(PS4-B37) Examining Factors Correlated with Teacher’s Use of a Technology Based Platform to Support Equity Focused Positive Behavior Supports in the Classroom

Critical reviews of educational and psychological studies reveal that most classroom management research has been conducted by white scholars trained in a majority, Eurocentric perspective (Graham, 1992; Roberts et al., 2020), and primarily tested in predominantly white, middle-income samples. Thus, students who are marginalized due to intersecting identities may not reap the benefits of this work (Sabnis & Proctor, 2022).  Inequities experienced by such students (e.g., disproportionate exclusionary discipline; U.S. Department of Education, 2016) highlight the need for development and evaluation of strategies to promote equity-focused positive behavioral supports.  One way to do this is to provide teachers with interactive technology that gives them a private space to learn at their own pace and set goals to improve use of equity-focused supports. Research on another interactive technology platform designed to support teachers’ implementation of classroom interventions has shown that 30-50% of teachers can use the platform to implement an intervention with minimal external support (Mixon et al., 2019; Owens et al., 2019). However, we are unaware of any study that has examined factors associated with teachers’ use of technology designed to facilitate equity-focused positive behavior supports.  

This study examined teacher-level factors that might be associated with teachers’ use of such technology, including general technology acceptance (Chow et al., 2012), teacher self-efficacy (Moore-Hayes, 2011; Uluyol et al., 2016), and teacher stress (Larson et al., 2018; Owens et al. 2019), as each of these factors have been shown to be related to  technology use and/or implementation of positive behavior supports. To date, p</span>articipants are 97 elementary school educators (92.8% female, 93.8% white) who completed self-report measures in the fall and winter assessing stress, self-efficacy for classroom management and culturally responsive practices, and technology acceptability. Teachers were given access to the technology platform in August. Platform use was defined as completing self-assessments of strategy use, completing self-reflection activities on equity-focused topics, setting goals for improvement on equity-focused strategies, and reviewing progress on goals. Preliminary analyses indicate that stress related to student discipline (as assessed in fall) was positively correlated with completion of self-assessments (r = .25, p< .05) and goal reviews (r = .23, p< .05). Further, winter stress related to student discipline was positively associated with goal reviews (r = .28, p< .05) and goals mastered (r = .29, p< .05). No other variables were significantly correlated with technology use. In contrast to previous findings that suggest higher stress was a barrier to implementation of classroom interventions (Owens et al., 2019), these findings suggest that stress may have motivated teachers to seek out resources and set goals for improvement in practices. For the conference presentation, regression analyses will be conducted using data from the entire school year to examine relative predictors of technology use. Findings will have useful implications for supporting professional development of equity-focused supports.