A multiple baseline research design across sample and settings was utilised to examine the effects of Canter's Assertive Discipline Program (1979) on teachers' rates of verbal approval and disapproval, student on task behaviour, and the frequency of students' disruptive behaviour. Classes from Years three, four and five in five separate British primary schools were the participants (in total 15 teachers and 120 students) of the study. During daily mathematics lessons the teachers and a target group of eight students from each class were video‐recorded for 30 minutes. These observations were undertaken prior to and following the teachers completing a workshop in Assertive Discipline. Data were analysed in two ways. First, a one‐way repeated measures analysis of variance was calculated to test for significant differences in pre‐ and post‐group means. Second, data for individual teachers and classes were analysed using DMITSA 2.0 (Crosbie & Sharpley, 1991) which is a statistical programme specifically developed to analyse data from interrupted time‐series designs. Overall, teacher approval increased and teacher disapproval decreased, student on‐task behaviour increased, and the frequency of disruptive behaviour decreased, all significantly. Analyses of individual teacher trends showed, however, that not all teachers' and students' behaviour changed significantly.
No takes yet. Share an insight, caveat, or question.
Nicholls et al. (1995) studied this question.