EFFECTS OF ELECTRONIC TACTILE AWARENESS PROMPTING WITH SELF-MONITORING ON TEACHERS’ USE OF BEHAVIOR SPECIFIC PRAISE
Open Access
- Author:
- Markelz, Andrew Michael
- Graduate Program:
- Special Education
- Degree:
- Doctor of Philosophy
- Document Type:
- Dissertation
- Date of Defense:
- May 03, 2018
- Committee Members:
- Paul J Riccomini, Dissertation Advisor/Co-Advisor
Jonte Charez Taylor, Committee Chair/Co-Chair
Mary Catherine Scheeler, Committee Member
David Brent Mcnaughton, Committee Member
David S Guthrie, Outside Member - Keywords:
- educational technology
teacher preparation
classroom management
tactile prompting
self-monitoring
behavior specific praise - Abstract:
- Effectively managing a classroom is critical in promoting positive student outcomes. Regardless of research suggesting a correlation between the two, teachers report feeling unprepared to deal with challenging behaviors. As a result, teachers resort to reactive classroom management rather than proactive and preventative strategies. Behavior specific praise (BSP) is an empirically supported, proactive strategy to reinforce desirable student behaviors. Following a review of the literature, we identified tactile prompting and self-monitoring as effective methods to increase teachers’ use of BSP while sustaining intervention long enough until teachers contacted natural maintaining contingencies. We created electronic tactile awareness prompting with self-monitoring (eTAPS) by combining two applications on Apple Watch™. This study primarily investigated the effects of eTAPS on special education teachers’ use of BSP. Secondarily, this study investigated the impact that BSP would have on the on-task behaviors of targeted students with disabilities demonstrating frequent off-task behaviors. Results indicated that eTAPS was effective in increasing and maintaining BSP rates. Furthermore, significant increases in student on-task behavior occurred. Implications of results and future research are discussed.