Journal Article

Does Information Bias Teachers’ Perceptions of Intervention Effectiveness?

Bush, Helena, Almanza, Adam J., Massey, Spencer L., Rapp, John T.

2024

Overview

In 2011, the United States Congress amended and passed laws requiring states to monitor and decrease psychotropic medication use in child welfare systems. In addition to prescribers, Luna et al. Behavior and Social Issues , 27 , AA16-AA20, ( 2018 ) identified case managers, caregivers, and teachers as potential contributors to the prescribing process. For example, due to the lower response effort, teachers may recommend caregivers seek a medical evaluation, which may give rise to pharmacological interventions for behavioral problems as opposed to behavioral interventions. To date, no study has evaluated the extent to which teachers display positive or negative bias for either behavioral or pharmacological intervention as treatment for behavior problems displayed by students. As a step toward addressing this issue, the current study randomly assigned 119 certified teachers to one of four groups: Medication information (Med info), Behavioral information (Beh info), No change (control), and Reverse video (also no change control). Teachers watched two 5-min videos of a child engaging in low to moderate levels of problem behavior. After watching each video, teachers rated seven questions on a 5-point Likert scale. Although teachers in the Med info and Beh info groups observed worsening of behavior in the second video, only the Beh info group provided more negative ratings than the control group regarding the child’s ability to follow directions. In addition, Pre-K/elementary school teachers rated the child’s behavior as “more normal” than did other teachers. Overall, findings suggest that teachers displayed (1) a slight negative bias toward the behavioral intervention; and (2) neither positive nor negative bias toward psychotropic medication.

• Publisher: Springer International Publishing,Springer
• Subject: Applied Behavior Analysis / Behavior / Behavior disorders / Behavior modification / Behavior Patterns / Behavior problems / Behavioral Science and Psychology / Bias / Caregivers / Case management / Child and School Psychology / Child welfare / Children / Clinical Psychology / Developmental Psychology / Drug therapy / Drugs / Elementary schools / Families & family life / Foster care / Government regulation / Groups / Information / Intervention / Laws, regulations and rules / Non-pharmacological intervention / Original Article / Parents & parenting / Prescribing / Prescription writing / Psychology / Psychotropic drugs / Social aspects / Social factors / Social issues / Students / Teachers / Treatment methods / Trends