Providing Performance Feedback on Opportunities to Respond to Academic Questions: Effects on Student Engagement

Previous research has established the existence of a link between teacher and student behavior, particularly when analyzing praise statements and opportunities to respond to respond to academic prompts. In light of this, researchers have investigated possible methods for improving this relationship by identifying methods for increasing the occurrence of these important teacher behaviors. Prior studies demonstrated (a) the effectiveness of class-wide peer contingency interventions on increasing teachers’ use of praise, however there has not been the same improvement in opportunities to respond. As a result, there have been some recent efforts investigating whether class-wide peer contingency interventions can be improved by using performance feedback and self-monitoring to increase the frequency of opportunities to respond in classroom settings. The purpose of this study is to examine the link between teacher and student behavior in an effort to improve existing classroom management practices for students with or at-risk for behavioral difficulties. We addressed the following research questions: (a) Does a class wide peer contingency program supplemented with performance feedback result in teacher’s increased use of opportunities to respond (OTR) to academic requests? (b) Does student on-task behavior covary with the level of OTR delivery by the classroom teacher? (c) Do increases in OTRs covary with increases in praise levels? A third grade, general education teacher and 17 students participated in the study. Researchers utilized a single case, multi-treatment design, introducing the group contingency intervention before systematically adding and withdrawing a performance feedback component. Results revealed a functional relationship between the group contingency, performance feedback packaged intervention, and opportunities to respond to academic prompts. The intervention package also had an effect on student on-task behavior, which predictably covaried with teacher presented opportunities to respond. Results maintained with the introduction of a self-monitoring phase, suggesting future areas for research.