Disruptive Behaviour and Student Engagement: Are They Connected?

Is there a connection between disruptive behaviour and student engagement in the classroom? A lot of current research on this particular topic reveals that yes there is, and often it is quite a strong connection.

One research article which shows this strong connection between disruptive behaviour and student engagement is entitled, ‘Effects of Response Cards on Disruptive Behaviour and Academic Responding During Math Lessons by Fourth-Grade Urban Students’ written by Michael Lambert, Gwendolyn Heward, and Ya-yu Lo. Within the article, authors evaluate and explain the results of an experiment in which two separate 4th-grade urban education classrooms incorporated the use of student response cards into the daily math lessons (Lambert et al., 2006). The two classrooms selected to partake in this experiment were chosen because of the large number of students in each class who frequently displayed disruptive behaviour (Lambert et al., 2006). Additionally, many of the students who were involved in the study also had an extensive history of disciplinary issues in school (Lambert et al., 2006).

In the experiment, laminated response cards were given to every student so they could each write their own responses to questions posed by the teaching during math lessons (Lambert et al., 2006). This method of using response cards was then compared to the more traditional method of single-student responding. In single-student responding typically only one student has the opportunity to answer the question posed by the teacher, and the rest of the class is often left bored and unengaged, whereas the response-card method allows all students to respond and participate every single time (Lambert et al., 2006).

Findings within this study show that by incorporating response cards into the classroom, student engagement went up, disruptive behaviour went down, and student responding increased significantly (Lambert et al., 2006). In fact, results from this study show that every single student who participated in the study was observed to be less disruptive in the classroom when teachers incorporated response cards into the lesson (Lambert et al., 2006). By incorporating response cards into the lesson it allowed students to become active participants in their learning, which is what ultimately lead to higher levels of student engagement and lower levels of disruptive behaviour in the classroom. As a result of the huge shift in disruptive behaviour that was observed in this particular study, the authors suggest “the need for more effective instructional environments that actively engage urban youth in the learning process” (Lambert et al., 2006).

In contrast to some research that places student self-regulation techniques at the forefront of minimizing disruptive behaviour in the classroom this article emphasizes the importance of good teaching practices over self-regulated learning. In some of my experiences in elementary classrooms so far, I have been able to personally observe the effects of incorporating student response cards into a math lesson. Each time I have observed a teacher incorporate these cards into a lesson the outcome has been fantastic. I notice that student engagement appears to increase, student participation appears to increase, and instances of disruptive behaviour in the classroom are much lower.

Although I believe that the approach to minimizing disruptive behaviour in the classroom is a highly complex one, I think that good teaching practices, which aim to increase student engagement and participation, are an extremely important part of the puzzle.
References

Lambert, M. C., Cartledge, G., Heward, W. L., Lo, Y., & Koegel, R. L. (2006). Effects of response cards on disruptive behavior and academic responding during math lessons by fourth-grade urban students. Journal Of Positive Behavior Interventions, 8(2), 88-99.