Conditional Probabilities and Contingency Space Analysis: A Statistical Overview of the Relationship Between Student Behavior and Teacher Consequence

Abstract

The research on classroom management systems has provided a comprehensive evidence base for effective classroom management strategies for teachers to adopt in their classrooms. The most common strategies found in the literature are rules, reprimands, and praise. Reprimands and praise are used by the teacher as part of the reinforcement schedule to implement classroom rules (Acker & O'Leary, 1987; Sherman & Cormier, 1974). The purpose of the current study was to analyze the conditional probabilities of teachers' use of reprimands and praise following student disruption and on-task behavior from baseline to an intervention known as the Class-Wide Function-related Intervention Teams (CW-FIT; Wills et al., 2010). The conditional probabilities of teacher reprimands and praise given student disruptive and on-task behavior were also examined through a contingency space analysis (CSA; Martens, DiGennaro, Reed, Szczech, & Rosenthal, 2008). The participants included 50 teachers and 100 students. Results showed that reprimands followed disruptive behavior less frequently during CW-FIT. Results also showed that praise followed on-task behavior more frequently during CW-FIT. In other words, teachers were more likely to use praise following on-task behavior from baseline phase to CW-FIT phase than they were to use reprimands following disruptive behavior. As a means of evaluating the CW-FIT intervention program, CSA depicts that the intervention resulted in the anticipated changes in the behavior of both the teachers and the students, as teacher attention was more likely dependent or contingent on on-task behavior than it was on student disruption, and to a slightly higher extent than during baseline. When CW-FIT was implemented, the conditional probabilities that teacher praise was used given on-task behavior increased for a majority of students. Results imply that CW-FIT improves the teacher-student interaction for students at-risk for behavioral disorders when used as a classroom management system.