Elementary teachers' perceptions regarding school behavior problems: Implications for school psychological services

ELEMENTARY TEACHERS’ PERCEPTIONS REGARDING SCHOOL BEHAVIOR PROB-LEMS: IMPLICATIONS FOR SCHOOL PSYCHOLOGICAL SERVICES

i. bibou-nakou, g. kiosseoglou, and a. stogiannidou

Aristotle University of Thessaloniki

The study focuses upon teachers’perceptions of school behavior problems and preferred classroommanagement actions. Two hundred elementary school teachers were evaluated with a questionnairecomprising assessment of causal attributions and goal-directed behavior on the part of the teach-ers, when dealing with classroom misbehavior problems. Internal student-related attributions werethose most frequently adopted by the teachers, even though teachers’ explanations varied signifi-cantly across school problems. Misbehavior-related attributions were significantly associated withteachers’ preferred practices. Our results support the application of psychological principles to ed-ucational practice through an understanding of teachers’ discipline-related theories. © 2000 JohnWiley & Sons, Inc.

Introduction

Research in teacher perceptions of children’s undesirable behavior is a tradition in educationalpsychology (Langfeldt, 1992). However, problem behavior from the children’s side has also beendealt with by researchers in the field of developmental psychopathology (Weisz, Chaiyasit, Weiss,Eastman, & Jackson, 1995). Teachers, along with parents, have been the main informants on the dif-ficulties and the developmental differences in elementary school children. Issues in the study ofteacher beliefs concern the nature and the origin of these beliefs, and the relation between beliefs,behavior, and children’s psychosocial and cognitive development. Therefore, considerable attentionhas been given to the formation of teacher beliefs and expectations in relation to the child’s achieve-ment and academic performance (Fang, 1996; Weiner, 1974; Weiner, 1985; Witty & DeBaryshe,1994). Specifically, until now, research into teachers’ attributions has been primarily concerned withthe explanations presented for academic success and failure and the causal factors of children’s ef-fort and ability (Cunningham & Sugawara, 1988; Lovejoy, 1996). The perceived causes of academ-ic achievement have been specified, with particular consideration given to the distinction betweeninternal or personal causality and external or environmental causality (Weiner, 1992). Less evidencehas been presented so far on teachers’ attributions and perceptions of discipline and behavior prob-lems (Diamond, 1991; Johnson, 1994; Rogers, 1982).

Despite the increasing evidence that teachers’ beliefs considerably influence their ways of un-derstanding and acting in the classroom (Davis & Sumara, 1997; Merrett & Wheldall, 1993; Mill-man, Schaefer, & Cohen, 1982), the nature and the origin of teachers’ representations concerningclassroom behavior have not been thoroughly searched. Teachers’ discipline-related attributionsform part of their subjective theories, which have also been called professional theories. Their prac-tical, personal or craft knowledge (Macnamara & Slingsby, 1993) is applied in constructing schoolreality (Dann, 1990) and could be recorded, analyzed, and incorporated within the professionalknowledge base of teachers. Consequently, the application of psychology to educational practicethrough an understanding of the teachers’ discipline-related subjective theories is a promising ap-proach for the planning and development of school-based intervention studies (Calderhead, 1988;Diamond, 1991; Hunt, 1978). Teachers’ “diagnosis” (Tillema, 1995) of knowledge and beliefs con-cerning behavior problems in classroom is vital, because teachers have a primary role in identifyingsuch problems (Zimmerman, Khoury, Vega, Gil, & Warheit, 1995). Further, pupils are particularly

Psychology in the Schools, Vol. 37(2), 2000© 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

123

Correspondence to: I. Bibou-Nakou, Department of Primary Education, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, 54006Thessaloniki, Greece.

alert to the constructions of their teachers, and seem to experience accurately the sorts of behaviorthat is expected of them (Bahad, 1990; Diamond, 1991; O’Hagan & Edmunds, 1982).

Taking existing knowledge into consideration, the present research represents an effort to es-tablish the link between the teachers’ explanations of student misbehavior and their reactions to thatmisbehavior. The position of mastery or understanding on the part of the teachers has been used asour main theoretical framework. The above position fits within attribution theories that are concernedwith perceptions of causality or the perceived reasons for a particular event’s occurrence (Weiner,1992). Correspondingly, the basic aims of this study were formulated on the basis of the relationshipbetween teachers’ behavior-related attributions and their preferred practices to deal with misbehav-ior issues. Further, the way the types of misbehavior interact with this relationship was also assessedin the context of the Greek culture.

Investigation Context

It is well known that teacher perceptions of problem behavior in the primary sector are judgedto be “troublesome” according to the different social norms prevailing in each culture; some behav-iors may be seen as more or less desirable, reflecting cross-cultural differences (Weisz et al.,1995).

In Greece, there is a lack of research in the area of teacher beliefs and preferred practices forstudent misbehavior problems. Until a few years ago, elementary school teacher training was pro-vided by higher level, nonuniversity institutions and lasted for two years (Kazamias, 1987). Teachereducation, now a university degree, is still mainly based upon traditional conceptions of pedagogywith a focus upon the didactic transmission of information. The role of teachers is restricted and dis-enfranchised from developing knowledge of their own practice (Porpodas, 1987). The state controlof elementary schools is based on the concentration of the decision-making process within the cen-tral organs of the state, with a highly centralist administration, leaving little margin for individualinitiatives (Damanakis, 1998). Many Greek teachers report significant difficulties experienced inschool practice and related to the knowledge of educational theory and psychology. The psycholog-ical context of education is based on “orthodox behaviorism” (Vamvoukas, 1987), with special em-phasis on the behavioral dogma of “adapting” pupils to adult society. There is a lack of evidence re-garding teacher attitudes and beliefs concerning discipline issues. We do know, however, that teacherperceptions of competent children are consistent with the results in other Western countries, and fa-vor the children that are sociable, manageable for teachers and parents, with good academic perfor-mance, and engaged in classroom activities (Motti-Stefanidi, Besevegis, & Giannitsas, 1996).

Method

Sample and Procedure

Participants were 200 fulltime elementary school teachers from Northern Greece, who were re-quired to attend a formal in-service training program. The program aimed at upgrading the teachers’professional knowledge and understanding in various disciplines (i.e., physics, language, education,psychology ). The nature and the quality of their background training was similar, the majority ofthem having graduated from teacher-training academies. Table 1 presents the distribution of teach-ers by sex, age, and teaching experience (in years). As it is clear, they were mostly young people andthe majority of them (61.8%) had less than 5 years of teaching experience. Program participants weredrawn from a number of different schools, with a class size of up to 30 pupils.

Each teacher was administered a questionnaire comprising a battery of three testing instrumentsand one demographic data-response sheet. The teachers were explained the general purpose of thestudy and the procedures for completing the questionnaire. The final sample consisted of those par-ticipants who selected the child psychology course, as an elective.

124 Bibou-Nakou et al.

Material

The test battery was comprised of the following:

1. Questionnaire on the frequency and the intensity of four minor examples of misbehavior inschool. The examples selected were disobedience (talking without permission, interruptingthe teacher, speaking loudly to other children, talking back to the teacher, disobeying or ig-noring class rules), playing the clown (playing tricks, telling jokes or acting in ways thatdrew attention upon oneself, usually provoking laughter in other children), disturbing oth-ers (moving around in the classroom, hitting others, taking things from others, generally ob-structing the work of others either verbally or behaviorally), and off-task behavior (childreneither away from their desks or not following group class work, i.e., daydreaming, fre-quently asking permission for trips to the toilet, looking out of the window). The selectionof these behavioral problems was based on evidence suggesting that minor problems areusually the main source of trouble for teachers’classroom management (Department of Ed-ucation and Science and Welsh Office, 1993; Houghton, Wheldall, & Merrett, 1988; John-son, Oswald, & Adey, 1993; Jones, Charlton, & Witkin, 1995; Merrett & Wheldall, 1993).Because our basic aim was to assess the implications of teachers’perceptions, the inclusionof “minor” problems provides better ground for their expression (Cains & Brown, 1998).The specific problems were selected from the full range of externalized problems that rep-resent the main sources of classroom disturbance for the teachers; they are also the ones thatteachers claim are the main obstacle to successful classroom management (Diamond, 1991;Millman, Schaefer, & Cohen, 1982). The teachers’perceptions indicating frequency and in-tensity across the four behavior problems were assessed.

2. Questionnaire on the teachers’ explanations relating to the presence and continuance ofthe above problems. The teachers were asked to ascribe each of the above behavior prob-lems to a list of eight causal statements that referred to teachers’ and pupils’ characteristicsand certain circumstances prevailing in the classroom (e.g., lack of interest, teacher inex-perience, bad mood). These statements were subjected to validity checks in a pilot studyprior to use in the present study. The list of statements was structured on a 5-point Likertscale ranging from “totally agree” to “totally disagree.”

3. Questionnaire on goal-directed behavior on the part of the teacher to deal with each in-stance of disruptive behavior. The teachers were again asked to check through a list of eightpractices dealing with such instances, structured in the same way as the causal statements(“totally agree” to “totally disagree”). The categories of teachers’ preferred practices in re-sponse to pupils’ misbehavior were developed by the authors.

Data Analysis

Principal Component Analysis (P.C.A.) with varimax rotation was conducted twice, once on thestatements of teachers’ explanations and once on their preferred actions, to explore their factor struc-ture. The P.C.A.s were applied for each of the four misbehavior problems separately. This processwas adopted to test whether a common factor structure or different ones would emerge for each ofthe problems. Table 2 gives the factor structure abstracted for the teachers’ explanatory statements.The eigen values and the percent of variance for each factor are also presented.

Teachers’ Perceptions Regarding School Behavior Problems 125

Table 1Demographic Characteristic of the Sample (N 5 200)

Sex % Age* % Teaching experiencea %

Male 32.7 23–30 57.1 up to 5 61.8Female 62.8 31–35 27.6 6–9 18.3

36–45 15.3 10–15 10.016–22 9.9

aAge and teaching experience are in years.

For those statements that loaded more than.50, mean scores were computed for each factor, thusforming three new scales for each of the four school problems. It is evident from the results revealedin Table 2 that the same three factors emerged as common factors for the teachers’explanations acrossall four school problems. The same procedure was adopted for the teachers’ action-related state-ments. Three common factors were again revealed, the same ones for each of the four misbehaviorproblems. Table 3 gives the factors with their eigen values and the corresponding percent of the vari-ance. Following identification of teachers’ response statements, the mean of all statements with load-ing greater than .50 on a given factor was computed to yield new scales. Thus, the preferences arederived through factor modeling.

There were three scales derived and defined from the teachers’ perceived explanations. Specif-ically, Scale 1 included teacher-related explanations, both internal (such as personality traits, moodof the teacher) and external (such as teaching experience, teacher showing interest in doing things).Scale 2 comprised external pupil-related explanations linked to the presence of classroom mis-behavior, such as pupil feeling tired or in a bad mood and situation-specific behavior. Scale 3 in-cluded internal pupil-related attributions such as pupil’s personality traits and family upbringing.

The action-related scales that emerged comprised actions to punish the pupil, such as threats ofpunishment, yelling, and removal from classroom (Scale 1). Scale 2 comprised social-integrative ac-tions on the part of the teacher, such as to ask for peer- group help, to change desks, to occupy thechild with something else. Scale 3 included “neutral” practices adopted by the teachers, such as mereobservation and interruption of the process of the misbehavior, without any related comment.

Results

Explanations and Preferred Actions

Disobedience and off-task behavior were assessed as the most frequent problems in the class-room setting. Specifically, 73.6% and 63.3% of Greek teachers rated off-task behavior and dis-obedience as very frequent instances in the daily school practice. The findings for the intensity ofmisbehavior produced a very similar picture. A high percentage of teachers rated disobedience(61.1%) and off-task behavior (56.7%) as the worst problems.

Table 4 presents the teachers’ profile (means and SDs) in terms of their explanations and pre-ferred actions for all the problems. The most frequently adopted explanation for classroom mis-behavior was internal pupil-related attributions, whereas teacher-related attributions were the leastagreed upon. In relation to the preferred actions, punitive strategies were least used by the teachers,whereas neutral actions were commonly indicated as preferred.

Neither the age of the teachers nor their teaching experience (in years of professional practice)differentiated the teachers’ evaluations significantly in relation to the frequency and the intensity ofthe problems.

Teachers’ explanations varied slightly, though significantly, across the four behavior problems(Table 5). Specifically, the causes they agreed upon for the off-task behavior fell significantly morein the external pupil-related category in comparison to those they agreed upon with respect to the“playing the clown” behavior (F(3, 528) 5 42.15, p , .001). In addition, disobedience was attrib-uted to internal pupil-related explanations significantly more than the off-task behavior (F(3, 534)5 19.40, p , .001). In the cases where the teachers perceived the explanation of a school problemas teacher-related, no statistically significant differences appeared across the four classroom prob-lems.

Table 6 shows that teachers agree significantly more with neutral actions when dealing with“playing the clown” behavior in comparison with the off-task behavior (F(3, 519) 5 3.27, p , .05).On the other hand, teachers agree significantly more with social-integrative practices (F(3, 519) 5


Tabl

e 2

Fac

tor

Stru

ctur

e of

Tea

cher

s’E

xpla

nati

ons

Acr

oss

the

Fou

r Sc

hool

Pro

blem

sa

Dis

obed

ient

Play

ing

the

clow

nD

isru

pts

othe

rsO

ff-T

ask

Fact

or 1

Fact

or 2

Fact

or 3

Fact

or 1

Fact

or 2

Fact

or 3

Fact

or 1

Fact

or 2

Fact

or 3

Fact

or 1

Fact

or 2

Fact

or 3

FI—

—.6

99—

——

——

.717

——

.803

CC

——

.853

——

.982

——

.829

——

.683

SW—

.871

——

.905

——

.835

——

.881

—T

M—

.765

——

.857

——

.780

——

.870

—M

T.6

23—

—.8

33—

—.6

92—

—.7

91—

—T

C.6

91—

—.8

38—

—.8

31—

—.7

82—

—T

E.7

90—

—.7

05—

—.7

99—

—.7

59—

—IT

.849

——

.765

——

.857

——

.826

——

Eig

en-v

alue

s2.

913

1.41

91.

010

3.19

91.

291

1.03

23.

078

1.36

71.

010

2.73

41.

480

1.17

4%

Var

ianc

e36

.417

.712

.640

.016

.112

.938

.517

.112

.634

.218

.514

.7

Not

e.FI

: Fam

ily in

fluen

ce; C

C: C

hara

cter

of

the

child

; SW

: Spe

cific

wee

kday

or

time;

TM

: Chi

ld b

eing

tire

d or

in a

bad

moo

d; M

T: M

ood

of th

e te

ache

r; T

C: T

each

er’s

cha

r-ac

ter;

TE

: Tea

chin

g ex

peri

ence

; IT

:Int

eres

t of

the

teac

her.

a Loa

ding

s un

der

.500

are

list

ed a

s bl

ank

(—).

Tabl

e 3

Fac

tor

Stru

ctur

e of

Tea

cher

s’P

refe

rred

Act

ions

Acr

oss

the

Fou

r Sc

hool

Pro

blem

sa

Dis

obed

ient

Play

ing

the

clow

nD

isru

pts

othe

rsO

ff-t

ask

Fact

or 1

Fact

or 2

Fact

or 3

Fact

or 1

Fact

or 2

Fact

or 3

Fact

or 1

Fact

or 2

Fact

or 3

Fact

or 1

Fact

or 2

Fact

or 3

OS

——

.803

——

.785

—.8

57—

——

.751

IN—

—.6

83—

—.7

93—

.811

——

—.8

24O

C—

.752

——

.772

——

—.6

75—

.662

—R

C.6

49—

—.7

82—

—.7

82—

—.8

04—

—T

P.8

49—

—.8

70—

—.8

66—

—.8

41—

—Y

E.7

93—

—.8

44—

—.8

30—

—.7

78—

—C

D—

.529

——

.716

——

—.6

76—

.684

—G

H—

.654

——

.592

——

—.6

18—

.638

—E

igen

-val

ues

2.10

21.

372

1.14

32.

314

1.46

41.

272

2.32

61.

379

1.32

02.

349

1.28

91.

248

% V

aria

nce

26.3

17.2

14.3

28.9

18.3

15.9

29.1

17.2

16.5

29.4

16.1

15.6

Not

e.O

S: O

bser

ve th

e ch

ild a

nd h

ope

that

he/

she

will

sto

p; I

N: I

nter

rupt

; OC

:Occ

upy

the

child

with

som

ethi

ng e

lse;

RC

: Rem

ove

out o

f cl

ass;

TP:

Thr

eate

n w

ith p

unis

hmen

t;Y

E: Y

ellin

g; C

D: C

hang

e de

sk; G

H: A

sk p

eer

grou

p he

lp.

a Loa

ding

s un

der

.500

are

list

ed a

s bl

ank

(—).

9.40, p , .001) and punishment (F(3, 534) 5 19.40, p , .001) for the disruptional behavior in com-parison with the off- task behavior. From these findings, it appears that teachers’ preferred actionsdepend on the type of misbehavior itself.

Our need for further understanding teachers’ ambivalence with respect to the effectiveness ofthe practices presented guided us in the evaluation of responses from the teachers who scored at theextreme end of the explanation scales. Consequently, we divided the sample of teachers into twogroups: The first group of teachers were those who scored in the lower 20% on the explanation scales;the second group was comprised of the remaining (80%) teachers. The first group agreed most withthe teacher- and pupil-related explanations as presented by the assessment measures on each of thethree explanations. The goal of this 20/80 analysis (Reynolds, Zetlin, & Wang, 1993) was to advanceour understanding of teachers’causal attributions and actions by identifying the group of teacherswho scored at the extreme end of the scale. Statistical analyses (using t-tests) were carried out to assess the relation of teachers’ attributions for problems of classroom misbehavior to the practicespreferred to deal with these problems. Table 7 presents the statistically significant findings. Specifi-cally, external pupil-related explanations on the part of the teachers were related with either social-integrative actions in the cases of school disobedience and the child playing the clown (teachers per-ceive these causes as liable to change through some kind of action), or with neutral actions in thecase of children disrupting others. On the other hand, internal pupil-related attributions (most fre-quently cited in the whole sample, in general) were related with neutral actions in the cases of bothdisobedience and off-task behavior.

In addition, the teacher-related attributions were related with the use of neutral practices andthe avoidance of punitive actions, a finding that might suggest that causes attributed to oneself pro-vide less possibilities for change.

Discussion

The present article focuses upon perceptions that teachers might have in common regarding dis-ciplinary issues, causal attributions, and practices employed to handle classroom problems. As sug-gested earlier, the study of these perceptions could be valuable for suggestions made on the basis ofpsychological principles in educational settings (Blease, 1995).


Table 4Teachers’ Explanations of Their Pupils’ Disruptive Behavior

Teacher-related attributions External pupil-related attributions Internal pupil-related attributions

Mood of the teacher Child being tired or in a bad mood Character of the childTeaching experience Specific weekday or time Family influenceInterest of the teacherTeacher’s character

Table 5Mean Scores and SDs for Teachers’ Explanations Across the Four School Problemsa

Disobedient Playing the clown Disrupts others Off-task

Mean SD Mean SD Mean SD Mean SD

Teacher-related 10.47 3.88 10.79 4.20 10.65 4.10 10.03 3.81External pupil-related 5.84 2.20 6.38 2.50 5.57 2.06 4.35 1.97Internal pupil-related 4.05 1.60 4.38 1.55 4.58 1.67 4.95 1.76

aHigher scores indicating greater disagreement with the above mentioned explanation.

Disobedience and off-task behavior were the major complaints reported by the teachers in termsof frequency and intensity. These results are similar to studies from other Western countries (Borg& Falzon,1990; Merrett & Wheldall, 1993; Oswald, 1995). As Jones, Charlton, and Witkin (1995)observe, the above-mentioned types of behavior tend to interfere significantly with children’s ownlearning, with other children’s learning, and with the teacher’s ability to operate effectively.

The causes that the teachers agreed upon for all the problems of misbehavior were mainly in-ternal pupil-related. This finding suggests that teachers tend to adopt a linear and immediate con-nection between a child’s problem and disposition and familial factors (either in terms of child up-bringing or constitutional and personality traits), thereby neglecting and/or underestimating theirown involvement. The results of our study closely parallel those from earlier research by Oswald(1995). In his study, the teachers attributed school discipline problems either to modes of familial in-teraction among their pupils and their families or to denial of responsibility that families demonstratewith respect to their children’s inappropriate behavior. In the attribution theory, a distinction betweendisposition and situation factors is especially prevalent. According to this, the teachers as observerstend to attribute misbehavior to perceived stable personal dispositions. The above tendency could beexplained either by the absence of specific information or by the teachers’ tendency to perceive thepupils themselves as the dominant factor. One could infer from this finding that children need to be“treated” without any undue inference by the teachers. In addition, the above-mentioned teacher per-ceptions might well act as self-defensive attributions protecting their levels of self-esteem and pro-ducing the observed biasing of causal attributions.

In relation to the practices preferred, our study suggests that teachers tend to adopt more oftenneutral practices across the four school problems. It is well known that “ignoring” on the part of the


Table 7Comparison of Mean Scores in the Preferred Actions (Coping) Between Two Groups of Teachers with Different Levels of Explanation Across the Four School Problemsa

Teachers’ explanations Preferred actions Means t-values

External pupil-related (Disobedience) Social-integrative 7.54 vs. 8.92 2.51External pupil-related (Playing the clown) Social-integrative 7.96 vs. 9.07 1.83a

External pupil-related (Disrupts others) Neutral 3.73 vs. 5.27 3.32Internal pupil-related (Disobedience) Neutral 4.03 vs. 4.92 2.23Internal pupil-related (Off-task) Neutral 4.07 vs. 5.24 2.00Teacher-related Punitive 52.06 vs. 49.10 1.98a

Teacher-related Neutral 17.18 vs. 20.31 2.51

Note. For each of the above pairs of means in the coping, the first value corresponds to the teachers who scored in thelower 20% on the explanation scales. This group agrees most with teacher and pupil-related explanations. The second valuecorresponds to the remaining (80%) teachers.

aOne-tailed t-test.*The table presents only the statistically significant ( p , .05) findings of the analysis.

Table 6Mean Scores and SDs for Teachers’ Preferred Actions Across Their Pupils’ Misbehavior a

Disobedient Playing the clown Disrupts others Off-task

Mean SD Mean SD Mean SD Mean SD

Punitive 12.20 2.73 12.43 2.88 11.84 3.09 13.07 2.44Social-integrative 8.72 2.73 8.92 2.84 8.07 2.74 9.19 2.74Neutral 4.77 1.98 4.72 1.96 5.05 2.25 5.14 2.10

aHigher scores indicating greater disagreement with the above-mentioned action on the part of the teachers.

teacher has been identified as an ineffective strategy (Johnson et al., 1993). The selection of neutralpractices made by our teachers may relate to teacher beliefs that the adoption of another practicemight be time-consuming. Alternatively, it may mean that teachers have to assume roles for whichthey have not been trained, or to deal with situations and problems that they feel are beyond their responsibility (Damanakis, 1998). The lack of specialized teacher-training programs in universitycourses and the absence of teacher-consultation services in Greece further supports these two sug-gestions. Punitive practices were least frequently reported, a finding consistent with the majority ofliterature (Martens, Petersen, Witt, & Cirone, 1986; Merrett & Wheldall, 1993). This finding sug-gests that teachers perceive punitive strategies as not resulting in lasting benefits to the child (Whel-dall et al., 1989). On the other hand, it might well be that extreme practices such as punishment areunder-reported due to the susceptibility of the questionnaire items to social desirability and fear ofcensure.

When reflecting on the preferred practices, it is important to note the diversity of strategies thatwere frequently used by teachers. In terms of the specific types of behavior and how they interrelat-ed with teacher practices, the latter were found to vary slightly, though significantly, across the fourproblems described. Specifically, neutral practices were chosen mostly for the “playing the clown”behavior, whereas behavior disturbing others would be dealt with by either social-integrative or puni-tive practices. Lovejoy (1996) points to similar findings. However, the small point difference amongthe observed means of the preferred practices across misbehavior in our study, limits this finding andshould be treated with reservation. Nevertheless, the differentiation of practices according to theproblem in question, may well be based on the different causal attributions held by the teachers inour study. Contrary to the pervasive myth that the teacher is to be in control of everything happen-ing in the classroom (Davis & Sumara, 1997; Hughes, Barker, Kemenoff, & Hart, 1993), our researchsuggests that the teachers choose their practices on the basis of a range of sometimes conflicting con-siderations (Cooper & McIntyre, 1994; Johnson et al., 1993). They view different methods as beingappropriate for different problems and being related to their explanatory attributions. Specifically,teachers’ misbehavior-related attributions in our study were found to be associated with the disci-plinary practices adopted across the four misbehavior problems. External pupil-related attributionson the part of the teachers were mainly associated with social-integrative behavior in the cases ofdisobedience and “playing the clown.” While internal pupil-related explanations were primarily as-sociated with neutral practices in the case of off-task behavior. Teacher-related explanations weremainly associated with lack of punitive practices. We know from the attribution position that the sta-bility of a cause, rather than its locus, determines expectancy shifts (Weiner, 1992). Thus, implica-tions in terms of the nature of training and support for teachers can be derived from these relation-ships.

The narrowness of the sample in our study limits the generalizability of our findings in relationto the cross-cultural context. Furthermore, our results are based on questionnaire measures with ob-vious advantages and disadvantages (Furnham, 1990). This constitutes a limitation of our study, be-cause results derived from the utilization of a questionnaire format may not be an accurate reflectionof teachers’ actual use of various alternatives for coping with misbehavior, or of their perceptions ofthe extent of disruptive behavior. The teachers’ perceptions were elicited by asking them to rank pre-selected types of behavior as to their frequency or intensity; in other studies, teachers were asked tocomment on behaviors that actually occur in their classroom. In addition, we do not know if the teach-ers, in fact, exercise the practices they said they would or did. Actual classroom observation and mul-tiple measures should be considered for future research in this area. There is, however, evidence tosuggest that this kind of assessment is highly related with direct observation of problem behavior inthe classroom and teachers’ responses (Teegarden & Burns, 1993). There is also a need to broadenour perspectives not only in terms of teachers’ survival skills concerning discipline issues (Diamond,


1991), but also in terms of long-term focus on ideas and principles that illustrate the realities of teach-ing. Preoccupations in control-oriented teacher education with planning for instruction and the man-agement of pupils has been, however, criticized as a decontextualized and fragmented in scope(Davis & Sumara, 1997). We believe that narrative studies of the construction and reconstruction ofteachers’ personal practical knowledge in relation to the attribution theory might well be a very help-ful complementary method (Beattie, 1995; Fang, 1996).

Conclusions: Implications for School Psychological Services

Our group of Greek teachers considered classroom management skills to be of major impor-tance to them. This is further supported by studies reporting a rather superficial coverage of educa-tional and psychological topics in Greece, based on discipline, rewards, and punishment (Porpodas,1987). Moreover, a discrepancy between professional opinion and the educational literature and ac-tual school practice has been recorded (Kazamias & Saridakis, 1987). We are, therefore, faced withthe question of how can psychological knowledge be adapted for teachers in such a way that theygain the capability of solving their problems in a personally responsible manner. Training in this areais a prime need of current teachers and could reduce stress and troublesome behavior between teach-ers and pupils (Merrett & Wheldall, 1993). The findings of our study support the importance of care-fully assessing teacher beliefs about children’s intentions, and control over their behavior when de-signing and implementing school-based interventions. A central training element could, therefore,contain several proposals of action strategies grounded, among others, on attribution patterns, actiongoals, and situation pressures. The provision of counseling services in the school has long been a significant role for school psychologists abroad (Thompson Prout, Alexander, Fletcher, Memis, &Miller, 1993). Patterns of practice in this service area could focus upon the activation of teachers’existing knowledge and problem-solving capacity. In addition, reconstructuring teachers’ beliefsabout misbehavior problems and their corresponding actions in the problem situation could beworked out between psychologists and teachers. We believe that our understanding of teacher reac-tions to classroom behaviors could be greatly improved through this assessment. It is essential todeal directly with teachers’ beliefs about child behavior in modifying their educational and discipli-nary strategies (Lovejoy, 1996). Because of the interdependent relations between beliefs and prac-tices found in our study, the linear models of discipline causality no longer help us in our efforts tointerpret the complex situations met in the school setting. Attributions and preferred practices seemto interrelate, but if progress is to be made, this has to be done within a framework meaningful forall parties in the school system (Merrett & Jones, 1994; Merrizow, 1989).

Overall, our research can be regarded as an attempt to show the importance of integrating teach-ers’ perceptions into classroom practice, and of delimiting the contexts in which these perceptionsoperate. Our approach is founded on the belief that teachers need to be helped to appreciate and iden-tify, for themselves, the “range” of causative factors underlying and maintaining problem behaviorsand to increase their ability to develop new responses of their own to classroom problems.

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Elementary teachers' perceptions regarding school behavior problems: Implications for school psychological services