Adam B. Feinberg

Whole‐school positive behaviour support: effects on student discipline problems and academic performance

Many students attending public schools exhibit discipline problems such as disruptive classroom behaviour, vandalism, bullying, and violence. Establishing effective discipline practices is critical to ensure academic success and to provide a safe learning environment. In this article, we describe the effects of whole‐school positive behaviour support on discipline problems and academic outcomes of students enrolled in an urban elementary school. The whole‐school model was designed through technical assistance consultation with teachers that emphasized: (1) improving instructional methods; (2) formulating behavioural expectations; (3) increasing classroom activity engagement; (4) reinforcing positive performance; and (5) monitoring efficacy through data‐based evaluation. As compared to a pre‐intervention phase, the whole‐school intervention was associated with decreased discipline problems (office referrals and school suspensions) over the course of several academic years. Student academic performance, as measured by standardized tests of reading and mathematics skills, improved contemporaneously with intervention. Issues related to whole‐school approaches to student discipline and the contributions of positive behaviour support are discussed.

Factor-Analytic and Individualized Approaches to Constructing Brief Measures of ADHD Behaviors

Two studies were performed to examine a factor-analytic and an individualized approach to creating short progress-monitoring measures from the longer ADHD-Symptom Checklist-4 (ADHD-SC4). In Study 1, teacher ratings on items of the ADHD:Inattentive (IA) and ADHD:Hyperactive-Impulsive (HI) scales of the ADHD-SC4 were factor analyzed in a normative data sample of 493 students aged 5 to 12 years. Items with the highest factor loadings were then selected to create abbreviated IA and HI scales for Study 2. In Study 2, the psychometric characteristics of two shortened progress-monitoring measures (factor derived and individualized) and the original IA and HI scales of the ADHD-SC4 were examined in a sample of 26 students aged 4 to 17 years in a medication titration study involving baseline and three doses of methylphenidate. The results indicated comparable psychometric properties across the original and abbreviated versions of the IA and HI scales.

Function-Based Modification of Check-In/Check-Out to Influence Escape-Maintained Behavior

ABSTRACT Prior research has suggested Check-In/Check-Out (CICO) effectiveness is linked to the function of problem behavior. Though effective for students whose misbehavior occurs to gain attention, findings are equivocal for behavior that occurs to escape academic tasks. The purpose of this study was to therefore evaluate a modification to CICO, wherein students were permitted to escape portions of a supplemental assignment contingent upon appropriate behavior. Participants included two elementary students, both of whom were exposed to three conditions as part of an alternating treatments single-case design, including baseline, traditional CICO, and CICO-escape. Visual and statistical analyses indicated that relative to both baseline and traditional CICO, the modified CICO procedure was moderately to highly effective in promoting academic engagement and decreasing disruptive behavior for both students.

Psychometric Considerations for Conducting Observations Using Time-Sampling Procedures

Time-sampling techniques are popular among school practitioners and researchers alike when conducting observations of student behavior. Despite their popularity, the psychometric properties of such observation data have not received much attention, likely given that both procedures and targets vary widely across individual coding systems. A systematic literature review was therefore conducted to provide insight into how various procedural aspects may influence the psychometric properties of time-sampling data. Specifically, the influences of the number of target behaviors, time-sampling method, interval length, observation length, and number of observations on the psychometric properties of time-sampling data are explored. Both implications for practice and future research are discussed.

Examining the Influence of Interval Length on the Dependability of Observational Estimates

Abstract Systematic direct observation is a tool commonly employed by school psychologists to investigate student behavior. As these data are used for educational decision-making, ensuring the psychometric adequacy of the obtained data is an important consideration. Given that procedural aspects of systematic direct observation have been shown to influence the psychometric properties of obtained data, this study was designed to explore how interval length influences the dependability of academic engagement data when using a momentary time sampling procedure. Twenty seventh-grade students were each observed for two 15-min sessions during math instruction. A series of generalizability studies were conducted to examine how manipulations to interval length influenced reliability-like coefficients. In general, shorter interval lengths (i.e., 10 s, 15 s) were shown to produce higher levels of dependability. For example, an acceptable level of dependability (i.e., ϕ = .70) required twice as many 30-min observations when utilizing 20- or 30-s sampling as were required when utilizing 10- or 15-s sampling. Furthermore, whereas an acceptable level of dependability (i.e., ϕ = .70) could not be obtained using any interval length when conducting a single observation, this criterion was met using either 10- or 15-s sampling across two 30-min observations.