Observations of Strategies Used by Secondary School Teachers in Physical Classrooms to Promote Positive Behaviour

Difficult behaviour in pupils poses a challenge to teachers. Although teachers have been trained to implement various pedagogical strategies, teachers’ spontaneous actions in classrooms may affect pupils’ behaviour. Indeed, teachers may face difficulties in making decisions regarding pupils’ behaviour in the classroom. Therefore, we carried out 12 observations in two schools in Malaysia to analyse a pattern of teachers’ initiatives to promote positive behaviour and discourage negative behaviour in classrooms. The study was carried in two urban national secondary schools located in the capital city of Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur. We observed pupils’ behaviour in response to strategies used by teachers for carrying out teaching and learning in the first ten minutes of the lessons. All 12 lessons were video-recorded, then analysed by three coders by looking at the frequency of the following targeted behaviours (using a checklist): teachers’ action: encouragement, praise, and guidance; pupils’ behaviour: attentive, uninvolved, initiative, and disruptive; teachers’ response: positive and ignore. The data gathered were analysed using an event-based analysis technique. The results indicate that teachers were more likely to guide pupils in lessons. There was less encouragement and praise used in the classroom. A clear pattern from this study is that pupils were more likely to pay attention when a teacher responded to their action positively. The data also show that ignoring pupils’ negative behaviour increases such behaviour (uninvolved and disruptive). The implications of the study suggest that there should be intensive training to increase teachers’ skills in managing pupils’ behaviour in the classroom. A specific module is suggested to be designed and implemented.