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Early Childhood Preservice Teachers'Use of Verbal and Non-Verbal GuidanceStrategies Across Classroom ContextsLori A. Caudle a , Min-Jung Jung b , Hillary N. Fouts b & Heather S.Wallace ca Department of Human Services , Western Carolina Universityb Department of Child and Family Studies , The University ofTennesseec Centerstone Research InstitutePublished online: 08 Jan 2014.

To cite this article: Lori A. Caudle , Min-Jung Jung , Hillary N. Fouts & Heather S. Wallace (2014)Early Childhood Preservice Teachers' Use of Verbal and Non-Verbal Guidance Strategies AcrossClassroom Contexts, The Teacher Educator, 49:1, 61-74, DOI: 10.1080/08878730.2013.848004

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The Teacher Educator, 49:61–74, 2014

Copyright © Taylor & Francis Group, LLCISSN: 0887-8730 print/1938-8101 online

DOI: 10.1080/08878730.2013.848004

RESEARCH ARTICLE

EARLY CHILDHOOD PRESERVICE TEACHERS’ USE OF VERBAL AND

NON-VERBAL GUIDANCE STRATEGIES ACROSS CLASSROOM CONTEXTS

LORI A. CAUDLE

Department of Human Services, Western Carolina University

MIN-JUNG JUNG and HILLARY N. FOUTS

Department of Child and Family Studies, The University of Tennessee

HEATHER S. WALLACE

Centerstone Research Institute

Observations of preservice teachers often lack information about specific strategies they use when guidingchildren’s behavior. This study investigated how preservice teachers used verbal and non-verbal behavior

modification techniques within structured and transition classroom contexts. Using an on-the-mark 20-

second observe and 10-second record method, eleven preservice teachers were observed in classrooms fortwo morning hours. A repeated measures MANOVA revealed two significant two-way interactions,

which included types of modification techniques and types of contexts (Wilks’s � D .38, F(2, 9) D

7.37, p . .05, Cohen’s f D .88) and types of communication skills and types of contexts (Wilks’s� D .64, F(1, 10) D 5.53, p . .05, Cohen’s f D .74). Implications for future research and practice

include more focused observations of preservice teachers and children’s responses to various verbal and

non-verbal strategies along with more education about how to use positive guidance strategies in real-lifeclassroom situations.

Implementing positive guidance techniques with young children remains a challenge forpreservice teachers (Oral, 2012). In this study, preservice teachers are defined as noviceteachers enrolled in a teacher preparation program who are engaged in student teaching orinternship experiences. Guidance techniques are verbal and non-verbal strategies used bypreservice teachers with the intent to either prevent or respond to children’s behaviors andto maintain a classroom environment conducive to learning. Within classrooms, preserviceteachers are faced with making countless behavior management decisions in order todevelop effective learning environments for children. Understanding and handling thecomplexities of classroom management, which includes behavior management, is no minoraccomplishment (Martin, 2004). Next to poor salaries, discipline problems are known to

Address correspondence to Lori A. Caudle, Ph.D., Western Carolina University, 91 Killian Bldg., Ln. Rm.218C, Cullowhee, NC 28723, USA. E-mail: lacaudle@wcu.edu

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62 L. A. Caudle et al.

be a major reason why beginning teachers leave the field dissatisfied (Ingersoll & Smith,2003). Therefore, the experiences preservice teachers gain in classrooms while still underthe umbrella of teacher preparation programs helps them acquire professional skills anddecrease anxieties related to behavior management (Oral, 2012).

Review of Literature

Classroom Contexts

There are two main contexts, transitions and structured times, in which preservice teachersspend most of their time with children. In these contexts, preservice teachers use a varietyof verbal and non-verbal modification techniques to encourage children to adhere toclassroom and school rules. For the purpose of this study, structured times are defined asany educational time when children are not in transition between activities or following aseries of routines. Transition times include moving between activities inside or outside theclassrooms and daily routines, such as hand-washing, cleaning up, and restroom breaks.

Transition times are especially challenging for preservice teachers because they pro-vide more opportunities for children to make inappropriate choices (Gump, 1969). Dueto limited experiences, preservice teachers may overlook planning for transition times,expecting young children to wait excessively before moving to the next activity, whichcan be a stressful experience for young children (Ostrosky, Jung, & Hemmeter, 2002).Preservice teachers should minimize the stress of transitions by giving explicit instructions,providing clear behavioral expectations, and using consistent, predictable routines (McIn-tosh, Herman, Sanford, McGraw, & Florence, 2004).

During structured times, preservice teachers usually teach planned lessons in small orlarge group formats, or allow children to explore the classroom environment and materialswith academic and social goals in mind. Within these structured classroom contexts,preservice teachers are compelled to implement a series of engagement strategies to keepchildren’s attention. Maintaining attention during activities, especially large groups, is oneof the most frequent behavioral issues among young children (Godfrey, Grisham-Brown,Schuster, & Hemmeter, 2003). Yet, we repeatedly see large group formats being over-usedin many early childhood classrooms (Hardy, 1993; Pianta, LaParo, Payne, Cox, & Bradley,2002).

Guidance Strategies

A review of the literature on preservice teachers’ use of guidance techniques revealedpressing concerns for preservice teachers to adopt successful behavior management tech-niques while still maintaining positive learning environments (McKie, Butty, & Green,2012; Stoughton, 2007). Although preservice teachers are encouraged to create positiveclassroom climates, there is little research that provides evidence of the types of guidancestrategies they use on a typical school day (Martin, 2004). Without this information, it isdifficult to identify key areas in which they can improve their practice. Some researchersare even doubtful that preservice teachers can successfully learn classroom managementroutines in their teacher preparation programs (Hollingsworth, 1989).

Even though there is little understanding about how preservice teachers are educatedto create positive environments, it is evident that preservice teachers encounter many

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Verbal and Non-Verbal Guidance Strategies 63

conflicting views in their practicum experiences. Preservice teachers feel that behaviormanagement is integrated into the classroom culture and based on the ethical values ofteachers, but sometimes struggle with the individual needs of children while maintainingan institutional need for order (Stoughton, 2007).

Within the classroom culture are a series of routines, which often include transitions.Successful transitions include teaching routines, precorrections, positive reinforcementprocedures, and active supervision (McIntosh et al., 2004). Implementing smooth tran-sitions allows children to be engaged in academic tasks for longer periods and reducesbehavioral problems (Lee, 2006; McIntosh et al., 2004; Ostrosky et al., 2002).

While using guidance techniques, preservice teachers are required to make deci-sions about how they will respond to inappropriate behavior. Unfortunately, teachersrespond more often to inappropriate than prosocial behavior, taking almost a reactiverather than a proactive approach (Beaman & Wheldall, 2000). Oftentimes, teachers donot take advantage of opportunities to praise children for appropriate behaviors as abehavioral management technique (Beaman & Wheldall, 2000). When considering the useof behavior management interventions and external rewards to encourage positive studentbehavior, the amount of observed inappropriate behaviors in preschool classrooms havebeen shown to decrease when teachers adopt specific behavioral management strategies.These strategies included response cost, stimulating rewards, strategic attention, and wholeclass economy (Filcheck, McNeil, Greco, & Bernard, 2004).

Research reveals as preservice teachers gain more experiences in the field, theyare developing professionally as teachers and become more able to deal with behaviorproblems (Byra & Sherman, 1993; Kagan, 1992). Less experienced preservice teachers havebeen known to not diverge from their planned routines, even when they have been provenunsuccessful and poorly executed (Byra & Sherman, 1993). On the other hand, moreexperienced preservice teachers typically implement new routines to solve the problemsand engaged in more procedural decision-making (Byra & Sherman, 1993).

Observational Studies

Observing and assessing the guidance strategies of preservice teachers is particularly impor-tant given their state of continued training and learning. In other words, time still remainsfor others to positively influence the behaviors and methods of these preservice teachersso that, as they transition to inservice teaching, their guidance strategies will be morerefined and positively impact classroom quality. Taking a closer look at the types of studiesconducted about preservice teachers’ guidance techniques, there is a need for researchersto use more naturalistic observations to describe preservice teachers’ behaviors (Everhart& Vaugh, 2005; Kagan, 1992; Martin, 2004). Naturalistic observations are characterized byobserving participants in their ‘‘real-life’’ settings during their normal ongoing routinesand making efforts to not disturb participants’ typical behavior.

Frequently, global measures of quality are used to assess caregiving and school envi-ronments, but many of these result in broad assessments that fail to explore the nuances ofteachers’ behaviors evident in everyday interactions (Friedman & Amadeo, 1999). Globalmeasures are designed to provide a comprehensive assessment of quality, and resultingscores are frequently used in conjunction with funding allocation for early childhoodprograms and centers. These types of measures often evaluate teachers’ behaviors ratherthan describe them (LoCasale-Crouch et al., 2007). Therefore, using global measures in

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64 L. A. Caudle et al.

combination with observation protocols that study behaviors may provide more accurateaccounts of children’s experiences in classrooms (Pianta et al., 2002).

Additionally, there are concerns about the validity and reliability of the ways in whichpreservice teachers are evaluated by university supervisors (Sandholtz & Shea, 2012). Be-yond university supervisors’ and cooperating teachers’ evaluations, observations of preser-vice teachers’ behaviors in the classroom context are limited, with naturalistic observationsnearly non-existent (Morrell, Wainwright, & Flick, 2004). Therefore, using naturalisticobservations, as evidenced in this study, to obtain detailed information about preserviceteachers’ typical guidance behaviors in the classroom is especially warranted.

Purpose of the Study

Taking a closer look at the types of studies conducted about preservice teachers’ guidancetechniques, there was a need for more descriptive accounts of their interactions withchildren (Everhart & Vaugh, 2005; Kagan, 1992; Martin, 2004). This exploratory studysought to investigate the following research questions: (1) To what extent and how dopreservice teachers use verbal and non-verbal behavior modification techniques in struc-tured and transition contexts? and (2) How do behavior modification techniques differby context? Based on initial observational field notes and a review of the literature, itwas hypothesized preservice teachers would use more positive behavior modification tech-niques during structured classroom times. It was also expected that negative modificationtechniques would not be observed, or used very rarely, in the classrooms by the preserviceteachers. This was because participants were drawn from two teacher preparation programsthat provided them with extensive opportunities to observe, learn, and practice positiveguidance strategies across their years in the programs, particularly through participationin the university lab school. In the event that negative modification strategies were used,it was anticipated these would occur more during transition times, which have the poten-tial to be more stressful than structured classroom times (Gump, 1969; Ostrosky et al.,2002).

Methodology

Participants

The participants for this study were preservice teachers enrolled in two early childhoodeducation licensure programs at a large Southeastern university. Preservice teachers weredefined as undergraduate and graduate students completing practicum experiences inpublic school pre-kindergarten, kindergarten, and first grade classrooms. Individual e-mails were sent to the preservice teachers, inviting them to participate in the study.Additionally, the researchers visited the weekly graduate seminar, described the study,and invited interested preservice teachers to participate. The final sample consisted of11 preservice teachers (10 females, 1 male) in two pre-kindergarten, seven kindergarten,and two first grade classrooms. Six of the participants were graduate interns and fivewere undergraduate student teachers. The six graduate interns were completing year-longpracticum experiences in local public schools while the student teachers were completingsemester-long experiences. Under the guidance of their mentors, all participants wereacting as lead teachers in their placements at the time of data collection.

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Verbal and Non-Verbal Guidance Strategies 65

Programs’ Philosophy

Both teacher preparation programs were rooted in social constructivist, Reggio-inspired,child-centered approaches to teaching. This philosophy encourages play-based learning,project development, collaborative inquiry, and authentic experiences for children. Preser-vice teachers were engaged in field experiences early on in the programs at the universitylaboratory school and partner schools and centers in the community. They completed aseries of coursework on child development, family studies, and early childhood teachingmethods. Preservice teachers were taught guidance strategies throughout their courseworkthat focused on developing trusting relationships with children, using positive languagewith children to redirect behaviors, and implementing logical and natural consequencesas appropriate.

Setting

Data were collected in eight different public schools across three separate school districtslocated in rural, urban, and suburban settings. Five of these schools were Title I federallyfunded schools, which means they were recognized as high poverty area schools (based onfree and reduced price lunch data) and were provided funds to pay extra staff members,increase staff development experiences, and purchase additional materials (U.S. Depart-ment of Education, 2004). Through anecdotal field notes taken by the researchers, theclassrooms were described as all being quite similar, with many available resources, child-sized furniture, availability of books and resources, manipulatives, and large carpet areasfor whole-group activities.

Procedures and Measures

The strategies that preservice teachers used to modify children’s behaviors during transi-tions and structured classroom times were observed in typical classroom environments. Thepreservice teachers were asked to engage in regular daily routines and activities. One of thethree researchers observed and recorded the modification techniques of each preserviceteacher using an ‘‘on-the-mark’’ 20-second observe and 10-second record time samplingmethod. Each preservice teacher was observed for one 2-hour time period at the beginningof the school day (between 7:30 a.m. and 10:30 a.m.) when both the preservice teachersand children were present in the classroom. The 2-hour time observation periods weredivided into two 45-minute segments with 15-minute breaks to reduce observer fatigue.Each participant was observed for a total of 180 observation segments. During the obser-vations, the researchers remained complete observers, maintaining minimal interactionswith others during the observations (Bernard, 2006).

Specifically coded preservice teacher behaviors were (a) positive, negative, and neutralverbal responsiveness with behavior modification and (b) positive, negative, and neutralnon-verbal responsiveness with behavior modification (see Table 1). On an informationcover sheet, the observers recorded the start time of the observation, the number ofchildren, teachers, and preservice teachers present during the observation, and whenthe observed modification behaviors was observed (during the contexts of transitions orstructured times). They also recorded anecdotal notes about the classrooms’ physicalenvironments, the activities children and preservice teachers were engaging in at the

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TABLE 1 Behavioral Codes for Modifications Behaviors

Non-verbal Verbal

Positive Uses body or an object to modify orredirect a behavior, including usinga positive affect such as a hand onthe back, motioning to have a seat,or shhh with a gentle finger tomouth (when accompanied with asmile or other calming mannerism).

Verbalizes to redirect or modify abehavior using positive affect, tone,and/or phrases or questions,including questions like, ‘‘Do youremember how we sit nicely on thecarpet?’’ and ‘‘How are we supposedto talk to our friends?’’

Neutral Uses body or an object to modify orredirect a behavior, includingbehaviors that do not have either apositive or a negative connotationsuch as, pointing, motioning for achild to come closer, hand held up(palm open).

Verbalizes to redirect or modify abehavior without positive or negativeaffect. These are primarily directivessuch as, ‘‘come here,’’ ‘‘stop that,’’‘‘move that,’’ ‘‘hand her that,’’ etc.

Negative Uses body or an object to modify orredirect a behavior, includingnegative connoted behaviors such as,physical restraint of a child, shakinga finger, roughly taking an objectaway, shaking head ‘‘no,’’ using abehavior chart to move child’s nameto another level (pull a card, removea stick, etc.), frowning at a child, eyerolling, shrugging shoulders, roughlymoving a child out of an area.

Verbalizes to redirect or modify abehavior using negative affect, tone,and/or phrases such as, ‘‘no’’ or‘‘don’t.’’ This may include instanceswhen the preservice teacher verballyshows disapproval of a behavior anduses negative expressions such as‘‘No,’’ ‘‘Don’t touch that,’’ ‘‘Stoptalking,’’ ‘‘Quit running,’’ ‘‘Shhhh’’(when stated with frustration),‘‘That’s not nice.’’

beginning of the observations, and any unusual events that occurred during the obser-vations.

Transitions were defined as times during which more than one-half of the childrenwere not engaged in a structured activity (e.g., changing classroom activities, leav-ing/entering the classroom). Structured times were considered to be the specific activities,discussions, or tasks in which the preservice teacher attempted to engage children (e.g.,group time, math lessons, morning meetings).

Behavioral Code Development and Refinement

Decisions about the types of behavior modification techniques to include in the observationprotocol were based on the field notes taken by each of the three primary researchers. First,each researcher conducted an informal observation in an early childhood education settingfor at least 1 hour. During the informal observation, researchers noted the techniquesteachers and preservice teachers used when responding to children in an attempt to modifytheir behavior. The three researchers reviewed and compared the field notes, notingthe similarities and themes across observations. Collective review and discussion of thefield notes revealed some specific similarities and consistencies. For instance, it was notedjointly that teachers and preservice teachers regularly used questions to redirect children’s

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Verbal and Non-Verbal Guidance Strategies 67

behaviors, such as ‘‘What are you supposed to be doing right now?’’ The researchers alsofound that teachers and preservice teachers used more modification techniques duringtransition times.

In addition to the field notes, the researchers also consulted work by Mash andMcElwee (1976) to inform the development of an observational coding scheme, or a systemfor categorizing behaviors. Mash and McElwee discussed how teacher–child interactionscan best be categorized for observation. Thus, the researchers based the structure and or-ganization of the behavioral codes on Mash and McElwee’s behavior categories, situations,and locations that specifically focused on teacher behaviors. However, the content of themodification behavioral codes for this study was unique. After gathering field notes andresearch on developing behavioral codes, the researchers developed a coding system thatrecorded negative and positive responsiveness techniques (both non-verbal and verbal)with the intent to modify children’s behaviors.

The three primary researchers practiced using the initial behavior observation pro-tocol during 45-minute live observations of a kindergarten classroom located at the uni-versity’s lab school and noted any questions, comments, and/or confusions about theprotocol. Following the practice observations, the researchers discussed the difficulty incoding behaviors that seemed neutral, neither negative or positive (e.g., the teacher wavinga child to come closer and saying ‘‘come here’’). Therefore, based on collective agreement,the researchers decided to add two codes: neutral non-verbal modification and neutralverbal modification. The final modification codes included six different behaviors (seeTable 1). For the purposes of this study, only the preservice teachers’ neutral and positivemodification behaviors and the contexts in which these occurred are discussed.

The researchers gained reliability, or agreement, on the observation protocol by con-ducting 45-minute live observations in a kindergarten classroom located at the university’slab school. The observers calculated inter-rater agreement and discussed their codingdecisions following each observation. All three observers reached at least 90% interrateragreement on all behavioral codes before collecting data.

Data Analysis

In this study, general descriptive statistics were conducted first to measure how much timeeach context was observed and also to show the percentage of total observation time thatwas spent observing specific preservice teacher behaviors. Next, based on 3 � 2 � 2 mixedfactors design (modification techniques, contexts, and communication format), the resultswere conducted using a repeated measures multivariate analyses of variance (MANOVA).With three types of modification techniques (positive, negative, and neutral), two typesof contexts (transitions and structured times), and two types of communication format(verbal and non-verbal) as repeated measures of the within-subjects factors, a repeatedmeasure MANOVA provided comparisons of the mean frequencies of each type of strategy,and determined whether preservice teachers used a higher frequency of one modificationtechnique over another during structured verses transition times.

Analyses were conducted on rates of preservice teachers’ modification strategies rel-ative to observation points in each context in order as structured contexts were morefrequently observed than transition contexts due to the nature of the daily classroomschedules. Thus, the frequencies of each type of modification strategy were prorated inproportion to the particular type of context (transition and structured times) to create a

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68 L. A. Caudle et al.

TABLE 2 Mean and Standard Deviations for Percent of Techniques Used during Structured andTransitional Times

Positive Neutral Negative

Non-verbal Verbal Non-verbal Verbal Non-verbal Verbal

Structured 0.74 (0.72) 1.72 (1.42) 5.37 (3.61) 7 (4.91) 1.39 (1.58) 0.79 (0.91)Transitional 1.18 (2.15) 3.36 (4.17) 16.09 (16.52) 23.16 (16.87) 0.54 (1.2) 2.17 (4.26)

percentage of each context in which the behaviors occurred. For all analyses, Cohen’s fwas used for effect size, and the categorizations of the effect size are small (range from .10to .24), medium (from .25 to .39), and large (.40 or greater) (Cohen, 1988).

Results

General descriptive statistics revealed 87% of observations occurred during structuredactivities and 13% were during transition times. As expected, preservice teachers spentthe majority of the observed time in structured activities. This is due to the fact that allclassroom activities that were not transitions were categorized as structured. For instance,both completing math worksheets and engaging in free play within learning centers wouldboth be considered structured activities in this study, even though one may typically beconsidered much more open-ended and student-directed. Results also revealed, neutralmodification occurred in about 15% of observations, while positive modification occurredin about 3%, and negative modification occurred in about 2% of observations, regardlessof the classroom context. Therefore, the classroom situations observed prompted thepreservice teachers to utilize relatively few modification strategies, yet those that wereobserved were mostly neutral in nature.

The mean percentages of verbal and non-verbal positive, neutral, and negative modi-fication techniques during transitions and structured times are presented in Table 2. Thefrequency of each type of technique was prorated in proportion to the particular context.As a result, the percentages represent the amount of time preservice teachers utilized aparticular technique within each context. Since the codes were not mutually exclusive, apreservice teacher could (and did) use more than one behavior at a time (i.e., using positiveverbal and non-verbal simultaneously). This is evident in the variation of percentages.

A 3 (types of modification techniques) � 2 (types of communication format) � 2(types of contexts) repeated measures MANOVA was conducted and revealed there wasnot a significant three-way interaction, yet there were two significant two-way interactions,which included types of modification techniques and types of contexts (Wilks’s � D .38,F(2, 9) D 7.37, p � .05, Cohen’s f D .88) and types of communication format and types ofcontexts (Wilks’s � D .64, F(1, 10) D 5.53, p � .05, Cohen’s f D .74). To investigate thefirst interaction of modification techniques and context, pairwise comparison tests (withBonferroni adjustment) were conducted. These tests revealed that preservice teachers usedneutral modification techniques more than the other two techniques during structuredand transition times. In addition, paired sample t tests revealed that neutral modificationtechniques were used significantly more in transitional times than structured times (t D

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Verbal and Non-Verbal Guidance Strategies 69

FIGURE 1 Preservice teacher modification techniques by context (color figure available online).

3.31, p < .01), but there was no significant differences between structured and transitiontimes for positive and negative modification techniques (see Figure 1).

There was no significant difference in the frequencies between positive and negativetechniques used in the class. For the interaction of communication format and con-text, pairwise comparison tests (with Bonferroni adjustment) revealed that the preserviceteachers used more verbal communication format than non-verbal communication formatduring structured and transition times. In addition, paired sample t tests showed thatnot only verbal technique (t D 4.75, p < .01), but also nonverbal techniques were usedsignificantly more in transition times than structured times (t D 2.26, p < .05) (seeFigure 2).

Discussion

The current study provided a unique opportunity to examine the modification techniquespreservice teachers utilize with young children in classrooms, especially during transitionsand structured times. Results reveal preservice teachers not only used more neutral thanpositive modification techniques, they used significantly more neutral modification tech-niques during transition times compared to structured contexts. This study provides evi-dence that preservice teachers alter their modification techniques when contexts change.These findings support the notion that transitions are more stressful and provide moreopportunities for children to misbehave, according to previous research (Gump, 1969;Ostrosky et al., 2002). The extensive use of neutral modification techniques may be rootedin the preservice teachers’ unique beliefs about how to appropriately respond to children’sbehaviors with the intent to modify them (Pajares, 1992; Vartuli, 2005). Even though it isunrealistic to expect preservice teachers to always remain positive when they respond to

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FIGURE 2 Preservice teacher communication format by context.

inappropriate behavior, the amount of positive modification techniques observed in theclassrooms was very minimal. Due to their focus on positive interactions with children, theteacher preparation programs in which the participants were enrolled encourage the useof substantially more positive techniques than were observed in this study. Young childrenare more likely to engage in transition times when they are positively recognized for desiredbehaviors, versus being ignored or provided lackluster responses from teachers.

In addition, the findings show that preservice teachers not only frequently usedverbal neutral modification techniques, but also non-verbal techniques during transitiontimes than structured times (see Figure 1). The results suggest the importance of notonly verbal interactions, but also non-verbal interactions between teachers and childrenin early childhood classrooms. Teachers often use various types of verbal strategies tomaintain children’s attentions (Berry, 2006; Moschovaki, Meadows, & Pellegrini, 2007;Powell, Burchinal, File, & Kontos, 2008) and encourage children to make good behavioralchoices (Kohn, 2001). However, instead of teachers’ sole use of verbal techniques, usingnonverbal cues or physical movement in addition is likely to be more meaningful to youngchildren. Early childhood classrooms can be very over stimulating and loud, causing aneed for more non-verbal communication. Further, given young children’s developingunderstanding of social cues, social norms, executive functioning, and attention span, itis likely non-verbal cues coupled with verbal requests may trigger desired behaviors morereadily.

Limitations and Implications

There are a few limitations to this study. First of all, the observations were conducted acrossthree different grade levels and there may be substantial differences in the modificationstrategies preservice teachers use depending on the grade. The sample size is also small,

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Verbal and Non-Verbal Guidance Strategies 71

consisting of preservice teachers from two similar teacher preparation programs locatedat one university. It is not known the extent to which the techniques utilized by thesepreservice teachers were influenced by their similar university program experiences. Also,since the observations occurred in the morning, this study is unable to reveal if and howpreservice teachers’ behaviors change throughout a school day. Further studies shoulduse a larger sample of preservice teachers across a typical school day, and perhaps groupparticipants based on grade level. In addition, there was no way to decipher from thisstudy how effective the strategies were in modifying the inappropriate behaviors or howthe children responded to the preservice teachers’ verbal and non-verbal requests. Thus,this study contributes descriptive information about what behaviors preservice teachers usein the classroom without an understanding of the success of their strategies.

This study has several implications for future researchers, teacher preparation pro-grams, and preservice teachers. Future research should explore the effectiveness of neutraland positive modification techniques by observing teachers’ modification techniques pairedwith children’s responsiveness or reactions to these techniques. Research studies shouldalso focus on interviewing preservice teachers following observations to explore theirbeliefs, rationales, and overall impressions of their modification techniques. These ap-proaches would provide rich descriptions of the processes involved in modifying children’sbehavior as well as the underlying principles behind the approaches. Also, observingteachers throughout the school day would provide intriguing data on how and if theyuse different modification techniques in the afternoon versus the morning and if theychange or alter their techniques due to a lack of effectiveness.

Observational studies that identify teacher–child interactions regarding behavior mod-ification would provide a fuller picture of which specific non-verbal and verbal strategiesare most effective with young children. Further, more in-depth observations of preserviceteachers’ effectiveness of behavior modification strategies within specific classroom contexts(e.g., large group time, seat work, free play) would provide evidence of how preserviceteachers alter strategies based on learning contexts and if these methods are effective(Rimm-Kaufman, LaParo, Downer, & Pianta, 2005).

Observations of the preservice teachers in this study revealed a use of more neu-tral rather than positive modification techniques, especially during transition times. Thisfinding has several implications for preservice teacher education. Teacher preparationprograms should provide opportunities for preservice teachers to reflect on and practiceusing positive modification techniques (McFarland, Saunders, & Allen, 2009), especiallyduring classroom contexts that can become more ‘‘hectic.’’ The use of video stimulatedrecall is one way to encourage in-depth reflection among preservice teachers, as thistool provides them with opportunities to relive classroom situations, assess their decision-making, and examine the complexities of teacher–child interactions (Reitano & Sim, 2010).Also, teacher preparation program coursework and practicum experiences need to focusintensely on how to plan ahead for behavior problems by creating smooth, developmen-tally appropriate, and predictable transitions (McIntosh et al., 2004). Most importantly,having preservice teachers complete high-quality field experiences early and often withina program, where they can learn practice in practice, is of utmost importance (Darling-Hammond, 2010). While the participants in this study had substantial field experiences,much of these experiences occurred in the university lab school, where it may be easier toutilize positive guidance techniques with children.

The results imply that establishing guidelines for effective use of non-verbal modifi-cation techniques as well as verbal techniques in the classroom would be beneficial. The

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sensitive responses and appropriate guidance techniques of preservice teachers positivelyimpact young children’s social–emotional development and learning (Godfrey et al., 2003;Rimm-Kaufman, Voorhees, Snell, & LaParo, 2003). Children who are positively involvedwith their teachers exhibit better adjustment to school (Birch & Ladd, 1997). However,even though teachers use both verbal and nonverbal engagement techniques, teachers’verbal interactions with children are more often studied and emphasized as effectiveteaching strategies. This may be because language ability is noted as an important indicatorof cognitive development and school achievement (Walker, Greenwood, Hart, & Carta,1994; Welsh, Nix, Blair, Bierman, & Nelson, 2010).

Furthermore, preservice teachers should have opportunities to learn how to plan andinteract not only during structured times, but transition times. Many studies have examinedhow to promote preservice teachers’ preparation for classroom teaching and ability to dealwith difficult situations (L’Allier & Elish-Piper, 2007; Morrell et al., 2004). The strategiesand techniques preservice teachers use during transition times are especially interestingsince young children are liable to engage in objectionable behaviors due to a lack of preciseguidelines (Gump, 1969). Oftentimes, preservice teachers may forget to plan for transitiontimes, and children may be asked to wait excessively before moving to the next activity,which can be a stressful experience for some young children (Ostrosky et al., 2002).

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