Classroom management is still one of the top-rated concerns of general educators and public school administrators, even though there exist a number of empirically supported interventions that improve classroom behavior. The current research, consisting of two studies, examined the effectiveness, feasibility, and acceptability of one of these interventions, a classwide peer-assisted, self-management program. Using a multiple baseline design across classes, the first study investigated the effects of the Peer-Assisted Learning (PAL) Game on appropriate classroom behavior of three classes of seventh-grade language arts students and of 10 target at-risk students. The PAL Game consisted of teacher instruction in self-management and social skills, a classwide self-monitoring game in which two teams of peer dyads rated themselves and each other, a teacher-rated mystery match, and public posting of team and partnership scores. The second study examined the effects of the systematic withdrawal of the PAL Game on maintenance of appropriate behavior of the class and of target at-risk students. In addition to examining the effects of the PAL Game on classroom behavior, another purpose of these two studies was to document and analyze the feasibility of implementing the PAL Game in a general education classroom and acceptability of the PAL Game to students and the teacher.
Classroom management is still one of the top-rated concerns of general educators and public school administrators, even though there exist a number of empirically supported interventions that improve classroom behavior. The current research, consisting of two studies, examined the effectiveness, feasibility, and acceptability of one of these interventions, a classwide peer-assisted, self-management program. Using a multiple baseline design across classes, the first study investigated the effects of the Peer-Assisted Learning (PAL) Game on appropriate classroom behavior of three classes of seventh-grade language arts students and of 10 target at-risk students. The PAL Game consisted of teacher instruction in self-management and social skills, a classwide self-monitoring game in which two teams of peer dyads rated themselves and each other, a teacher-rated mystery match, and public posting of team and partnership scores. The second study examined the effects of the systematic withdrawal of the PAL Game on maintenance of appropriate behavior of the class and of target at-risk students. In addition to examining the effects of the PAL Game on classroom behavior, another purpose of these two studies was to document and analyze the feasibility of implementing the PAL Game in a general education classroom and acceptability of the PAL Game to students and the teacher.
The results of these studies are discussed in terms of their implications for classroom practitioners and for future research.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UTAHS/oai:digitalcommons.usu.edu:etd-4124 |
| Date | 01 May 1999 |
| Creators | Mitchem, Katherine J. |
| Publisher | DigitalCommons@USU |
| Source Sets | Utah State University |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | All Graduate Theses and Dissertations |
| Rights | Copyright for this work is held by the author. Transmission or reproduction of materials protected by copyright beyond that allowed by fair use requires the written permission of the copyright owners. Works not in the public domain cannot be commercially exploited without permission of the copyright owner. Responsibility for any use rests exclusively with the user. For more information contact Andrew Wesolek (andrew.wesolek@usu.edu). |
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