Date of Conferral

2015

Degree

Doctor of Education (Ed.D.)

School

Education

Advisor

Don Jones

Abstract

In the local school district under study, there has been a lack of professional development (PD) in classroom management, and challenging student behaviors in the classroom are increasing, eroding teachers' self-efficacy. The purpose of this correlational study, guided by a constructivist theoretical framework, was to examine the relationship between teachers' self-efficacy in the classroom when addressing challenging student behaviors and the amount of PD that the teachers have had in classroom management. The convenience sample comprised 99 teachers from 8 elementary schools; this total was based upon a response rate of 45%. The instrument, the Teacher Sense of Efficacy Scale (TSES), was administered via SurveyMonkey-®. Although the Pearson product-moment correlation showed that PD in classroom management and teachers' self-efficacy were not significantly related, the descriptive TSES results indicated that teachers needed specific guidance in addressing challenging students, as evidenced by the lowest score on the TSES for the question asking teachers how well they are able to educate the most difficult students. Instead of planning another series of broad PD sessions for teachers, a behavior management manual was designed to simultaneously help teachers manage challenging student behaviors and increase their self-efficacy in the classroom when addressing challenging student behaviors. The goal is to provide teachers with a manual that they can reference to find resources to address challenging student behaviors and allow them to focus on academic achievement. This behavior management manual for teachers has implications for positive social change in that it can educate teachers on how to manage challenging student behaviors and potentially improve academic performance.

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