom management in schools that experience concerns on this vital issue. / Thesis (M.Ed.) - University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2009.

The purposes of this study were to determine the current philosophical considerations and practices of Residential Life disciplinarians in the United States and to compare these to the philosophical considerations and practices suggested for current use by experts in the field.

Early identification of high school students at-risk for antisocial behavior and school failure is critical to reducing the number punitive consequences they may experience, as well as for lowering referral rates to special education. The identification of characteristics that are common to students accumulating disciplinary referrals for chronic or acute behavior problems can be valuable for targeting the needs of these students and developing proactive intervention strategies. Typical approaches employ deficit-based measures which describe behaviors that are regarded as problems to be eliminated or reduced, but which seldom provide guidance to teachers on how to achieve that result. This study used the Behavioral Objective Sequence (BOS) (Braaten, 1998) a strength-based instrument, to examine the attributes of students in an urban high school who had been referred the Character Development Center (CDC), an out-of-classroom disciplinary intervention.The BOS provides a criterion referenced assessment of behavioral competencies which can subsequently be used by educators to develop instructional interventions that are directly related to skill deficiencies. A Likert type rating scale method was used to assess students' demonstration the BOS skills or behavioral/social competencies.Data were collected on 99 students who had been referred to CDC one or more times and 37 randomly selected peers who had never been referred. BOS scores were obtained from the classroom teachers who had made the student referrals to CDC and the nonreferred students. One-way ANOVAs and independent t-tests were computed to test for differences in the mean scores on the six BOS subscales. Students who were referred for disciplinary intervention scored significantly lower on all subscales. ANOVA tests for significant interactions between rater and student demographic attributes were all non significant indicating that the results were not influenced by characteristics such as gender, ethnicity, or social economic status.The results support the findings of previous studies that indicate use of skill-based BOS scores can identify students who are a high risk for disciplinary intervention. This approach offers educators an assessment instrument that can assist with early identification by proactively targeting skills that need to be taught and reinforced rather than reliance on consequences for misconduct. / Department of Special Education

Despite an abundance of studies on the characteristics of college students described as campus disciplinary offenders, few studies have attempted to investigate the reasons why certain students end up as violators of campus social policies. The purpose of this study was to construct and test a causal model of college student disciplinary status. Containment Theory, Control Theory, and Involvement Theory served as the theoretical foundation of the study. Variables in the model were operationalized from the College Student Experiences Questionnaire. Data were collected from a sample of students classified as campus disciplinary offenders by the residence life office judicial system of a large land-grant university and from a sample of non-offenders at the same institution. The data were analyzed using path analysis procedures. Results indicated that there was only partial support for the linear causal model tested. Important findings were: (a) background variables directly affected disciplinary status, a finding consistent with previous research, (b) the model did not work differently for males and females, (c) students' satisfaction with their choice of college directly impacted on disciplinary status, (d) students' perceptions of the campus interpersonal environment and their personal vocational gains indirectly effected disciplinary status when mediated by the satisfaction with their college choice. In general, person-environment fit was proposed as the factor having an overall effect on disciplinary status. It was suggested that further testing of the model should occur and that a reciprocal causal model, rather than a linear model, might yield more information about the factors influencing disciplinary status for certain college students. / Ed. D.

This study focused on improving the learners behaviour through classroom management and the implementation of human rights awareness as an intervention strategy. The purpose of the research was to prevent learners from misbehaving through the implementation of different teaching strategies. Learners transgression will not stop completely and a second objective was to use the implementation of human rights awareness as an intervention strategy if the learners behaviour become unacceptable. The strategies the educators has to instigate were primarily considered to be those associated with classroom management.

This study focused on improving the learners behaviour through classroom management and the implementation of human rights awareness as an intervention strategy. The purpose of the research was to prevent learners from misbehaving through the implementation of different teaching strategies. Learners transgression will not stop completely and a second objective was to use the implementation of human rights awareness as an intervention strategy if the learners behaviour become unacceptable. The strategies the educators has to instigate were primarily considered to be those associated with classroom management.

South Africa's education management system has undergone a long history of transformation from the promulgation of the Bantu Education Act of 1953 to the realisation of democracy, and in this context, the South Mrican Schools Act (SASA) of l996. Apartheid legislation and the new democratic legislation have had a profound impact on the education leadership and management of schools, in which authoritarian management practices have been replaced by democratic management practices. However, democratic management practices have not yet had a significant effect in the leadership and management of schools, especially in the schools of previously disadvantaged areas. This thesis seeks to examine perceptions held by education stakeholders in the light of the rights of students as stipulated in the discipline provisions of the Schools Act of 1996, in one of the rural high schools in the Northern Region of the Eastern Cape Province. One of the most important discipline provisions is the ban on corporal punishment in schools. My intention in carrying out this research was not to generalise my findings but to understand the experiences and perceptions of the stakeholders in this school regarding the discipline provisions of the SASA. The data suggest that authoritarian education practices, especially corporal punishment, are still a factor in the maintenance of student discipline in this rural school. Stakeholders still believe in the use of corporal punishment as the only way of maintaining discipline and an orderly environment for teaching and learning. Such beliefs, assumptions and values concerning the use of corporal punishment are held by the principal, teachers, students and parents and have not changed since 1996. Beliefs, assumptions and values on the exclusive use of power by the principal on issues of suspension and expulsion are still being held by the above stakeholders in the school. The vision of the SASA that schools become autonomous institutions with democratic leadership and management practices does not seem to be practical because of the centralisation of power in the hands of the Provincial Head of the Education Department. This centralisation of power denies the principal and other stakeholders of the school the power to decide on crucial matters like the expulsion of misbehaving students, because it is the provincial Head who decides on the seriousness of offences committed by misbehaving students and subsequent expulsions. Apart from the location of power in the Provincial Head of the Education Department, the stakeholders of this school are also powerless on expulsion of students, or any other form of punishment because of the implication of the "right" to education in the Bill of Rights in the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa. The education department has to devise programmes that change the beliefs and assumptions of stakeholders on corporal punishment and decision-making on expulsions and suspensions. Unfortunately corporal punishment persists because parents use it in the home and support its use in school. Programmes on alternatives to corporal punishment are required for the smooth implementation of the SASA.