The Effects of Tootling on Disruptive and Academic Behaviors in High School

<p>Considered the opposite of tattling, tootling is a procedure where students report their classmates’ positive behavior instead of inappropriate behavior. This study examined the effects of tootling on students’ behavior in three general education high school classrooms. An A-B-A-B withdrawal with follow-up design was used to assess the effects of the intervention on decreasing classwide disruptive behavior and increasing academically engaged behavior. Students wrote tootles anonymously on paper slips, and deposited them into a marked container. An interdependent group contingency procedure was used to create a class goal for the number of submitted tootles, which led to a class reward when achieved. The teacher recorded the number of tootles submitted on a publicly posted progress chart, and verbally reported a sample of tootles at the end of each class period. Students created a new name for the intervention, and voted on class rewards. All classrooms displayed decreases in disruptive behavior and increases in academically engaged behavior during intervention phases. These results suggest that tootling can provide high school teachers a method for positively reinforcing students’ prosocial behavior, and function as a preventative measure against disruptive behavior.</p> <p>Doctoral dissertation: <a href="http://aquila.usm.edu/dissertations/909/">http://aquila.usm.edu/dissertations/909/</a></p>

Name thesis:degree_name

Master of Arts (MA)

Level thesis:degree_level

Masters Thesis

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Psychology

Year dc:date.available

2015

Author dc:creator

• Lum, John Dylan Ken

Contributors dc:contributor

• Daniel H. Tingstrom
• Brad A. Dufrene
• Keith C. Radley

• tootling
• high school
• classroom
• behavior
• intervention
• group contingency
• Child Psychology
• Psychology
• School Psychology

Repository record dc:identifier

https://aquila.usm.edu/masters_theses/114

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:aquila.usm.edu:masters_theses-1122