Providing students positive encouragement reduces disruptive classroom behaviour and improves learning outcomes, says a new study published in the Journal of Educational Psychology (February). For the study, University of Missouri researchers implemented CHAMPS, a classroom behaviour management training intervention, in a school classroom over the period of five years. According to lead researcher Keith Herman the intervention not only decreased disruptive classroom behaviour and student concentration problems, but also improved classwork completion and standardized test scores of students.

“As educators, we often focus on communicating what we don’t want our students to be doing in class… Instead, we need to be setting clear expectations of what behaviours we want to see. Such intervention which involves communicating clear expectations to students, giving positive encouragement compared to negative reprimands and teachers moving around the classroom to monitor student behaviour, has proved to be helpful in creating successful classroom management,” says Herman.