Faculty and Student Perceptions of Disruptive Classroom Behaviors
Trent W. Maurer1, Diana Sturges, Debbie Allen, Danny Averette, & Sun-A Lee Georgia Southern University
Abstract: This project investigated differences between faculty and student perceptions of disruptive student behaviors and effective class management strategies. Participants (99 faculty, 179 students) from a single university completed a mixed-methods on-line questionnaire. Quantitative analyses revealed significant differences between faculty and student perceptions of behavior as “disruptive” on nine of 15 behaviors. Additionally, significant differences between faculty and student perceptions on the effectiveness of six of 13 class management strategies emerged. Qualitative analyses reinforced those findings. Taken together, the results suggest a substantial disconnect between faculty and student perceptions of disruptive classroom behaviors and highlight areas for faculty to improve with class management.
Keywords: disruptive behavior, class management, perceptions, faculty-student differences
1
Direct correspondence for this manuscript to: Trent Maurer, Department of Hospitality, Tourism, and Family & Consumer Sciences, Georgia Southern University, P.O. Box 8021, Statesboro, Georgia 30460, tmaurer@georgiasouthern.edu.
This investigation uses an online mixed-methods survey to explore faculty and student perceptions of disruptive student classroom behaviors. It addresses two key gaps in the prior literature on this subject: 1. How similar or dissimilar are faculty and student perceptions about what constitutes “disruptive behaviors” in the classroom? 2. How similar or dissimilar are faculty and student perceptions about the influence of various classroom management strategies on the frequency of disruptive behaviors in the classroom? Student disruptive behaviors in the classroom are a popular topic of both empirical research (Boice, 1996; De Lucia & Iasenza, 1995; Morrissette, 2001) and faculty discussions (Bartlett, 2004; Benton, 2007; mj_romo, 2008; Young, 2003). These venues note not only the disturbing presence of disruptive behaviors in the college classroom, but also an alarming increase in frequency in recent years (Lashley & de Meneses, 2001). Further, they describe at length the demoralizing effect of those behaviors on faculty (De Lucia & Iasenza, 1995; Morrissette, 2001; Wilson, 1990), many of whom were drawn to academe by the desire to teach in a disruption-free environment (Amada, 1992). Many faculty are surprised to discover they need to address disruptive behaviors in a college setting (Carbone, 1999) and are not adequately trained or prepared to do so (De Lucia & Iasenza, 1995 ; Hernandez & Fister, 2001). Indeed, most published advice for faculty does not address the issue of disruptive behaviors (Boice, 1996) despite the fact that faculty have become increasingly concerned about the issue (De Lucia & Iasenza, 1995). The impact of disruptive behaviors on faculty is not limited to a decrease in morale, or even an increase in stress, discontentment with the profession, or burnout (Appleby, 1990; Schneider, 1998). Faculty time devoted to planning classroom management strategies is time that is not spent in lesson planning or other pedagogical work (Morrissette, 2001). Disruptive
behaviors, therefore, indirectly reduce the quality of the learning environment by requiring faculty time and effort that should be directed at other forms of class preparation. Disruptive behaviors also directly reduce the quality of the learning environment: as few as 10% of students remain engaged in classes with high levels of disruptive behaviors (Boice, 1996) and students report disruptive classroom behaviors significantly hinder their learning (Wulff, Nyquist, & Abbott, 1987). As educators, faculty are concerned not only about their working conditions, but also about creating a positive learning space for their students (Feldmann, 2001). Disruptive behaviors compromise both, yet many faculty do not effectively address classroom disruptions. The reasons for this are twofold: 1. Faculty perceive a lack of administrative support for dealing with disruptive behaviors (Amada, 1992; Hernandez & Fister, 2001) and are concerned that any intervention might result in lower student evaluations (Tantleff-Dunn, Dunn, & Gokee, 2002) which could lead to lower performance reviews by administrators. 2. Faculty do not know how to effectively deal with disruptive behaviors (De Lucia & Iasenza, 1995; Hernandez & Fister, 2001). This second reason is richly illustrated in the literature, which is long on suggestions, but short on empirical evaluations of actual effectiveness. Suggestions range from listing rules in the syllabus (Mishra, 1992) to remaining silent until you have the full attention of the entire class (Herr, 1989) to demonstrating immediacy in the classroom (Burroughs, 2007). Nowhere in this literature is there data on how effective faculty and students think each of these strategies would be on reducing classroom disruptions. However, there is an even larger gap in the literature connected to the lack of data on faculty and student perceptions of effective classroom management strategies: the literature has yet to establish exactly what counts as “disruptive behaviors” to faculty and students or if the two
groups even use similar definitions. Clearly, both gaps need to be addressed if research on this topic is to move forward. This paper proposes to take the first step in addressing those gaps by using an online mixed-methods survey to explore faculty and student perceptions of disruptive student classroom behaviors. Because of the lack of prior research specifically addressing these issues, we propose two non-directional hypotheses: H1: Faculty and student perceptions about what constitutes “disruptive behaviors” in the classroom will be significantly different from one another. H2: Faculty and student perceptions about the influence of various classroom management strategies on the frequency of disruptive behaviors in the classroom will be significantly different from one another. Method Participants There were two categories of participants: faculty (N=99) and students (N=179). Demographic information for both groups is presented in Table 1. Materials All participants completed an IRB-approved on-line mixed-methods questionnaire. The questionnaire was administered through Survey Monkey and participants had to provide a password to access the questionnaire. This questionnaire consisted of five demographic questions (three for faculty only), 34 perception questions (three for faculty only, one for students only), and six qualitative questions (one for faculty only, one for students only). Other than those differences, both faculty and students received identical questionnaires. See Appendix.
Procedure Faculty and students at a southeastern American university with an enrollment of approximately 17,000 students were invited to participate in an on-line survey about student attendance. All university faculty (N = 690) were notified via email of the existence of the survey, the invitation to participate, the web address, and the password. Faculty members who taught in the undergraduate program were encouraged to tell their students about the survey in their courses. Students were notified about the survey in classes from participating faculty and the authors. Faculty and students who wanted to participate navigated to the web page for the survey, entered the provided password sent with the invitation to participate, and completed the survey. The faculty response of 99 reflects a response rate of 14.35%. Because not all students may have been notified about the survey, it was not possible to calculate the student response rate. Results Quantitative results To address hypothesis one and explore faculty and student perceptions of which behaviors are considered “disruptive,” a series of Chi-squared analyses were run. (Chi-squared was chosen over MANOVA because the dependent variables were dichotomous and not normally distributed.) To control for inflation of Type I error with 15 dependent variables, a Bonferroni correction was used to set a group wise alpha of p < .0033 (.05/15). For nine of the 15 behaviors, significant differences between faculty and students in the perception of those behaviors as “disruptive” emerged. Results are presented in Table 2. To address hypothesis two and explore faculty and student perceptions about the influence of various classroom management strategies on the frequency of disruptive behaviors
in the classroom, a MANOVA with group membership (faculty/student) as the independent variable and the 13 response strategies as the dependent variables was run. A significant multivariate effect emerged for group membership, Pillai’s Trace = .24, F (13, 228) = 5.60, p < .001, partial η2 = .24. Follow-up univariate ANOVAs for all 13 dependent variables revealed six significant models. Results are presented in Table 3. Because group membership was the only independent variable, univariate model statistics are identical to group membership statistics within the model and can be interpreted as such. For all six significant models, faculty reported the strategies would be less effective than students reported. Faculty alone were asked two additional quantitative questions: 1. “To what extent does disruptive classroom behavior make you consider leaving teaching for another profession?”; 2. “How supportive do you perceive administrators at Georgia Southern to be when it comes to faculty responding to disruptive classroom behaviors?”. Students alone were asked one additional quantitative question, “How often do the disruptive behaviors of other students interfere with your learning in a class?”. Results appear in Table 4. Qualitative results Two of the open-ended questions were subjected to qualitative analyses. The first question, “How would you define “disruptive classroom behavior?” What would be some examples?,” which was asked of both faculty and students, yielded five primary themes: 1. Tardiness/late arrivals; 2. Text messaging; 3. Talking while the professor is talking; 4. Talking on a cell phone/letting it ring; 5. Vague or overly broad general definitions (e.g., “Any activity that distracts the instructor or other students.”). There were significant differences between faculty and students in the frequency with which they mentioned each of these themes. Results appear in Table 5.
The second question, “What are the barriers for faculty in dealing with disruptive behaviors?,” which was asked only of faculty, yielded four primary themes: 1. Fear of retaliation on student evaluations, which could affect employment, promotion, tenure, and pay; 2. Lack of administrative support in dealing with disruptive students; 3. A prevailing “customer” mentality that treated students as consumers and that would allow them to demand that faculty let them disrupt the classroom environment if that is what they chose to do; 4. A lack of knowledge and training in how to deal with disruptive behaviors. See Table 5. Discussion This investigation used an online mixed-methods survey to explore faculty and student perceptions of what counts as “disruptive student classroom behaviors” and the effectiveness of various classroom management strategies in reducing the frequency of those behaviors. It was hypothesized that significant differences between faculty and students would emerge in both sets of perceptions. Both hypotheses were supported. Faculty and students significantly differed in their perceptions of a behavior as “disruptive” for nine of 15 possible behaviors, and significant differences between the groups emerged in the perception of how effective six of 13 class management strategies would be. For six of the nine significant differences between groups on the perception of a behavior as “disruptive,” faculty were more likely to view the behavior as disruptive: texting, reading papers/magazines, sleeping in class, drinking beverages in class, doing work for another course, and using laptops for unrelated work. For the remaining three differences, students were more likely to view the behavior as disruptive: talking out of turn, asking questions already answered, and asking irrelevant questions. As seen in Table 2, the magnitude of many of these differences is quite profound. For example, faculty were four times as likely as students to perceive doing
work for another course to be disruptive, and nearly twice as likely to perceive texting as disruptive. Indeed, as one qualitative response from a student asserted, “Texting is NOT disruptive.” Additional qualitative analyses (see Table 5) replicate these patterns. Likewise, students were nearly three times as likely as faculty to perceive asking questions that have already been answered as disruptive. Here, it is possible that there exists a fundamental difference between faculty and students in how this last behavior is perceived. Faculty may interpret repeat questions as a sign that some students are struggling with the material and require further instruction, clarification, or elaboration. In contrast, students may interpret repeat questions as a sign that their classmates have not been paying attention. Faculty are likely to expect that students will learn at different paces and that some will require more repetition than others; students, especially those for whom the material comes easily, may either misinterpret the questions of their classmates as signs that they haven’t been paying attention, or may resent having to spend more time going over material they themselves have already assimilated. Of course, it is also possible that these students are correct and that it is faculty who are misperceiving the situation—in our zeal to reach all of our students, we may assume a student just requires “a little extra explanation” when in fact that student hasn’t been paying attention. The general pattern of these faculty-student differences is also revealing. Five of the six behaviors that faculty were more likely than students to perceive as disruptive (excepting drinking beverages in class) could be considered “disrespectful” but not necessarily “disruptive,” particularly from a student perspective. If a student is not giving their professor the same undivided attention their professor is giving them, that could be considered rude, even disrespectful, and certainly a violation of the expectations many faculty set for their classrooms,
but is it necessarily “disruptive?” In what way is a student doing work for another course disrupting the learning environment? That student’s own learning may be hindered by their not paying attention, but does it really interfere with any other student’s learning? More importantly, how could the offending student know if their behavior is being disruptive, particularly if they believe the quiet and personalized nature of their behavior would not be distracting to anyone else because they don’t think it would be distracting to them if others did it? We argue that these behaviors could indeed be disruptive both to students, particularly students with attention deficits who would be especially susceptible to any distractions, and to faculty, who because of their view of the entire class are more likely to observe these behaviors—and be distracted by them—than students sitting in another part of the classroom. This last point is particularly important as distractions to faculty have the ability to affect all the students in the classroom, rather than the few in the immediate vicinity of the surrounding student. Consider this comment from a student’s response to how to define disruptive behavior: I think the most disruptive classroom behavior is actually teachers getting off topic and becoming distracted by other things. For example I don't think a cell phone ringing causes a whole lot of distraction but rather a teacher making a big deal out of the cell phone and completely losing train of thought. Here, a single student’s action can disrupt the entire class by disrupting the professor’s teaching, even if the individual effect of that behavior on other students’ learning would otherwise have been quite small. We concede that many students might initially have difficulty seeing the potential impact of these behaviors on their peers and their professors, especially if the students whose learning is disrupted or the professor who is distracted by their behavior do not bring it to the attention of the offending student. Certainly, the egocentrism characteristic of adolescents and young adults plays a role in this (Feldman, 2006). However, we believe this presents faculty with a unique
opportunity to address these behaviors in the manner we know best—by educating students that these behaviors may not appear disruptive, but that it is entirely possible that they are interfering with the learning of others in the classroom unbeknownst to the offending students. Students can easily see why talking on a cell phone would be disruptive (over 95% in this sample thought so), but it seems they need a little help to see why texting or reading a newspaper might be disruptive to others, even if they think it would not be and even if it would not disrupt their own learning if someone else did it. We need to teach them the Platinum Rule: Do unto others, not as you would have done unto you, but as they would have done unto them. This brings us to differences in the perception of class management strategies. For all six significant differences between faculty and students, faculty perceived the strategies to be less effective than students. It is likely that these differences emerged because of a very specific limitation of this investigation: a convenience sample of students. Given the nature of the topic of this investigation, the most parsimonious interpretation of these results is that those students who took the survey were those most strongly motivated to do so (i.e., those most irritated with the disruptive behaviors of their peers). In such a case, it is not surprising that these students would think that the classroom management strategies would be more effective because they would be effective if they were the violating student. Likewise, that would explain why so many students appeared to endorse punitive, even draconian strategies, like dismissing the entire class or yelling at the offending student; the students in the sample wanted punishment for classroom disruptors because it was those students who learning was most being disrupted. However, seasoned faculty (average years in teaching over 13 in this sample) may be more pessimistic about the effectiveness of these strategies because of prior failures of those strategies to control classroom disruptions. Although neither students nor faculty could reach 100% consensus about
the effectiveness of any strategy, they did appear to be largely in agreement that if faculty completely ignored disruptive behaviors, their frequency would increase. So why then do faculty not effectively address disruptive behaviors? This question is particularly relevant given that for 10 of the 13 listed strategies, mean faculty responses indicated a perception that the strategy would at least somewhat reduce classroom disruptions. The prior literature suggested two reasons: 1. Faculty perceive a lack of administrative support for dealing with disruptive behaviors (Amada, 1992; Hernandez & Fister, 2001) and are concerned that any intervention might result in lower student evaluations (Tantleff-Dunn et al., 2002) which could lead to lower performance reviews by administrators. 2. Faculty do not know how to effectively deal with disruptive behaviors (De Lucia & Iasenza, 1995; Hernandez & Fister, 2001). The results of this investigation offer support for both. Less than 50% of the faculty in the sample perceived the campus administration to be supportive of faculty in dealing with disruptive behavior. Over 13% specifically mentioned lack of administrative support as a barrier to dealing with it, with another 6% mentioning fear of low student evaluations and yet another 6% mentioning a “customer” mentality among administrators when dealing with students. A further 8% mentioned lack of knowledge or training as a barrier. We believe there is an additional explanation for why faculty do not effectively address disruptive behaviors that is suggested by our qualitative data: faculty cannot effectively define what disruptive behavior is. Nearly half of the faculty in this sample, when asked to define disruptive behaviors, gave an overly broad or general definition that would be impossible for a student to interpret (e.g., “Any activity that distracts the instructor or other students.”). As we have already seen, students and faculty interpret the same behaviors in different ways and students may incorrectly assume that their behaviors are not distracting to anyone else. Although
such broad definitions are generally accurate, their lack of precision is what make is impossible for students to know what faculty mean. Further exacerbating this problem, there is no consensus among faculty about what constitutes “disruptive behaviors.” Two percent of faculty did not perceive talking on a cell phone to be disruptive and eight percent thought drinking beverages was. How is a student supposed to know what each of their individual professors thinks is or is not disruptive if their only definition is, “Any activity that distracts the instructor or other students?” How can students comply with a rule that they do not understand? How much faculty time will be wasted trying to enforce such a nebulous rule? Here we have a great potential, not only for educating students to think beyond themselves and what they would find disruptive, but also for educating faculty to better communicate their expectations to students along with the idea that different faculty have different expectations. We must also face the possibility that we may have to “live with” certain levels of classroom disruption or that certain disruptive behaviors may not logistically be preventable, in spite of our best efforts. For example, nearly one in five faculty in this sample identified student tardiness as an example of a disruptive behavior. Indubitably, late arrivals have great potential to be disruptive, especially in certain types of classes or in rooms with certain layouts (e.g., those where latecomers must walk in front of the professor, the board, and many other students before they can get to a seat). However, rising enrollments can create scheduling problems as it becomes more and more difficult to find classroom space for everlarger courses. When a faculty member is teaching classes on opposite ends of campus with only a 10 minute passing period in between, would they still consider students arriving late to be disruptive? If faculty do not have the ability to schedule their course classrooms any closer together, realistically will students be able to do any better with their schedules? Does this
reality make a late arrival any less “objectively disruptive?” Does the latecomer miss any less class time because of the reason why they were late? In situations like these where logistics limit faculty options, we need further research and further discussion to explore the best ways to minimize the impact of these disruptions not only on student learning but also on faculty stress, discontentment, and morale. Reflections from the Conference Session During the session, when we queried attendees about the kinds of behaviors they see as disruptive to class, answers included: using a cell phone/ringing phone, text messaging, asking questions that have already been answered, arriving late/leaving early, using laptops for unrelated work, sleeping, doing work for another course, working crossword puzzles, and bringing a child to class. Obviously, there was substantial overlap between the behaviors they spontaneously suggested before we presented our research and our own findings, which suggests a fair amount of external validity to our results. Additionally, we distributed a worksheet to attendees and had them form small groups. In these groups, we asked questions similar to those on the survey: 1. To what extent do you experience disruptive behaviors in your classroom and how important is this issue to you? In response to this question, attendees nearly universally agreed that the problem does exist at their institutions, though their levels of personal experience with it varied substantially from “Somewhat important but not at the top of a priority list for me since I don’t experience them on a regular basis” to “every class; very important.” Attendees also suggested the problem may be more frequent for younger instructors and female instructors because students may be less likely to afford them the same respect they give to older and male instructors.
2. How do you deal with disruptive behaviors in your classes? Again, attendees suggested many of the same strategies we evaluated in our project, from ignoring the behavior to speaking privately with the student after class to ejecting the violator. One attendee shared his method of assigning students to teams, each team representing a “company” like in his industry. In each company, there is a student who is the “timekeeper” who is responsible for taking attendance in his group and recording it on “timesheets” to be turned in to the instructor every week. This student is responsible for deducting absent students’ “sick leave” for tardies and absences and once a student has used up all their allowed “sick leave,” there are direct consequences for their grade in the course. 3. In your classes, what have you done to address disruptive behaviors that has been effective? Attendees offered examples using two very different strategies. The first strategy was largely punitive, with items such as providing consequences for violations, listing prohibited behaviors in syllabi, etc. The second strategy was more educational in nature, and consisted of items such as teaching students about academic culture and how the different setting has different rules, approaching students with an “I need you help” in maintaining the environment attitude, and treating students with the respect we expect in return. Attendees thought each strategy could be appropriate in certain situations, but that no one approach was a panacea. 4. What have you done that hasn’t been as effective? Here, the most common response was to ignore the behavior, which is consistent with the results of our investigation. Other examples included making the behavior public and trying to use peer pressure to stop it, reminding students of the rules, confronting the violators, and ejecting the violators. It should be noted that many of the strategies suggested as effective in the last
question were also listed in this section as ineffective, which indicates that no single strategy is likely to be universally effective. 5. Is there any method or technique to address disruptive behaviors that you would like to try? Attendees offered several suggestions here, all of which focused on increasing student engagement/involvement: using POGIL lessons, having students’ present the discussions, involving students in co-creating classroom rules and guidelines, and considering how one’s teaching may not be interactive or “entertaining” enough to prevent the boredom that appears to lead to some of these behaviors. Finally, one additional issue was raised during the session that provides additional food for thought: In the era of helicopter parents who expect to be able to reach their child 24/7, especially in the event of a campus/local emergency, how might we as instructors both recognize this reality and still maintain a disruption-free classroom? As ever more college instructors are temporary, adjunct, or otherwise non-tenure track, and therefore significantly more vulnerable to students’ or parents’ complaints, what can colleges and universities do to assist their instructors in creating healthy learning environments in the classroom? How can they reconcile mission statements that praise a culture of engagement and a learner-centered approach with a business model student-as-customer and customer is always right management strategy? In the era of declining state appropriations for higher education and increasing (though mislead) public cries for accountability, how long can institutions of higher education continue the status quo?
References Amada, G. (1992). Coping with the disruptive college student: A practical model. Journal of American College Health, 40, 203-215. Appleby, D. (1990). Faculty and student perceptions of irritating behaviors in the college classroom. Journal of Staff, Program, and Organization Development, 8, 41-46. Bartlett, T. (2004, September 17). Taking control of the classroom. The Chronicle of Higher Education, pp. A8-A9. Benton, T.H. (2007,.May 11). Remedial civility training. The Chronicle of Higher Education, p. C2. Boice, B. (1996). Classroom incivilities. Research in Higher Education, 37, 453-486. Burroughs, N.F. (2007). A reinvestigation of the relationship of teacher nonverbal immediacy and student compliance-resistance with learning. Communication Education, 56, 453475. Carbone, E. (1999). Students behaving badly in large classes. New Directions for Teaching and Learning, 77, 35-43. De Lucia, R.C., & Iasenza, S. (1995). Student disruption, disrespect, and disorder in class: A seminar for faculty. Journal of College Student Development, 36, 385-388. Feldman, R.S. (2006). Development across the life span (4th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson. Feldmann, L.J. (2001). Classroom civility is another of our instructor responsibilities. College Teaching, 49, 137-140. Hernandez, T. J., & Fister, D.L. (2001). Dealing with disruptive and emotional college students: A systems model. Journal of College Counseling, 4, 49-62.
Herr, K.U. (1989). Improving teaching and learning in large classes: A practical manual. Ft. Collins, CO: Colorado State University, Office of Instructional Services. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED312215). Lashley, F.R., & de Meneses, M. (2001). Student civility in nursing programs: A national survey. Journal of Professional Nursing, 17, 81-86. Mishra, A.K. (1992). Dealing with disruptive classroom behavior. Red Deer, Alberta: Red Deer College. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED348084) mj_romo. (2008, September 16). Curbing high school behavior...help, please [Msg 1]. Message posted to http://chronicle.com/forums/index.php/topic,53332.0.html. Morrissette, P.J. (2001). Reducing incivility in the university/college classroom. International Electronic Journal for Leadership in Learning, 5. Retrieved October 9, 2008, from www.ucalgary.ca/~iejll. Schneider, A. (1998, March 27). Insubordination and intimidation signal the end of decorum in many classrooms. The Chronicle of Higher Education, pp. A12-A14. Tantleff-Dunn, S., Dunn, M.E., & Gokee, J.L. (2002). Understanding faculty-student conflict: Student perceptions of precipitating events and faculty responses. Teaching of Psychology, 29, 197-202. Wilson, R. (1990, January 24). Boyer sees lower quality of campus life, erosion of sense of community. The Chronicle of Higher Education, pp. A1, A32. Wulff, D.H., Nyquist, J.D., & Abbott, R.D. (1987). Students’ perceptions of large classes. New Directions for Teaching and Learning, 32, 17-30. Young, J.R. (2003, August 8). Sssshhh. We’re taking notes here. The Chronicle of Higher Education, pp. A29-A30.
Appendix: Project Measures Instructions: This survey is designed to learn about faculty and students’ perceptions about classroom management. Please indicate your answers to the questions below. FACULTY VERSION: Demographic Questions 1. Please indicate your gender: a. Male b. Female 2. Please indicate your ethnicity: a. White b. African-American c. Hispanic d. Asian e. Other 3. Please indicate your College: a. COBA b. COE c. CHHS d. CIT e. CLASS f. COST 4. What is your employment classification: a. tenured/tenure-track faculty b. full-time temporary faculty c. part-time temporary faculty d. other 5. How many years have you taught in higher education? _____ Perception Questions 1. How would you define “disruptive classroom behavior?” What would be some examples? 2. Which of the following would you consider “disruptive classroom behaviors?” Check all that apply. a. Talking while a professor is talking, like side conversations b. Text messaging c. Talking on a cell phone
3. 4. 5.
6.
d. Reading a newspaper, magazine, or other publication that is not part of a class activity e. Sleeping in class f. Eating in class g. Drinking soda, water, or other beverages in class h. Arriving to class late i. Leaving class early j. Packing up before class has been dismissed k. Doing work for another class l. Using laptops for non-class related things, like surfing the Net or playing games m. Listening to music/iPods during class n. Asking questions that have already been answered o. Asking irrelevant questions What factors contribute to disruptive classroom behaviors? If a professor observes disruptive behavior in their classroom, what could happen to the student? What are the professor’s options for responding to that disruption? Name one method or technique that professors could use that you think would be effective in responding to classroom disruptions and explain why you think it would be effective. Rate each of the following class management strategies in terms of the effect you think they would have on classroom disruptions: Would somewhat decrease disruptions 2 No effect either way Would somewhat increase disruptions 4 Would significantly increase disruptions 5
Would significantly decrease disruptions 1 a. b. c. d. e. f. g. h. i. j. k. l. m.
3
Professor lists prohibited behaviors in the syllabus Professor announces prohibited behaviors on the first day Professor announces prohibited behaviors at the start of each class Professor posts signs prohibiting the behaviors in the classroom Professor penalizes students who engage in prohibited behaviors with loss of points in the course Professor penalizes students who engage in prohibited behaviors by dismissing them from class for the remainder of the class period Professor tells students who are caught engaging in prohibited behaviors to stop the behavior Professor asks the disruptive student if they are ok/if everything is alright Professor stops teaching and is silent until the prohibited behaviors stop Professor dismisses the entire class and does not cover the remainder of the material for the day Professor yells at the student engaging in prohibited behaviors Professor speaks to disruptive students after class one-on-one Professor completely ignores any classroom disruptions
7. How often do you witness disruptive classroom behavior in your classes? Never Rarely Occasionally Frequently Very Frequently 1 2 3 4 5 8. To what extent does disruptive classroom behavior make you consider leaving teaching for another profession? No impact at all Very Little Some A Fair Amount A Lot 1 2 3 4 5 9. What are the barriers for faculty in dealing with disruptive behaviors? 10. How prepared do you feel you are to effectively deal with disruptive behaviors if they should arise in your classroom? Completely Unprepared Neither Prepared Prepared Completely Unprepared nor Unprepared Prepared 1 2 3 4 5 11. How supportive do you perceive administrators at Georgia Southern to be when it comes to faculty responding to disruptive classroom behaviors? Completely Somewhat Somewhat Completely Neutral Unsupportive Unsupportive Supportive Supportive 1 2 3 4 5 12. Indicate your opinion of this statement: “Georgia Southern should be doing more to prevent disruptive classroom behaviors.” Strongly Neither Agree Disagree Agree Strongly Agree Disagree nor Disagree 1 2 3 4 5 STUDENT VERSION: Demographic Questions 1. Please indicate your gender: a. Male b. Female 2. Please indicate your ethnicity: a. White b. African-American c. Hispanic d. Asian e. Other 3. How would you define “disruptive classroom behavior?” What would be some examples?
4. Which of the following would you consider “disruptive classroom behaviors?” Check all that apply. a. Talking while a professor is talking, like side conversations b. Text messaging c. Talking on a cell phone d. Reading a newspaper, magazine, or other publication that is not part of a class activity e. Sleeping in class f. Eating in class g. Drinking soda, water, or other beverages in class h. Arriving to class late i. Leaving class early j. Packing up before class has been dismissed k. Doing work for another class l. Using laptops for non-class related things, like surfing the Net or playing games m. Listening to music/iPods during class n. Asking questions that have already been answered o. Asking irrelevant questions 2. What factors contribute to disruptive classroom behaviors? 3. If a professor observes disruptive behavior in their classroom, what could happen to the student? What are the professor’s options for responding to that disruption? 4. Name one method or technique that professors could use that you think would be effective in responding to classroom disruptions and explain why you think it would be effective. 5. Rate each of the following class management strategies in terms of the effect you think they would have on classroom disruptions:
Would significantly decrease disruptions 1 a. b. c. d. e. f. g. h. i.
Would somewhat decrease disruptions 2
No effect either way
Would somewhat increase disruptions 4
3
Would significantly increase disruptions 5
Professor lists prohibited behaviors in the syllabus Professor announces prohibited behaviors on the first day Professor announces prohibited behaviors at the start of each class Professor posts signs prohibiting the behaviors in the classroom Professor penalizes students who engage in prohibited behaviors with loss of points in the course Professor penalizes students who engage in prohibited behaviors by dismissing them from class for the remainder of the class period Professor tells students who are caught engaging in prohibited behaviors to stop the behavior Professor asks the disruptive student if they are ok/if everything is alright Professor stops teaching and is silent until the prohibited behaviors stop
j. Professor dismisses the entire class and does not cover the remainder of the material for the day k. Professor yells at the student engaging in prohibited behaviors l. Professor speaks to disruptive students after class one-on-one m. Professor completely ignores any classroom disruptions 6. How often do you witness disruptive classroom behavior in your classes? Never Rarely Occasionally Frequently Very Frequently 1 2 3 4 5 7. How often do the disruptive behaviors of other students interfere with your learning in a class? Never Rarely Occasionally Frequently Very Frequently 1 2 3 4 5 8. Indicate your opinion of this statement: “Georgia Southern should be doing more to prevent disruptive classroom behaviors.” Strongly Neither Agree Disagree Agree Strongly Agree Disagree nor Disagree 1 2 3 4 5 9. If you engaged in a disruptive behavior in class, what would be the most effective way for the professor to get you to stop doing that behavior and why?
Table 1 Demographic Information. Group Variable Faculty (N = 99) Student (N = 179) Gender Male 43 (43.4%) 30 (16.8%) Female 56 (56.6%) 149 (83.2%) Ethnicity White 86 (87.8%) 138 (77.1%) African-American 3 (3.1%) 34 (19.0%) Hispanic 1 (1.0%) 0 (0.0%) Asian 3 (3.1%) 2 (1.1%) Other 5 (5.1%) 5 (2.8%) College Business 21 (21.2%) — Education 8 (8.1%) — Health/Human Sciences 17 (17.2%) — Information Technology 2 (2.0%) — Liberal Arts/Social Sciences 32 (32.3%) — Science and Technology 18 (18.2%) — Other 1 (1.0%) — Employment classification Tenured/tenure-track 82 (82.8%) — Full-time temporary 10 (10.1%) — Part-time temporary 2 (2.0%) — Other 5 (5.1%) — Years teaching in higher 13.43 (9.92) — education Note. One faculty member did not report ethnicity. Only faculty were asked to list College. Numbers for years teaching in higher education are mean and standard deviation.
Table 2 Chi-squared Analyses of Perceptions of “Disruptive Behaviors” (N = 278) Group Behavior Faculty (N = 99) Student (N = 179) Χ2 Φ Talking out of turn 2.17* 0.09 No 8 7 Yes 91 172 Text messaging 33.05* 0.34 No 20 100 Yes 79 79 Talking on a cell phone 1.10 — No 2 8 Yes 97 171 Reading newspaper/magazines 48.97* 0.42 No 23 120 Yes 76 59 Sleeping in class 18.25* 0.26 No 39 118 Yes 60 61 Eating in class .41 — No 66 126 Yes 33 53 Drinking soda/water in class 5.28* 0.14 No 91 175 Yes 8 4 Arriving late .62 — No 26 55 Yes 73 124 Leaving early 2.68 — No 29 70 Yes 70 109 Packing up before dismissal 2.02 — No 21 52 Yes 78 127 Doing work for another class 81.90* 0.54 No 27 147 Yes 72 32 Using laptops for surfing Net or playing games 21.64* 0.28 No 24 95 Yes 75 84 Listening to iPods/music .68 — No 19 42 Yes 80 137 Asking questions already answered 34.08* 0.35 No 81 82 Yes 18 97 Asking irrelevant questions 37.92* 0.37 No 64 48 Yes 35 131 Note. df = 1. Φ = effect size as measured by phi coefficient, unreported if test statistic did not meet significance. * = p < .0033.
Table 3 MANOVA Analyses of Faculty/Student Differences in Effective Management Strategies (N =242) Faculty (N = 83) Students (N = 159) Strategy M SE M SE F (1, 241) Partial η2 List prohibited behaviors 2.15 .07 2.25 .05 1.45 — in syllabus Announce prohibited behaviors on first day 2.07 .07 2.04 .05 .11 — of class Announce prohibited behaviors at start of 2.36 .09 1.90 .07 15.74* 0.06 class Post signs in the 2.72 .08 2.37 .05 14.50* 0.06 classroom Penalize students with 1.66 .07 1.21 .05 26.55* .010 point loss Penalize students with 1.66 .09 1.37 .06 7.64* 0.03 ejection from class Tell disruptive students to 1.96 .07 1.93 .05 .14 — stop Ask disruptive students if 2.35 .08 2.45 .06 1.03 — they are ok Stop teaching and remain silent until behavior 2.12 .10 2.15 .07 .04 — ceases Dismiss the entire class 3.11 .14 2.37 .10 17.83* 0.07 Yell at the disruptive 3.16 .13 2.30 .09 30.32* 0.11 student Speak to disruptive 1.84 .07 1.72 .05 1.87 — student after class Completely ignore the 4.22 .09 4.15 .07 .32 — behavior Note. Partial η2 is effect size as measured by partial eta-squared, unreported if test statistic did not meet significance. Response options: 1 = “Would significantly decrease disruptions” to 5 = “Would significantly increase disruptions.” * = p < .01.
Table 4 Descriptive Statistics for Group-Specific Questions
Question Faculty Leave profession Administrative support Student Disrupts own learning 1 46.9% 9.6% Response Option 2 3 4 29.2% 20.2% 17.7% 24.5% 5.2% 28.7% 5 1.0% 17.0% M 1.84 3.23 SD .97 1.23
2.4%
31.4%
46.2%
15.4%
4.7%
2.89
.86
Note. For “Leave profession” response options 1 = “No impact at all” to 5 = “A lot”; for “Administrative support” 1 = “Completely Unsupportive” to 5 = “Completely Supportive”; for “Disrupts own learning” 1 = “Never” to 5 = “Very Frequently”.
Table 5 Qualitative Analyses
Group Theme Definition/Examples of disruptive behaviors Tardy/Arriving late Text messaging Talking when professor is talking Talking on cell phone/ringing Vague/Overly general definition Perceived barriers to class management Student evaluations Lack of administrative support “Customer” mentality Lack of information/training Faculty 18.2% 17.2% 43.4% 26.3% 46.5% 6.1% 13.1% 6.1% 8.1% Student 6.7% 8.9% 51.4% 32.4% 34.1% — — — —
Note. Numbers represent percentage of each group who mentioned that theme.