BEHAVIOR ANALYSIS IN VARIOUS CLASSROOM TYPES

Behavior Analysis on 5th Grade Students in

Traditional and Departmentalized Classroom Settings

Markaela Bryan, Katherine Hallford, and Samantha Steel

University of Las Vegas, Nevada

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Abstract

The purpose of the study conducted was to see how behaviors in fifth grade students differed

when in a traditional versus departmentalized classroom setting. The research took place in two

fifth grade teachers in southern Nevada. Both classrooms had over 90% of their students on free

or reduced lunch Researchers observed and tracked student behaviors into a behavior tracking

table over the course of two weeks. The researchers then compared their results between the

two classrooms. The researchers found that the departmentalized classroom had over double the

behavioral issues that the traditional classroom had. The most common behavioral issue in the

departmentalized classroom was students leaving their seats, and the least was students

invading other students personal space. The most common behavioral issue in the traditional

classroom was students speaking out of turn, and the least was students invading other students

personal space. The researchers found that teacher expectations set prior to the start of the study

and not having an unbiased observer be responsible for maintaining the student behavior tracker

did have an impact on the results found.

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Behavior Analysis on 5th Grade Students in

Traditional and Departmentalized Classroom Settings

Problem

There has been much dialogue amongst educators regarding the benefits of

departmentalized elementary school classrooms versus the traditional classroom setting.

Markaela, having experienced teaching in both settings has been apart of similar discussions

within her school. Kat has spent her career teaching in a departmentalized setting. Kat and

Markaela are both fifth grade teachers in southern Nevada; Kat specializes in English Language

Arts and Social Studies and Markaela is in a traditional general education setting this school

year where she teaches all subjects. Upon discussion, Kat and Markaela discovered that they

experienced some similar behavioral issues. Students talk out of turn, get out of their seats, are

off task, etc. Prior to the start of the study, Sam went into both Kat and Markaela’s classrooms

and observed student behaviors to find which behaviors overlapped the most between both

classrooms. The behaviors Sam found to be most common (talking out of turn, getting out of

seat, off task during transitions, going in other peoples spaces) were the behaviors used in the

study.

Purpose

The purpose of this study was to determine if students have less behavioral issues when

a classroom is traditional or when one is departmentalized.

Design

The design of this study is a quasi-experimental case study, as the focus was on Kat and

Markaela’s 5th grade classes. Sam was an observer in both classrooms in order to help
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determine what specific behaviors should be documented. Each teacher in the study kept tally

marks when students exhibited one or more of the behaviors chosen as a potential problem.

Participants

There were two classrooms that participated in this study. Both classes are located in

southern Nevada, at schools with similar demographics.

Class One is comprised of twenty-nine fifth grade students, with fifteen male students

and fourteen female students. The students in the classroom have a higher percentage of English

Language Learners at 24%. It is located at a school with a free and reduced meal rate of 97%.

Class Two is comprised of thirty-one fifth grade students, with 16 male students and 15

female students. This classroom only contains one student that is labeled as an English

Language Learner. Similar to Class One, Class Two has a free and reduced meal percentage at

100%.

Methodology

Part One: Where Did the Participants Come From?

The classrooms involved in the study were selected from two schools in the southern

Nevada region. One class from each school was selected due to being the classrooms of record

for Markaela and Kat. Class One is a departmentalized classroom, with the students receiving

instruction in English Language Arts and Social studies with Kat and Math and Social Studies

instruction with her co-teacher. Class Two is a traditional classroom, where students stay with

one teacher for the duration of core instruction. Markaela is the teacher of record for Class Two.

Part Two: What Was Done to the Participants?

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Prior to the start of the study, Sam attended both classes as an outside observer,

determining which behaviors seemed to be the most prevalent among both groups. For the

duration of the study, both Markaela and Kat held class as regularly scheduled to avoid

interrupting student’s usual routines. All teachers involved in the study monitored behavior and

kept a record via a tally sheet for a two week period, spanning from November 27th, 2017 to

December 8th, 2017. In order to maintain accurate records, Kat’s co-teacher continued the tally

to account for the duration of Class One’s school day.

Part Three: Data Analysis

We analysed our data by comparing and contrasting both classrooms. We found the

percentages for the highest and lowest behaviors in each classroom. We also compared the total

number of behaviors between both classrooms.

Results

After the data collection period was over, we looked at the data and found several

trends. First, Class One had a total of 262 tallies over the course of ten days, while Class Two

had 101 tallies over the course of the study, a 259% increase in class One over Class Two.

These results showed that behavior issues in Class One were far more prevalent than in class

two. With Class One, the most frequently occuring incident was students leaving their seats,

which accounted for 34.7% of the total behavior issues in the classroom. The least problematic

behavior issue was students invading the space of others, which only accounted for 11.8% of

the behavior issues. With Class Two, the highest occurrence of problematic behavior was

students talking out of turn, which accounted for 37.6% of the classroom behavior issues. Class
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Two’s least occurring behavior was also students invading other’s spaces, which accounted for

8.9% of the behavior issues.

Reflection

After performing the study, there were several factors that would need to be included in

additional studies. First and foremost was the difference in teaching styles, which accounted for

some variance in tallies. Class One’s teachers are more relaxed about things like students

getting out of their seats, so incidents tended to occur more frequently, while Class Two’s

teacher is more strict with student expectations, so students leaving their seats was marked less

frequently.

Having an unbiased observer mark student behaviors would have also made the study

more accurate. Due to the teachers many different day to day responsibilities, it is that teachers

may have forgotten to mark tallies or may have put the tallies in the wrong column. The

addition of an unbiased observer will have the same expectations for what qualifies as a missed

behavior and will ensure all student behaviors are accounted for.

Potential Future Studies

Based on the study conducted, there is opportunity for potential future studies. While

not included in the official study, it was observed that most of these behaviors were more

frequently shown by male students rather than their female counterparts. Adding subcategories

to the existing behavioral study (ex. male/ female, soocio-econimoc factors, parental

involvement) are a few ways this could be done. We would recommend researchers conduct

their research over a longer period of time than two weeks and plan it in a time not around the

holidays.
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Appendix

Departmentalized classroom- Tallies are marked x/x to show both Kat (English and Social
Studies) and her co- teacher (Math and Science)
Talking out Getting out of Off Task Going in Daily Totals
of turn seat During other peoples
Transitions spaces

Day 1 6/4 6/5 5/2 3/0 31

Day 2 7/5 7/6 4/2 3/4 38
Day 3 3/5 4/6 6/2 2/1 29
Day 4 2/1 3/7 2/5 4/3 27
Day 5 5/7 8/7 6/4 2/0 39
Day 6 0/3 2/3 6/4 0/0 18
Day 7 1/3 1/4 2/5 0/3 19
Day 8 3/2 6/5 2/1 0/2 21
Day 9 4/6 3/2 4/3 0/1 23
Day 10 2/1 4/2 1/4 2/1 17
Behavior 70 91 70 31 262
Total

Traditional classroom
Talking out Getting out of Off task during Going in Daily Totals
of turn seat transitions other peoples
spaces

Day 1 3 2 3 1 9
Day 2 5 1 6 0 12
Day 3 4 1 4 0 9
Day 4 4 3 3 1 11
Day 5 6 3 4 1 14
Day 6 3 1 2 1 7
Day 7 3 2 3 2 10
Day 8 3 2 4 1 10
Day 9 3 3 3 1 10
Day 10 4 2 2 1 9
Behavior 38 20 34 9 101
Total
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