Effects of PBS on bullying reduction in students with disabilities

¶ … PBS against Bullying Students with Disabilities in a second grade classroom setting

Managing children's behavior is a common problem for educators (Anderson & Kincaid, 2005) particularly if there are some aggressive students in the class who intimidate or victimize others. The problem is aggravated when victims are individuals who are mentally or physically handicapped. The impact of bullying on the individual is never good in any situation, but when applied to targets with special challenges, ramifications can occur where reinforcing messages can impact the target's self-esteem and worsen the challenge, aside from reducing the individual's psychological ability to deal with his or her challenge (Weiten, 2010). Most general and special education teachers report difficulty in restraining and managing aggressive behavior of young children (Fox et al., 2002).

School-wide positive behavior supports (SWPBS) is a behavioral-based program that is structured to deal with aggressive, bullying behavior on the part of young children in a positive and interventional manner (Sugai & Horner, 2006). SWPBS uses the concepts of positive behavior supports (PBS) that rely on empirical research, evidenced and positive outcomes, and environmental as well as procedural change to alter the problem behavior (ibid). The three elements of SWPBS are: (1) preventions, (2) evidence-based research, and (3) implementation of this research. SWPBS has been consistently used to help teachers mitigate the bullying and aggressive behavior on the parts of certain students (e.g. Sugai & Horner, 2006).

Integral to SWPBS is the philosophy of PBS (Fairbanks et al., 2007), which promotes positive behavior and endeavors to model and reinforce a value system of prosocial behaviors in those children that evidence social aggressiveness (Hieneman et al., 2005). PBS works strongly on recognition of positive traits in both classmates and in the problematic students themselves and with both students and teachers acknowledging and dwelling on these positive traits. Increasing the student's awareness of the positive traits of his peers has a rebound effect with the target individual's esteem being reinforced rather than depressed; with the bullying student more apt to see positive points in other situations as well as individuals; with the teacher praising the bullying individual for small positive incremental changes in his or her behavior; and, ideally, with this praise increasing the probability that students will engage in desired prosocial conduct. With the entire class participating and with the focus placed on what is called 'tootling' rather than 'tattling' (Skinner, 2002), awareness and practice of prosocial behavior on the part of problematic individuals can be increased and their engagement in antisocial behaviors decreased.

'Tootling' is a term coined by Skinner (2002) to describe the recognition and reporting of classmates' prosocial behaviors. Prosocial behaviors include examples such as raising one's hand, sharing one's lunch with another, opening the door for teacher and so forth. Students then report these positive acts to their teacher, either by writing it on a card and handing it to the teacher or by verbally announcing it in class (Skinner, 2000). Educators then reinforce these behaviors by adding their own praise.

There have been few studies on the effects of tootling, but those that there are show positive results. However, each also has noted experimental limitations. Skinner (2000) found an increase in prosocial behaviors with the introduction of tootling. However, an unplanned procedure implemented during the study may have confounded results. Cashwell et al. (2001) replicated Skinner's study, but both he and Skinner et al. (2000) failed to monitor the results of tootling on reduction of student's antisocial conduct.

Cihak, Kirk, and Boon (2009) examined the use of tooling in reducing the number of disruptive behaviors in a third-grade elementary classroom. Nineteen elementary students including four students with disabilities were taught how to report their classmates' positive behaviors using the 'tootling' intervention. They combined this with a group contingency procedure. Results showed that the use of the 'tootling' intervention integrated with the group contingency procedure decreased the students' disruptive behavior. Limitations, however, included the facts that student age, abilities, and grade levels were small as well as that details of tootles (the number of tootles reported daily, the distribution of tootles amongst students with and without disunities, the distribution of tootles amongst students with and without behavioral problems, and the quality of tootles) were ignored. Most importantly, the research of Skinner et al. (2000), Cashwell et al. (2001), and Cihak, Kirk, and Boon (2009) were conducted on generally disruptive behavior and prosocial conduct in general. It would be interesting to assess the result of tootling on bullying and aggressive conduct on the part of some individuals to specific peers and to assess whether the tootling interventions allows significant reduction in the problematic behavior.

The purpose of this study, therefore, is to extend the research in positive peer reporting (I.e. tootling) to investigating its impact on children's bullying levels and to correct for some of the limitations inherent in Cihak, Kirk, and Boon's (2009) study, more specially by noting the number of tootles reported daily, the distribution of tootles amongst students with and without disabilities, the distribution of tootles amongst students with and without behavioral problems, and the quality of tootles. In all, the effects of tootling on reducing specific students' bullying behavior will be investigated, as well the classroom teacher's opinions regarding the effect of tootling on their classroom environment as a whole.

Method

Participants are * 19 second-grade students (* males, * females) enrolled in a * elementary school within the * USA. Of the *19 students, two are identified as bullying others, particularly tending to bully two students with disabilities, one who has an LD for reading, and the other one who may have some cognitive deficit problems. The classroom teacher was a certified elementary teacher with * years of teaching experience. All aspects of this study occurred in the students' second-grade primary classroom setting.

Materials

The students will use 4 by 6 inches index cards to record positive observations of their peers. The definition of 'tootling' will be slightly modified in this study to extend from prosocial behavior, in specific, to all positive and praise-worthy variables that were recognized in another. It wall also be emphasized that students will have to include each individual in the class. Students will place the cards in a clear container that is kept on the teacher's desk. A poster displayed in front of the classroom provides feedback to the students regarding the daily number of 'tootles' that their peers will report and the total number of 'tootle's required to reach their collective goal. An incentive, particularly attractive to all, especially to the problematic students, can be offered at the end of the duration of the month depending on whether the required amount of 'tootles' has been achieved. The teacher will, occasionally, provide verbal feedback on the students' performance and on the number of 'tootle's still to be achieved. In an unobtrusive manner, the teacher will specifically reinforce the problem students for any slight positive addendum in their behavior.

Variables and Data Collection

The dependent variable will be the number of bullying behaviors performed by the problematic students. These are defined as * teasing, name-calling, ridiculing, and physically hurting. The teacher will make a note in her notebook, next to the name of that student, whenever one of these antisocial, aggressive behaviors will occur. The victims will also be encouraged to report aggressive incidents to the teacher. To the reverse, eth teacher will also report discrete details of positive, prosocial behaviors that these problematic students engaged in. The whole will be described in a tabular format. The independent variable will be the reporting of peers' prosocial behaviors by tootling.

Design

An ABAB research design (see Fig. 1) will be used to investigate the efficacy of using the tootling intervention to reduce bullying behavior. The ABAB design will assess conditions at baseline, will implement the tootling procedure, will compare the effects of tootling procedure to baseline conditions, and will evaluate effects on the two problematic students in particular and on the class in general. The study, therefore, will have four stages: (1) baseline, (2) implementation of tootling procedure, (3) comparison to baseline and, (4) intra-comparisons of tootling procedure.

Procedure

Baseline: for 2 weeks prior to study, the teacher will record all the bullying behaviors on the part of the two students as well as the specific bullying behaviors that they engage in. Their bullying behaviors will be categorized into three or more categories (maximum five) and notations placed next to each according to the amount of times that the problematic students perform these specific aggressive actions. Care will be taken, too, to notice whether the problematic students extend their bullying behavior to other individuals of the classroom setting. Data will be collected for two weeks until a stable baseline has been affected. This will be for the two students in general. In order to make the study more scientific so that it can generalized and applicable to a wider audience, it has to have a larger sample. The class is not sufficiently large enough, but larger than 2 pupils and more acceptable, therefore, the teacher, wishing to apply results of her study, will also make a baseline assessment of the class's condition in altruism at the start of the study.

Pretraining: Before implementing the actual intervention method, the classroom teacher will conduct two 20 minute group instruction sessions designed how to teach the students to report their peers prosocial behaviors as well as general positive variables that have been observed on the part of their peers. Emphasis will be placed on the fact that all students of the class have to be involved. The teacher will allow the students to select their desired reward as long as this were feasible and practical and will ensure that unanimous approval and interest is evidenced in desired reward. A cumulative goal (e.g. 120 tootles) too will be unanimously decided on. The teacher will ascertain that all students understand the elements and conditions of 'tootling', that all agree to be involved, and that questions, if any, are satisfactorily addressed and answered. Students will be encouraged to provide examples of instances that can be mentioned on 'tootling' papers. Examples can be helping others with class study, praising others, lending material to another, and holding the door open for another. The emphasis will be on kindness and positive acts to other students rather than on classroom discipline in general. The aim is to focus on behaviors that are the reverse of the bullying behaviors evidenced by the problematic students. Examples of behaviors that are irrelevant to tootling will, likewise, be mentioned. These include the bullying behaviors evidenced by the problematic students. However the students will not be singled out, both in order nto to humiliate them and in order not to allow them to suspect that the study is conducted for their sake. This will likely contaminate response and may dissuade them from participating aside from eliminating scientific character of study.

During the second session, students will be taught to write the name of a specific classmate, the positive altruistic act that this classmate performed, and who this act was done to. This 'tootling' example will be then illustrated to the class as a retype of effective 'tootling'. The teacher will then prompt students to produce their own examples, providing corrective feedbacks when errors occur and praising the students for accurate response as well as praising the prosocial peer behaviors written on the 'tootling' card. The tootling card, in short, will have to contain the student's name, the author's name, the act of the student, and the name of the student whom the agent helped. The two students will be deliberately invited to join in and their doing so will be positively reinforced. Students place the tootling cards in the container and tootles are collected throughout the day at the end of each class session. At the commencement of class during the next school's day. The teacher reads the tootles aloud (especially those of the two students) and makes a notification on the pasteboard regarding the increase in the amount of tootles collected. This method will be continued until the cumulative amount of tootles has been reached.

As a means of assessing decline in bullying behavior of the problematic students, the teacher will continue to make notifications next to their corresponding antisocial behaviors of these two students and will observe whether reduction in intensity and amount of these actions has been gained.

A baseline comparison will then be assessed to compare the present behavior of the problematic students to their original baseline behavior at the outset of the project and to determine whether reduction has been gained in bullying behavior. A baseline comparison will be made, too, of the classroom as a whole.

Interobserver Reliability: In order to assess the reliability of the teacher's observations, a graduate assistant will separately observe the problematic students and parents / families of the victims will be asked whether the victims reported any typical bullying behavior that occurred to them outside classroom sessions. Other teachers of the school will be asked for their involvement and observation, too. Victims will be separately, unobtrusively and confidentially questioned by the classroom teacher to assess whether they have experienced reduction in bullying during the duration of this study. An ANOVA will be performed on the * aspects of bullying behavior (i.e. * teasing, name-calling, ridiculing, and physically hurting) in order to compare aftereffects of study with baseline conditions and to see whether reduction has been achieved in the two students bullying behavior.