Functional behavior assessment : increasing pre-service general education teachers' self-efficacy in managing classroom behavior.

A quasi-experimental design was conducted to examine differences in perceived self-efficacy of pre-service general education teachers towards classroom behavior management before and after instruction in functional behavior assessment. A complex repeated measures design was used with the professional development as the independent variable and the raw scores on the Classroom Management Self-Efficacy scale and the FBA General Knowledge Test as dependent variables. A total of 38 participants responded to three administrations as well as an additional retrospective self-efficacy scale. This additional scale was administered to compare means of the participants' perceptions of self-efficacy before instruction and their retrospective perceptions after instruction. Results demonstrated a change in all raw scores of the participants before and after instruction in functional behavior assessment. The second treatment scores remained fairly constant across their regularly scheduled sessions, whereas both groups showed a significant increase in raw scores after instruction in functional behavior assessment. Regarding the retrospective survey results, there were significant differences only in the factor of classroom behavior management self-efficacy.Ph.D