Professional Development Providers: Addressing Social Emotional Development and Challenging Behavior

181 p.Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2006.The present study investigated 86 professional development providers' perspectives regarding children's social emotional development and challenging behavior. Specifically, this study examined providers' confidence in providing in-service training and technical assistance on these topics. In addition, the study was designed to determine whether there were differences between provider characteristics and their training practices. Priority areas most frequently requested by early childhood teachers and barriers and supports that providers face in providing professional development activities also were explored. The results indicated that both professional development providers and in-service participants believed that promoting social emotional development and preventing challenging behaviors of young children were very important. Professional development providers had emerging abilities to conduct professional development activities. The most frequently requested topics for professional development activities by early childhood teachers were prevention/intervention strategies. The biggest challenges that professional development providers face are people's attitudes and lack of knowledge/skills about challenging behaviors. Supports needed indicate: developing knowledge/skills, organizational or systemic supports, and teaming. Supports currently in place indicate: knowledge/skills, materials/resources/personnel, teaming, and organizational supports.U of I OnlyRestricted to the U of I community idenfinitely during batch ingest of legacy ETD