A problem brought to the attention of the Florida State University's Psychology Department by school personnel was the behavior of the more than 350 kindergarten, first- and second-graders assigned to a playground prior to the beginning of the school day. The problem behaviors were found to comprise three general categories of responses: aggression; property abuse; and rule violations. / The initial step was to develop a reliable observation system with which different interventions could be compared. After several attempts, a satisfactory method was devised. Three independent observers monitored separate areas of the playground and recorded the frequency of inappropriate incidents. / The first experiment utilized a multi-element design to compare the implementation of organized games, a brief timeout on a bench and the combination of games and timeout. The major findings were that the days with games available were generally better than those without games, and timeout was only infrequently used by the teachers' aides who supervised the playground. However, the data were highly variable which may have been due to the large number of extraneous variables that could have been present since the experiment spanned an eight-month period. In addition, the general ratings of the children's behavior obtained from the aides did not reflect the improvements seen by the direct observations. / In the second experiment, the most effective treatment, games, was compared to baseline procedures in a reversal design. At the request of school personnel, timeout was also available for extreme situations; but this was, again, very infrequently used. Substantial reductions in inappropriate behaviors were obtained when the treatments were in effect, and these results were more stable than in the first experiment. Despite an alteration of the rating method, the aides' evaluation did not coincide with the improvements recorded by the observers. However, the ability of the aides to accurately identify and intervene on the children's problem behaviors was the primary focus of this research. As such, it is suggested that in similar situations, where large groups are involved, antecedent environmental manipulations may be more practical than providing consequences for behaviors which have already been exhibited. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 47-06, Section: B, page: 2646. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1986.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:fsu.edu/oai:fsu.digital.flvc.org:fsu_75848 |
| Contributors | MURPHY, HARRY ALLEN., Florida State University |
| Source Sets | Florida State University |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text |
| Format | 85 p. |
| Rights | On campus use only. |
| Relation | Dissertation Abstracts International |
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