Quality Assurance of the Program „Support for Positive Behaviour” in schools of Latvia.

Author(s):

Dita Nimante(presenting / submitting)Linda Daniela(presenting)

Conference:

ECER 2016

Network:

11. Educational Improvement and Quality Assurance

Format:

Paper

Session Information

11 SES 06 B, Paper Session

Paper Session

Time:

2016-08-24

15:30-17:00

Room:

OB-E0.32

Chair:

Irina Maslo

Contribution

The program „Support for Positive Behaviour” (SPB) has been developed in the framework of the project of European Structural Funds „Development and implementation of support programs for establishing a support system for young people under social exclusion risk” and has been piloted in 39 educational institutions and 15 municipalities in Latvia in the time period from 2012 till 2014. The program was developed by experts Baiba Martinsone, Dita Nīmante and Linda Daniela, on the basis of ideas expressed by Lee and Merlin Canter (Canter, Canter, 2001), Rudolf Dreikurs (Dreikurs & Cassel, 1974, 1991, Dreikurs, Cassel, Dreikurs-Ferguson, 2004, Dreikurs, Grunwald, Pepper, 1998), Jane Nelsen (Nelsen, Lott, Glenn, 1997, Nelsen, 1987) and other authors as well as the foreign good practice examples– USA program School – wide positive behavioural interventions & supports (PBS), Norwegian program Positive behaviour, interactions and learning environment in school (PALS), as well as studies on the results and effectiveness of these programs (Sørlie & Ogden, 2007; Sørlie & Ogden, 2009; Sugai et al., 2000; Walker et al., 1996).

SPB is an all-embracing, universal whole-school program the implementation process of which takes into consideration democratic principles, gradualness and the involvement of all parties interested in the work of the school – school administration, teachers, support staff, technical staff, students and parents. The program envisages the establishment of a unified support system for positive behaviour – jointly working out regulations at school, mastering them in everyday life, maintaining comprehensive positive communication with students, teachers, technical staff, parents, developing positive reinforcement system as well as introducing concrete measures in case of violating the regulations. Institutional municipal support units that are prepared for this work are involved in cases of especially complicated situations. The outcome of implementing the SPB is the increase of cases of pro-social, positive, safe, respectful and responsible behaviour and the decrease of cases of problematic and antisocial behaviour at school. The implementation of the program ensures a positive, physically and emotionally safe environment promoting the learning and facilitates students’ socially emotional and moral development.

The summarizing the implementation experience of the programs School – wide positive behaviour support (SWPBS)) developed in the USA and Positive behaviour, interactions and learning environment in school (PALS) developed in Norway allowed concluding that in both cases the quality evaluation instruments had been developed as a supplementary aid for schools for quality assurance the aim of which is to promote further development of this program through evaluating the quality of program implementation. In order to ensure the sustainability and quality of the program “Support for Positive Behaviour” in 39 educational institutions of Latvia quality assurance instruments were developed at the end of the project in Latvia that help schools to evaluate the process of implementing the program, to bring out the problematic areas and set further objectives for the their development. At the same time the developers of the program “Support for Positive behaviour” are aware that quality assurance is not just the use of the instruments; it is a systematic monitoring and evaluation of the development summarizing the information about different aspects and factors related to the introduction of the program aimed at maintaining the quality of the implementation of the program.

The authors will present the course of developing the quality assurance instruments for the program “Support for Positive Behaviour” and their approbation in the article. The aim of the study is to find out the applicability of the developed instruments, the probable results and how they can facilitate the development of the program and quality assurance at school. The article will present the first stage of the study.

Method

In order to single out the most important SPB quality indicators several focus group discussions were organized. All in all they involved 55 participants –headmasters of schools participating in the approbation of the program, administration representatives, municipality coordinators; a separate focus group interview with 7 teachers, two expert interviews with 2 SPB program developers. The participants of the focus group discussion had to answer the question: „what features allow you judging that the program “Support for Positive Behaviour” is being successfully implemented at school?” The focus group discussions resulted in isolating several indicative showings that were summarized. The developers of the SPB program, in their turn, pointed out several indicative showings that are essential to ensure the SPB methodology and to attain the aims and objectives set by SPB. Based on all this a semistructured questionnaire was designed. During the first testing study the questionnaire was spread on-line as the electronic questionnaire „Quality evaluation of the SPB introduction”. This electronic version of the questionnaire was sent to all 39 educational institutions. Filled in questionnaires were received from 17 schools. Data are being processed with the help of SPSS 22; the questionnaire is being checked and evaluated. A focus group interview with the school representatives who have filled in the questionnaire is planned after the summarizing of the data.

Expected Outcomes

The first stage of the study has resulted in working out the quality assurance instruments for evaluating the program “Support for Positive behaviour”. Significant dimensions of assessing SPB quality were isolated based on the summarized indicative showings: administrative support to SPB; work of the SPB team; implementation of the SPB methodology; establishment of positive environment at school; academic achievement; missed lessons; students’ responsibility for their behaviour; involvement of parents; cooperation with the municipality specialists (outside the school); community interest; ensuring the sustainability. The research is important in the following aspects: 1. To find out the applicability of the questionnaire for evaluating the quality of SPB implementation quality. 2. To find out the other aspects of quality assurance for implementing program “Support for Positive behaviour” in schools.

References

Canter, L. & Canter, M. (2001) Assertive Discipline. Positive Behaviour Management for Today’s Classroom. Los Angeles: Canter & Associates. Daniela, L., Nīmante, D., Kraģe, G. (2014) Development of support system for decreasing social exclusion. Teacher of the 21st century. Newcastle upon Tyne, Cambridge Scholar Publishing. Dreikurs, R., Cassel, P., Dreikurs-Ferguson, E. (2004) Discipline Without Tears: How to Reduce Conflict and Establish Cooperation in the Classroom. New York: John Wiley & Sons. Metzler, C. W., Biglan, A., Rusby, J. C. & Sprague, J. R. (2001) Evaluation of a comprehensive behavior management program to improve school-wide positive behavior support. Education and Treatment of Children, 24, 448-479. Nelsen, J. (1987) Positive Discipline. New York: Ballantine Books. Nīmante, D., Daniela, L., Samusēviča, A., Moļņika, B. (2013) Jauniešu sociālās atstumtības mazināšana: situācijas raksturojums pašvaldībās . Latvijas Universitāte, 61 lpp. ISBN978-9984-45-560-0 URL: http://www.atbalsts.lu.lv/uploads/f/20131004164347344.pdf Kounin, S. J. (1970) Discipline and Group management in classroom. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston. Osher, D., Bear, G. G., Sprague, J. R., Doyle, W. (2010) How Can We Improve School Discipline? Educational Researcher, 39, 48-58. Raščevska, M., Raževa, A., Martinsone, B., Tūbele, S., Vucenlazdāns, P., Vazne, Ž. (2012). Skolotāju aptaujas par skolēnu mācīšanās darbību un uzvedību (SASMDU) ticamība un validitāte. Latvijas Universitāte ISBN978-9984-45-560-0 http://www.atbalsts.lu.lv/uploads/f/20120824185915223.pdf Sørlie, M. & Ogden, T. (2007) Immediate Impacts of PALS: A school-wide multi-level programme targeting behaviour problems in elementary school. Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research. Routledge, 51 (5), 471-492. Sørlie, M. & Ogden, T. (2009) Implementing and Evaluating Empirically Based Fa¬mily and School Programmes for Children with Conduct Problems in Norway. In¬ternational Journal of Emotional Education, 1 (1), April, 96-107. Sugai, G., Horner, R. H., Dunlap, G., Hieneman, M., Lewis, T. J., Nelson, C. M., Scott, T., Liaupsin, C., Sailor, W., Turnbull, A. P., Turnbull III, H. R., Wickham, D., Wilcox, B. & Ruef, M. (2000) Applying positive behavior support and functional behavioral assessment in schools. Journal of Positive Behavior Interventions, 2 (3), 131-143. Sugai, G., Sprague, J. R., Horner, R. H. & Walker, H. M. (2000) Preventing school violence: The use of office discipline referrals to assess and monitor school-wide discipline interventions. Journal of Emotional and Behavioral Disorders, 8 (2), 94–101.

Author Information

Dita Nimante (presenting / submitting)

University of Latvia, Latvia

Linda Daniela (presenting)