Focusing on teacher–student interactions eliminates the negative impact of students’ disruptive behavior on teacher perceptions

Abstract

This study tests the impact of a randomly assigned professional development coaching intervention (MyTeachingPartner-Secondary; MTP-S) on teacher projections of their students’ educational attainment. Results indicate that students who report more behavior problems in the Fall of the academic year are projected by teachers to have lower future educational attainment in the Spring of the academic year. However, analyses further indicate that participation in the MTP-S intervention moderates the association between Fall student behavior problems and teachers’ Spring projections for student attainment, such that this link is not significant for students in classrooms where the teacher is participating in MTP-S. In fact, results indicate that teachers who participate in the intervention project better educational attainment for their students than teachers who are in a business-as-usual control condition, regardless of their students’ behavior. Findings are discussed in terms of the role that interventions targeting classroom interactions may play in altering teachers’ internal view of students, thus ultimately promoting adolescent development.