(PS1-C71) Factors Associated with Priority Classroom Management Strategies: The Role of Teacher Stress and Executive Functioning Deficits

Teachers play a critical role in creating and maintaining high-quality education environments (Rhodes & Huston, 2012), which in turn are important for children’s cognitive, language, and social-emotional development, particularly for children with mental health difficulties (Burchinal et. Al, 2000; Mashburn). Classroom management strategies help create a safe, predictable, and productive environment. Because teacher use of these strategies is critical, identifying factors that may interfere with teachers’ implementation is vital. 

Stress is a normal response to upsetting or threatening events. Chronic stress can impede day-to-day functioning. Prolonged teacher stress negatively correlates with job satisfaction and positively correlates with intending to leave the teaching profession (Agyapong 2022). Additionally, teacher stress impacts one’s own well-being, their classroom practices, and their student outcomes. Executive functions are higher order, top-down, cognitive processes that are important for planning, attention, problem-solving, organizing information, resisting impulses, and goal-directed behavior (Blair & Urasche, 2011). Executive functioning has a known impact on adults’ skills which we think are critically linked to the implementation of classroom management skills. The goal of this study was to examine the association between two factors (i.e., teachers’ stress and executive functioning) and teachers’ use of priority classroom management strategies.  

Participants in this study were 80 general education teachers (n=30 from Cohort 1 ; n= 55 from Cohort 2) 11 elementary schools who were participating in a randomized clinical trial evaluating two teacher consultation packages. At the start of the school year teachers completed the Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Function (BRIEF; Gioia et al., 2000) and Teacher Stress Inventory (TSI; Fimian, 1988). Throughout the year, teachers participated in up to eight bi-weekly behavioral problem-solving consultation sessions (about every other week with fading over time). Teachers were observed weekly throughout the year and their use of priority strategies (e.g., review of rules, praise, response to rule violations) was coded using the Student Behavior-Teacher Response (SBTR; Pelham 2008) observation system (Owens et al. 2018) to discuss teacher strengths and areas for growth.  

Preliminary correlations analyses (with Cohort 1 only) revealed that teacher work-related stress was associated with lower appropriate response to rule violations mid-way through the fall semester (r = -.44, p = .039). Similarly, emotional stress was significantly associated with less improvement in use of teacher praise (labeled and unlabeled) over time (r = -.45 and -.42, respectively; ps>.05). Executive functioning scores were not related to teacher practices or growth in teacher practices. Although preliminary, results suggest that stress may interfere with use of some strategies, whereas executive functioning skills do not.  Data presented at the conference will include correlations and regression analyses with the full sample (Cohort 1 and 2). We will also present data contextualizing the relationships found (e.g., sample size with extreme stress).