The Effects of Three Different Types of Opportunities to Respond on Disruptive Behavior in a Second Grade Music Classroom

The following research study was conducted to examine the effects of three types of opportunities to respond (OTRs) on student disruptive behavior in a music class setting. Participants in this study were male and female students ranging from 6 to 9 years old in the same second grade class. Students were each called upon to read rhythms from flashcards in duple meter containing both quarter notes and paired eighth notes. Using an alternating treatments design, students read a card individually and the class responded in one of the following ways: (a) no response, (b) using a verbal choral response, or (c) using a nonverbal choral response. The rate of teacher delivered OTRs, teacher praise and corrections, and student correct and incorrect responses were also counted. Students had the lowest rates of disruptive behavior during the nonverbal choral echo and the highest rates during the individual response with no echo