Laura+Senior+Exit+Project

Does positive versus negative teacher reinforcements show a difference in student behavior? Laura- I think you can begin to design an observation instrument that you would use to do the observations with in the classroom. You will probably want to pilot the instrument and then make adjustments once you try it out. Post your ideas here on the wikispaces page and we can think about how to improve. Mrs. Ashley

I would like to complete my research by observing 3 kindergarten classrooms and having a sheet of questions to answer by the end of the day in the classroom. I will be observing teacher interactions with students that are both positive and negative. I will eventually determine how positive reinforcements or negative reinforcements have an effect on students behavior.

Laura you need to start to work on methodology and part of that methodology is to design your observation instrument. The instrument should be easy to use and make note of what you are looking for. You can do continous data collection where you look constantly for a set amount of time or you can do discontinous data where you write down what is happening every 2 minutes, 3 minutes, etc. Work on your instrument for observation and then show it to me.

I would like to create a questionaire for myself to fill out based on what I am observing in the classrooms. I will be observing the class for a constant set amount of time. I will observe the classes in two intervals of 30 minutes. So in the end I will have spent 60 minutes in each kindergarten class.

Instrument for observation:

1. How does the teacher respond to a child misbehaving? You will need to be more specific here. What makes the response positive or negative? Perhaps a list of choices would be good to narrow it down a bit......negative; yells, scolds, says "don't, stop, I told you not to, things like that so that when you are done, you have a list of what you would call negative and also you will have more specific information in the end to discuss in your paper. Saying their response is negative brings up the question, what exactly did the teacher do that was negative? If you already have a list of different ways that will give you more information to start. If you can find another researchers definition of negative and positive, you could also use that researchers list with some adjustments, or you can create your own list.

circle: in a positive or negative way

a. How does the __**student**__ react to the teachers response if negative? Again, I think a list of responses would be good that you could check off so that you have details. Another choice is to take notes that are very specific and categorize responses later. You want to go beyond yes/no to more details

b. How does the student react to the teachers response if positive?

c. Which method worked better for the student?

2. How does the teacher respond to the class if they are misbehaving?

circle: in a positive or negative way

a. How does the **__class__** react to the teachers response if negative?

b. How does the class react to the teachers response if positive?

c. Which method worked better for the class? You have done a great job of moving forward. I think you have the framework for a great study. Just go the next step so that you think about how to get specific information that is very descriptive.