Greek Teachers Perceptions of Children with Emotional and Behavioural Difficulties

GREEK TEACHERS’ PERCEPTIONS OF CHILDREN WITH EMOTIONAL AND BEHAVIOURAL DIFFICULTIES.

By Poulou Maria and Norwich Brahm

Paper presented at the Annual European Educational Research Association conference, Ljubljana, September, 1998.

INTRODUCTION

Increasingly, the field of educational psychology is concerned with those issues which confront teachers by investigating them in the contexts they arise. Educational psychology has moved more into classrooms and closer to teachers’ concerns. An exploration of teachers’ concerns reveals that among others, teachers are highly concerned about the children with emotional and behavioural difficulties (EBDs) (Gray et al, 1996). Since the vast majority of children with ebds are educated in their usual classes in ordinary schools and the question of removing them elsewhere does not arise (Chazan et al, 1994), schools and particularly teachers have an important role to play for these children.

Although the primary concern of teachers is students’ behaviour, not the causes of that behaviour, teachers may be able to even influence those causes by careful description, comparison and evaluation of the behaviour (Gage and Berliner, 1991). Miller (1995) postulated that those involved in attempting to work with pupils displaying difficult behaviour, will inevitably make causal attributions concerning the origins of this behaviour.

Teachers’ ideas about the causes of behaviour in turn affect the attitudes they adopt towards their students, and their disposition to help them overcome their difficulties. Teachers’ causal attributions affect their emotional reactions and their behavioural responses to their students. This argument is further supported by a plethora of studies which suggest that a greater insight into teachers’ responses for pupils’ management may be obtained from the analysis of teachers’ attributional process (Weiner and Kukla, 1970; Medway, 1979; Brophy and Rohrkemper, 1981; Dawson, 1987; Podell and Soodak, 1993; Soodak and Podell, 1994; Hughes et al, 1993, Clark, 1997).

Research findings show that teachers’ attributions of students’ behavioural problems locate the causes within the child or family agents (Medway, 1979; Brophy and Rohrkemper, 1981; Christenson, 1983; Croll and Mose, 1985; Laing and Chazan, 1987; Wilson and Silverman, 1991; Galloway et al, 1994; Soodak and Podell, 1994; Miller, 1995, 1996). Although there were studies where teachers recognised the importance of teaching factors and the major contribution of the school factors to the problematic behaviour (Rutter et al, 1979; Reynolds et al, 1981; Mortimore, 1983; Maxwell, 1987; Hughes et al, 1993), the majority of studies supported teachers’ attribution of the ebds to elements external to themselves.

It is also a consistent finding that teachers experience high levels of occupational stress and that difficult students are among the most frequent sources of their stress (Galloway, 1985; McCormick and Solman, 1992; Whitehead and Ryba, 1995). In addition, research provides evidence that feelings of irritation and indifference are common feelings of teachers when they deal with disruptive students (Helton and Oakland, 1977; Algozzine, 1977; Coleman and Gilliam, 1983; Safran and Safran, 1984).

Besides those negative feelings however, teachers perceive themselves as highly responsibleand committed to help the children with difficulties to overcome their problems (Kauffman, 1991; Miller, 1996). The extent to which they believe they are capableof influencing students’ performance affects their enthusiasm and persistence in working with them (Ashton et al, 1982).

Concerning teachers’ coping strategies with ebd children, research has indicated that they favoured positive or reinforcing interventions rather than negative or nonreinforcing ones for the same behaviours (Elliot, 1984). Teachers on the other hand, were more likely to respond punitively with the students perceived as capable of self-control and intentionally misbehaving (Brophy and Rohrkemper, 1981; Rohrkemper and Brophy, 1983; Brophy and McCaslin, 1992).

Coping with learning and behavioural problems was the most severe task Greek primary teachers have to deal with (Polychronopoulou, 1995). Disruptive behaviour ranked second in a list of problems following learning difficulties. In relation to problems of internalised behaviour, they also appeared to concern a large amount of teachers. Therefore, the purpose of the study was to explore teachers’ perceptions of children with emotional and behavioural difficulties. More explicitly it aims to:

i) explore teachers’ causal attributions of pupils’ emotional and behavioural difficulties to either within child and family or within teacher and school factors,

ii) to investigate teachers’ emotional responses towards children with emotional and behavioural difficulties (anger, sympathy, irritation, indifference), their emotional responses for themselves as teachers of these children (stress/anxiety, helplessness/depression, offence/hurt) and their cognitive responses towards ebds (self-efficacy, responsibility for solving ebds, subjective norms, and intention to help ebd children) and

iii) to identify teachers’ actual coping strategies with ebds (positive or negative incentives), the people whom teachers ask their help for handling ebds, and their suggestions for the effective coping strategies in preventing and coping with ebds.

METHODS

Following the validation process, an Attribution Inventory was distributed to 391 primary teachers (139 male and 252 female), teaching in 60 ordinary schools in the urban area of Attiki, giving a response rate 70.1%. The majority of teachers were married (77.2%), aged 30-39 years old (57.8%), had 2 years teacher training (64.2%), had no experience in special needs (79.0%), had 1-9 years of teaching experience (38.3%) and were teaching the two last grades of elementary school (36.0%). Teachers were presented with 6 vignettes describing pupils with mild emotional, mild conduct, severe emotional, severe conduct, mild both emotional and conduct and severe both emotional and conduct behaviour difficulties. The degree of severity and type of these difficulties resulted from teachers’ ratings in a previous study of 170 Greek primary teachers. Following the presentation of vignettes, teachers were asked to give their ratings on a 5-point Likert scale, on a list of statements related to their causal ascriptions, emotional and cognitive responses and coping strategies relevant to the vignette types. These statements were constructed based on 20 teachers’ responses in depth interviews, preceding the administration of the attribution inventory.

RESULTS

Teachers’ causal attributions

Repeated measures ANOVA between the six vignettes, with causal factors as the repeated factors, revealed significant differences between vignette types (F=2.16, p=0.05), significant differences between causal factors (F=30.87, p=0.00) and a significant interaction between vignettes and causal attributions (F=2.37, p=0.00). Over all the different kinds of ebds, attributions to school and teacher factors were consistently higher than to family and child factors (figure 1). The significant interaction indicated that school attributions were lower than teacher attributions only for mild and severe emotional difficulties. The interaction also indicated that child attributions were lower than family attributions for mild and severe conduct and mild emotional difficulties.

Furthermore, when causal factors were taken separately, one way analysis of variance and post hoc test of significant (Tukey HSD), located significant differences between mild conduct and severe conduct, and mild conduct and mild emotional for child factors (F=2.92, p=0.01). Concerning family (F=2.17, p=0.05), school (F=2.56, p=0.02) and teacher causal factors (F=1.49, p=0.19), Tukey HSD test revealed no two groups significant differences at the 0.05 level.

Figure 1: Teachers’ causal attributions of emotional and behavioural difficulties.

Moreover, the most highly rated family causes for all the behaviour types, were “poor attachment between parents and the ebd child”, “parental conflicts” and “parental discipline”. By parental discipline, we mean “lenient parental discipline” for the conduct and mixed problems, and “excessively strict parental demands” for the emotional problems. The most likely child causes were “child wants to attract others’ attention”, and “child’s inability to cope with school demands” for conduct and mixed problems and “child’s innate personality” for emotional problems. “Teachers’ inappropriate manner towards the child” and “teacher’s personality” were the two most likely teachers’ causes for all the behaviour types depicted in vignettes. Finally, “lack of services for ebd children”, “bad school experiences for the ebd child” and “irrelevant curricula” were perceived by teachers as the most likely school causes.

Teachers’ responses for self

Repeated measures ANOVA for teachers’ responses to teaching ebd children, indicated significant differences between vignettes (F=3.55, p=0.00), significant differences between teachers’ responses (F=595.86, p=0.00), but not a significant interaction between vignettes and teachers’ responses. Figure 2 pictures that teachers’ desire to help, feelings of responsibility and feelings of self-efficacy were consistently higher than feelings of external demands, or negative feelings towards self, across all the different types of difficulties. Moreover, when one way ANOVA for simple effects between groups was calculated for each response factor separately, it indicated significant differences for subjective norms (F=3.39, p=0.00), where the mild mixed and severe emotional types were rated less than the severe mixed types, for negative feelings toward self (F=2.80, p=0.01), where the mild and severe emotional types were rated less than the severe mixed types and for self-efficacy (F=2.40, p=0.03), where the mild mixed types were rated less than the mild conduct types.

Figure 2: Teachers’ responses for self

By comparing the items making up the emotional factors across vignettes, we get the following common pattern: Items as “could deal with the child if I involve specialists”, “would like to help the child inside class”, “would like to help with all the means available” and “would feel responsible”, got the higher ratings in all the vignettes. In contrast, the item “feel hurt/offended” got the lower ratings by teachers.

Teachers’ emotional responses for the ebd child

Similar to previous ANOVA findings concerning teachers’ responses for themselves, repeated-measures ANOVA for teachers’ responses towards the ebd child revealed significant differences between vignette types (F=2.84, p=0.01) and significant differences between responses to ebd child (F=873.85, p=0.00). In contrast to the responses for self though, ANOVA indicated significant interaction between responses and vignette types (F=2.07, p=0.00). As figure 3 illustrates, feelings of sympathy towards the ebd child were consistently higher than the negative feelings of irritation, anger and indifference over all the different types of ebds. Among the negative feelings of teachers towards the ebd child, feelings of irritation/frustration were rated consistently higher for all the behaviour types. Thus, the interaction was located between feelings of anger and indifference. Feelings of anger were higher than feelings of indifference for mild and severe conduct and mild mixed behaviour types. Furthermore, 1 way ANOVA and Tukey HSD post hoc tests for the simple effects between groups, revealed group significant differences for “feel indifferent” responses (F=3.27, p=0.00), where the severe conduct and severe emotional were rated less than the severe mixed types, and no two group significant differences at 0.05 level for the items “feel angry/resentful” (F=2.89, p=0.01) and “feel irritated by the child” (F=2.48, p=0.03).

Figure 3

Teachers’ actual coping strategies

A principal components analysis was conducted to indicate factors for the items related to the actual coping techniques teachers use in their classroom. The use of orthogonal solution and varimax rotation for extracted factors with Eigen values greater than 1.0, extracted three factors for coping strategies accounting for 55.3% of the total variance (31.0% by the first, 14.7% by the second and 9.6% by the third factor). These factors were labelled as 1) use of positive incentives, 2) use of negative incentives and 3) teaching approaches. These factors and their loadings are presented in the following table:

Table 1: Factors and loadings for teachers’ actual coping strategies.

ACTUAL COPING STRATEGIES

Repeated-measures ANOVA for actual coping strategies indicated significant differences across vignette types (F=4.40, p=0.00) and significant differences between coping strategies (F=1845.56, p=0.00). Although the use of positive incentives was consistently higher across vignettes (figure 4), a significant interaction between coping strategies and vignette types (F=4.05, p=0.00) indicated that the use of negative incentives was significantly less used for emotional difficulties.

Additionally, follow-up univariate analysis of variance and Tukey (HSD) post hoc tests for each coping factor, indicated significant differences for negative incentives (F=8.06, p=0.00), where mild and severe emotional problems were rated less than conduct and both conduct and emotional problems mild or severe and for teaching approaches (F=3.00, p=0.01), where the mild mixed were rated less than the severe mixed and severe emotional problems.

Figure 4: Teachers’ actual coping strategies

Teachers were more likely to use the following coping strategies in their class irrespective of the vignettes: “involve the ebd child in class activities”, “gain child’s confidence and trust”, “use of counselling and supportive behaviour with the child”. “Punishments” and “threats” were rated by teachers as the least likely techniques to be used.

Teachers ask for the co-operation in dealing with ebds

From teachers’ ratings on the agents whom they would refer the ebds (table 2), it is evident that “ebd child’s parents”, “specialists if available at school” and “child’s classmates” were the people whom teachers were more likely to ask the co-operation of, for all the behaviour types. On the other hand, “colleagues” or “school director” were less likely to be asked by teachers, regardless of the behaviour type.

Table 2: Means and standard deviations of teachers’ ratings on the people teachers would refer to.

Teachers’ suggestions of the effective coping strategies for ebds

As with actual coping items, a principal components analysis was conducted to indicate factors for the effective coping items. This time, the use of orthogonal solution and varimax rotation for extracted factors with Eigen values greater than 1.0, extracted two factors for effective coping strategies accounting for 47.5% of the total variance (34.4% for the first, and 13.1% for the second factor). These factors and their loadings are presented in table 3, and could be labelled as 1) use of positive incentives and 2) use of negative incentives.

Table 3 : Factors and loadings for teachers’ suggestions of effective coping strategies.

As with actual coping techniques, repeated-measures ANOVA indicated significant differences across vignette types (F=6.24, p=0.00) and significant differences between effective coping techniques (F=3967.97, p=0.00), with the use of positive incentives consistently suggested as the most effective technique. ANOVA also indicated a significant interaction between coping techniques and vignette types (F=2.94, p=0.01), where the use of negative incentives was rated as a significantly less effective technique for the emotional problems (figure 5).

Moreover, univariate Analysis of Variance and HSD post hoc tests revealed significant difference only for negative incentives (F=9.67, p=0.00), where mild and severe emotional problems were rated less than conduct and mixed problems mild or severe.

Figure 5: Teachers’ suggestions for effective coping strategies

The techniques teachers perceived as most effective were: “gain child’s confidence and trust”, “involve the child in classroom activities”, “personal interest” and “supportive behaviour”. In contrast, “point out the problem to the child”, “use of punishments” and “use of threats”, were perceived as the less effective strategies. These results applied to all vignette problems.

Teachers’ suggestions for the effective strategies related to social factors.

Teachers’ co-operation with parents, specialists, school counsellors, colleagues and school’s co-operation with external agencies such as cultural centres, centres of psychical health and other specialists, in addition with social provision for ebds and their families were perceived by teachers as the most effective strategies to cope with emotional and behavioural difficulties. Repeated measures ANOVA for the social factors across vignettes indicated significant differences between these factors (F=191.94, p=0.00) and a significant interaction between them and vignette groups (F=1.97, p=0.01). According to figure 6, social provision group was at a higher and distinguishable level from the other groups across all the different kinds of difficulties. The interaction appeared to be produced by the fact that although teacher and other agencies group remained in a constantly lower level than the school and other agencies group, it got the same average ratings in severe mixed difficulties. Moreover, teacher and other agencies group was rated lower than school policy in mild conduct types, while it was rated constantly higher in the remaining types.