TEACHER FACTORS RELATED TO ACCEPTABILITY AND ADOPTION OF GROUP CONTINGENCY INTERVENTIONS FOR DISRUPTIVE BEHAVIOR

Disruptive behavior is a frequent problem in many American classrooms, especially in schools with large populations of low income students. Nevertheless, many teachers do not use evidence based behavior management strategies. Group contingency interventions (GCIs), a group of thoroughly researched evidence based interventions for reducing disruptive behavior, have been found to be effective for students from elementary to high school, but the acceptability of these interventions has primarily been studied in elementary schools. The current study surveyed middle school teachers, and sought to identify factors that lead to increased likelihood of teachers finding GCIs acceptable, and possibly worth adopting. First we hypothesized that teaching special education, more previous exposure to GCI, less teacher experience, greater perceived severity of problem was positively related to a higher likelihood of acceptability of GCI over and above the influence of social desirability. Then we hypothesized that teaching special education would lead to greater exposure to GCI and subsequently greater acceptability of GCI. It was also hypothesized that the positive influence of amount of teacher exposure on acceptability would be weakened by perceiving the problem to be less severe and having more years of teaching experience. Finally, it was hypothesized that higher acceptability, greater teacher burnout, and greater intervention specific self-efficacy would be positively related to a higher likelihood of adoption of GCI over and above the influence of social desirability. Teachers (n = 76) from 13 rural, low-income, middle schools within 3 school systems were asked to rate the acceptability of GCIs, and the possibility that they would adopt using GCIs in the future. Teachers also reported whether they taught special education, their years of experience, their intervention self-efficacy, and the level of problem behavior they experienced. In addition, teachers completed measures of burnout and social desirability. Items measuring acceptability and adoption were combined to form one variable based on their internal consistency. A regression model evaluating teacher related variables was used to predict the combined outcome variable (Acceptability) while controlling for social desirability bias. Results indicated that teachers at rural, low-income schools found GCIs to be acceptable interventions for disruptive behavior (M = 21.42, range =10-27), and the majority of teachers endorsed adoption of the intervention in the future (82%). Examination of teacher related factors revealed that intervention self-efficacy predicted the combined Acceptability variable (B = 2.83, p [less than] 0.01) over and above all other teacher related factors after controlling for social desirability. None of the other teacher related factors predicted acceptability or adoption. Results also indicated higher rates of burnout in the current sample than in previous samples of human services workers (t(70) = 4.24, p [less than] .001). Results were discussed within the context of previous literature, and the limitations of the current study. The need for further research relating the implementation of GCIs to environmental, intervention-specific, and other teacher-related factors was described. Strategies to increase implementation of GCIs by teachers were also discussed. The current findings contribute to the limited literature on behavioral interventions for rural schools and middle schools