Cornerstone: A Collection of Scholarly and Creative Works for Minnesota State University, Mankato
Abstract
Disruptive classroom behavior is frequently cited as a critical component in teacher job dissatisfaction and burnout. As corporal punishment is eliminated in many classrooms worldwide, teachers report a perception of increased disruptive classroom behavior that many feel ill equipped to address. Teachers also often report a lack of training in evidence-based behavior management tools that have been studied with international populations and culturally, linguistically, and socioeconomically diverse populations. The Good Behavior Game offers teachers a classroom-wide behavior management tool that has been studied both in the United States and abroad with students from diverse backgrounds, primarily in developed countries or large cities within developing countries. This intervention is based on basic and well-tested principles of behavior theory and has a long and defensible history indicating its efficacy across cultural, linguistic, and socioeconomic traditions. However, use of this tool in developing countries with few resources and diverse student populations has not been fully investigated. This research investigates the use of the Good Behavior Game in classrooms within a small, Central American town, where corporal punishment has been recently banned, educational resources are limited, and the population is both international and diverse. Results from the current study indicate that the GBG is effective in reducing out of seat, talking out, and tattling across three elementary classrooms in Belize, Central America and represents the first research to do so. Evidence further indicates that teachers were able to implement this intervention with fidelity, and that both teachers and students report high treatment acceptability
