Teacher Beliefs Regarding Positive Behavior Support Programs in Mississippi Middle Schools

In today’s educational environment of continued and high-stakes accountability, school administrators are constantly looking for effective techniques to improve the academic performance and behavior of their students. In an effort to attain improvement by their pupils, many educational leaders are choosing to implement positive behavior support (PBS) programs in their schools. This study examined the differences between teachers’ beliefs about PBS programs and their impact on reported student attendance, standardized test scores, engagement, and behavior. It also examined the differences in reported changes in these variables between teachers at schools with PBS programs and teachers at schools without the behavior programs. Lastly, this study examined the relationships between teacher beliefs pertaining to PBS programs and their associated characteristics, including age, highest degree attained, years of teaching experience, grade level taught, subject area taught, and whether the teacher was in general education or special education. Findings for these research questions at the .05 significance level are presented in this study. With regard to teacher beliefs about positive behavior support (PBS) programs, none of the independent variables (reported student attendance, standardized test scores, engagement, or behavior) were found to be statistically significant. However, three relationships were found to be approaching significance. Teacher beliefs pertaining to student attendance and teacher age were approaching significance with a small negative correlation, while teacher beliefs pertaining to student attendance and years of teaching experience were also approaching significance with a small negative correlation. Similarly, teacher beliefs pertaining to student behavior and teacher age were approaching significance with a small negative correlation