AN EVALUATION OF TEACHER TRAINING IN CONSULTATION AND BEHAVIOR MODIFICATION AS A MEANS FOR INCREASING THE FREQUENCY OF SPECIFIC CATEGORIES OF CONSULTEE VERBAL BEHAVIOR.

Abstract

The delivery of school psychological services has in recent years centered increasingly on the consultative role. The implementation of the consultative approach in the school setting can be greatly facilitated by a variety of psychologist-initiated activities. Inservice training for teachers is one extremely valuable tool in this regard for the development of skills necessary for effective consultation and implementation of classroom-based intervention plans. It was the purpose of this study to evaluate the relative effectiveness of two teacher training packages under two analogue consultation dependent measure conditions in a 2 x 2 completely randomized factorial design. Subjects included 56 elementary school teachers in the Amphitheater School District in Tucson, Arizona. The packages evaluated focused on (1) training in classroom behavior modification and consultation, and (2) training in consultative service delivery procedures and general multidisciplinary team process (a non-specific training control). The analogue consultation dependent measure conditions included (1) specific and (2) general Problem Identification, Problem Analysis, and Problem Evaluation behavioral consultation elicitors. The effectiveness of these training packages was evaluated relative to knowledge of behavior modification principles and concepts, and relative to the frequency of specific categories of consultee verbal behaviors (Bergan, 1977). The results of this study suggest that the experimental training package was effective in increasing teacher knowledge of behavioral procedures. This training was also found to be effective in increasing the frequency of teacher verbalizations regarding overt child behaviors, behavioral observation techniques, and behavioral intervention plans during the Problem Identification and Problem Analysis phases of analogue consultation. It was found that even after training, specific consultant questions were important in eliciting consultee statements related to environmental conditions surrounding behavior. The use of more general types of consultant verbal behaviors, on the other hand, resulted in significantly more vague, unspecified, and irrelevant types of consultee verbalizations. Consultee training should be an integral part of the school consultation process. The results of this study indicate that teacher training in the skills necessary for effective identification, analysis, intervention, and evaluation of child learning and behavior problems in the classroom is a very viable approach.