Student Teachers and Classroom Discipline

Abstract

Participants in this study were 135 student teachers at Indiana University who submitted detailed written narratives describing one effectively managed and one ineffectively managed incident involving a discipline problem. Results showed that the student teachers cited five types of discipline problems; the most frequently described involved disruption, defiance, and inattention. The student teachers used seven different strategies when attempting to manage these discipline problems, the most effective of which were positive reinforcement, explanation, and a change of teaching strategy. The major conclusions of the study were that (a) elementary-and secondary-level student teachers defined and managed discipline problems in much the same way, (b) the most effective strategies were the most “humanistic”, and (c) the least effective strategies were the most “authoritarian.”