Analyzing the Classroom Social Behavior of

Students with EBD

RICHARD E. SHORES AND JOSEPH H.WEHBY

HORES (1987) PUBLISHED A HISTOR- Research using new direct observation procedures to analyze classroom social behavior of children with
ical account of the research done emotional and behavior disorders (EBD) is reviewed.These observation systems are complex but allow

by the Peabody social research a sequential analysis of social

group. One of the group’s accomplish-
ments was the development of reliable
data systems that captured the dyadic
nature of social interactions, as proposed
by Patterson and Reid (1970). Strain and
Timm (1974) reported one of the first
studies to use a system that provided
an estimate of dyadic social interaction.
They recorded who initiated the interac-
interaction sequences that should prove helpful in understanding the social
behavior of children with EBD. The research supports at least one major conclusion—that teachers
seldom provide praise or other forms of social reinforcement. It also suggests that teachers
potential
may engage in behavior to escape or avoid social contact with many of these difficult-to-teach children.
Issues regarding reliability of the procedures are discussed, and the authors also suggest some directions
for future research.
capture the nature of streams of behavior benefited from these technological ad-
that occurred within social interactions. vances. Much of the data described in

tion, the type of initiated response
(positive or negative), who responded,
the type of response to the initiation
(positive or negative), and the duration
of the interaction sequence. This data
system (with minor variations) was used
for most of our research studying social
interaction for nearly 10 years. Included
were studies on peer confederate train-
ing (e.g., Strain, Shores, & Timm, 1977),
generalization of social responses (e.g.,
Fox et al., 1984), procedures to aid in
developing social integration of children
with disabilities (e.g., Hecimovic, Fox,
Shores, & Strain, 1986), and other stud-
ies to aid in refining the data collection
process by identifying specific respons-
Since the late 1980s, such systems have
emerged. The purpose of this article is to
discuss the research on social behavior
in classroom settings using complex
computerized data collection and analy-
sis procedures.
ADVANCES IN DATA
COLLECTION
The decreased size of powerful laptop
computers has led the way for develop-
ers of observational software to create sys-
tems that allow for the collection and
analysis of complex social behaviors.
These systems have many benefits, one
this article was collected using the
MOOSES (Multiple Option Observa-
tional System for Experimental Studies;
Tapp, Wehby, & Ellis, 1995). Other re-
searchers have used equally useful soft-
ware programs (e.g., Noldus, 1991; Repp
& Karsh, 1994a, 1994b).
These advances in data collection
systems have led to the implementation
of more intense, sophisticated data anal-
ysis techniques for analyzing the social
behavior of students with EBD. In addi-
tion to investigating the relation between
types of social behavior (i.e., negative or
positive) and the physical environment
of a classroom, researchers now can
more thoroughly investigate the recipro-

es that would lead to positive interactions
(Tremblay, Strain, Hendrickson, &
Shores, 1981). Shores (1987) concluded
that we needed to develop more complex
data systems using emerging technolo-
of which may be the reduction of errors
associated with observational data by
limiting the number of times the data are
transcribed to and from different forms
(e.g., from paper to spreadsheet to
cal relations between teachers and stu-
dents as well as between target students
and their peers. A data analysis tech-
nique that we have used to study class-
room interactions is lag sequential anal-

gies, particularly portable computers, to graph). Research on EBD has certainly ysis (see Bakeman & Gottman, 1986;
194
Gottman & Roy, 1990), which provides
the conditional probability (CP) of
one response preceding and following
another response. By using the CPs’
z scores, one can identify significant
antecedents and consequences associ-
ated with any given response. This ap-
proach provides a description of stu-
dents’ social environments and identifies
significant social events that are related
to both prosocial and antisocial behav-
iors.
Lag sequential analysis has been used
for a number of years to study a wide
variety of areas, including classroom in-
teractions of students identified as se-
verely emotionally disturbed (e.g., Jack
et al., 1996; Shores et al., 1993; Simpson
& Souris, 1988; Wehby, Symons, & Shores,
1995) and identification of potential mo-
tivational factors in prosocial and anti-
social classroom behavior (Gunter, Jack,
Shores, Carrell, & Flowers, 1993). This
approach has also allowed us to better
identify the relation between classroom
interactions of students with EBD and
classroom variables (e.g., group or indi-
vidual instruction, proximity of teacher,
academic or nonacademic activity, and
students’ task engagement).
Descriptive Studies
Shores et al. (1993) reported on the first
of the studies that utilized sequential
analysis as a way of understanding
classroom social interactions between
teachers and students who are aggres-
sive, as well as between these students
and their peers. Nineteen students with
EBD who were rated as highly aggres-
sive by their teachers, and 19 students
from the same classrooms who were not
considered aggressive, were observed in
daily classroom interactions. Both segre-
gated and integrated placements were
used as settings. The coding system con-
sisted of 15 behavioral codes and in-
cluded who responded and to whom the
response was directed. The general re-
sults of this study showed that the major-
ity of interactions within these class-
rooms could be classified as neutral.
Teachers told a student to do something
(mand), students almost always com-
plied, and typically another teacher
mand followed. Positive teacher conse-
quences for appropriate behavior were
seldom observed. For instance, praise
statements occurred infrequently, with
an average of 2.4 praise statements per
hour. In addition, relatively low rates of
aggressive/disruptive behavior were ob-
served. Sequential analysis of these
behaviors revealed that when they did
occur, the most probable sequences of
antecedents were some type of peer be-
havior (e.g., Peer Talk, Peer Negative
Verbal/Gestural). The most probable
consequences for aggressive/disruptive
behavior were also some type of peer be-
havior (e.g., Peer Talk, Peer Aggression,
and Peer Negative Mand). It should be
noted that peer-target student classroom
interactions occurred at a relatively low
rate. The only significant association
with peer social responses was in rela-
tion to the negative behaviors of the tar-
get students.
In a follow-up study, Wehby et al.
(1995) investigated the classroom be-
havior of 28 students with EBD selected
from 14 self-contained special educa-
tion classrooms. Wehby et al. used the
MOOSES program to observe each stu-
dent for 8 to 10 hours during academic
activities. Teacher and peer interactions
with targeted students were recorded. As
with the Shores et al. (1993) study, low
rates of positive interactions character-
ized the behaviors most often seen in
these classrooms. However, rates of ag-
gressive behavior were higher than what
Shores et al. had found. These higher
rates allowed for a more thorough anal-
ysis of the antecedent and consequences
of aggressive behavior. For aggression
toward teachers, the most frequent ante-
cedent observed was a teacher social
command. Interestingly, the same be-
havior was also the most frequently ob-
served consequence of aggression. These
results are in agreement with the Shores
et al. (1993) study in that teachers at-
tended to both inappropriate behavior
and appropriate behavior by giving the
students additional mands. As with the
Shores et al. study, peer behavior was
most often associated with the target stu-
dent’s behavior when one or the other
was engaged in negative behavior. For
example, peer social mands and peer ag-
gression toward the target child were the
most frequent antecedents recorded for
student inappropriate behavior.
Jack et al. (1996) studied teachers’ re-
ported use of standard classroom man-
agement strategies and related this to
teacher-student interactions. The authors
developed a new analysis program that
identified types of interaction sequences
as positive, negative, neutral, or mixed.
An interaction sequence was defined as
the responses recorded between stop
codes (when no social behavior occurred
for at least 10 seconds). If the sequence
contained one of the codes considered
positive and no negative codes, it was
defined as a positive interaction. Nega-
tive interactions were those sequences
that contained at least one negative re-
sponse and no positive responses. A neu-
tral interaction was a sequence in which
neither a positive nor a negative response
was recorded. Mixed interactions were
those sequences in which both a negative
behavior and a positive behavior were
recorded. The descriptive data were
found to be very similar to data from
previous studies. More than 20% of the
time, students and teachers were involved
in negative interactions, with positive in-
teractions consuming less than 5% of the
time. The sequence of a positive interac-
tion was typically initiated by a teacher
mand (&dquo;to do&dquo; statement), whereas neg-
ative interaction sequences were typi-
cally initiated by a student’s disruptive
behavior.
In addition to studies with the EBD
population, some of this descriptive
work has been conducted with students
identified as at risk for developing later
problem behaviors. Wehby, Dodge, Va-
lente, and the Conduct Problems Preven-
tion Research Group (1993) observed 82
first graders who had been identified as
being at low or high risk for developing
problem behaviors. As in the studies
with children identified as EBD, teach-
ers of high-risk students provided little
positive consequences for appropriate
behavior and were more likely to use
negative behaviors to control student be-
havior. In a more sophisticated study
with at-risk students, Van Acker, Grant,
and Henry (1996) used sequential analy-
sis with classroom observational data
195
from second-, third-, and fifth-grade chil-
dren identified as having varying de-
grees of risk (mid or high) for develop-
ing aggressive behavior. Participants
were recruited from a longitudinal study
on the prevention of antisocial behavior.
A total of 206 students in two risk
groups (mid and high) were observed to
study reciprocal relationships between
the teachers and the students. As in pre-
vious studies, the results demonstrated
that teachers provided little attention to
the appropriate behaviors of either
group. Praise for compliant behavior did
not exceed chance levels. On the other
hand, teacher reprimands for inappropri-
ate student behavior were highly pre-
dictable for the high-risk group, whereas
redirection was the most predictable
consequence for the mid-risk group.
The focus of the just described stud-
ies was on the social interactions of stu-
dents who were considered EBD (or at
risk) and who had histories of aggressive
behavior. The purpose of these studies
was to identify predictive social stimuli
for aggressive behavior; however, the
occurrence of physical aggression was
often found to be at such a low rate that
identifying significant predictive stimuli
was not possible. There were consistent
results across the studies, particularly in
student-teacher interactions. For exam-
ple, teachers typically began most inter-
actions by issuing a mand to the student,
and usually the student complied with
the mand. Teachers seldom praised stu-
dents for appropriate behavior. As Van
Acker et al. (1996) indicated, teacher
praise appeared to be a random event un-
related to student behavior. Teachers
also seemed to be more likely to respond
to students’ inappropriate behavior than
to their appropriate behavior. The stud-
ies also demonstrated that the most often
observed teacher consequent response to
either appropriate or inappropriate stu-
dent behavior was the same class of re-
sponses : teacher mand or talk. These
results led to additional studies focusing
on teacher behavior.
In a review of the literature on
teacher-student interactions, Wehby,
Symons, Canale, and Go (1998) re-
ported observational data indicating that
teacher instructions in a classroom for
196
students with EBD were extremely in-
consistent across children. More specifi-
cally, students who were considered
highly aggressive engaged in fewer in-
structional interactions than did those
students with lower levels of aggressive
behavior. These data support the re-
sults of other studies that have shown
that (a) many students with EBD receive
teacher attention primarily for inappro-
priate behavior and (b) other opportu-
nities for interaction are less apparent
(Carr, Taylor, & Robinson, 1991). This
effect has been described by Gunter,
Denny, Jack, Shores, and Nelson (1993)
as a &dquo;curriculum of noninstruction&dquo; that
may increase the aversive nature of some
classrooms and lead to escape and
avoidance behaviors on the part of stu-
dents and possibly some teachers as well.
These studies just described indicated
that students with EBD received scant
positive social responses from their
teachers and that many of the inter-
actions between these students and their
teachers can best be described as incon-
sistent. As a result, several experimental
studies were conducted to investigate the
effect that providing more consistent,
less negative responses by teachers
would have on student-teacher inter-
actions and students’ positive and nega-
tive social behavior.
Studies
Experimental
Gunter, Jack, et al. (1993) reported on
two studies that used sequential analysis
data to develop hypotheses regarding the
relationship between students’ disruptive
and inappropriate behavior and changes
in teacher behavior. These studies used
sequential analysis as a tool for func-
tional assessment. In the first study,
there was a .37 conditional probability
(CP) that a student’s hand raise preceded
his or her disruptive behavior. In addi-
tion, the teacher was more likely to
respond to the hand raise-disrupt se-
quence (CP = .38) than to the hand raise
alone (CP = .25). To change the interac-
tion sequence (or the CPs), a correction
procedure was implemented for 10 days
in which the teacher simply reminded
the student to raise his or her hand and
not engage in disruptive behavior. After
10 days, the teacher ignored (planned
ignoring phase) the child when he or she
engaged in the hand raise-disrupt se-
quence and attended as quickly as possi-
ble to the hand raise alone. The CP for
the hand raise preceding disruptive
behavior changed from .37 in baseline to
.15 during the intervention. Teacher
attention to hand raise-disruptive behav-
ior changed from a conditional probabil-
ity of .38 to nearly 0. Similarly, the dis-
ruptive behavior fell from a mean of .45
per minute during baseline to approxi-
mately .25 per minute during interven-
tion.
In two additional studies reported in
Gunter, Jack, et al. (1993), disruptive
behavior was changed by increasing
the teachers’ positive statements to the
students. Because the students’ disrup-
tive behavior appeared to be attended to
by the teachers on variable ratio (VR)
schedules of about 5, it was hypothesized
that the teachers could change their reac-
tion to students’ disruptive behavior by
changing their schedule of attention. In
one study, the contingency for attending
to the disruptive child was changed from
the VR schedule of attention on disrup-
tive behavior to a variable interval (VI)
schedule of attention for students when
they were not engaged in disruptive
behavior (differential reinforcement of
other behavior, or DRO). In the second
study, a list of behaviors that were
acceptable was provided to guide the
teacher in what student responses to
praise (differential reinforcement for in-
compatible behavior, or DRI). In both
studies, teachers were provided a watch
with a timer set at 3 minutes and were
asked to interact with the student when
the timer chimed (VI of 3 minutes) if the
student was not engaged in disruptive
behavior (DRO) or was engaged in ap-
propriate behavior (DRI). In both stud-
ies, the students’ disruptive behaviors
decreased and positive interactions in-
creased.
SUMMARY OF
PREVIOUS RESEARCH
The research on social interactions in
classrooms has been consistent in its
reports of (a) low rates of positive inter-
actions between students with EBD and
their teachers and (b) the inconsistent
nature of these interactions. The re-
search has also been consistent in find-
ing that if increases in positive behavior
by teachers occur, decreases in students’
inappropriate behavior are likely to fol-
low. Unfortunately, the procedures used
to increase teacher positive behavior
during interactions with students have
not proven to be very powerful, nor have
teachers been able to maintain positive
responses over time. Given the evidence
that positive teaching behaviors are rare
in classrooms for students with EBD, we
have speculated that future research
needs to be expanded to better under-
stand the variables that affect and main-
tain the interaction patterns of students
with EBD and their teachers. What fol-
lows is a discussion of potential areas of
research that we have identified.
Impact of ChildBehavior
on Teacher Behavior
Future research on social interactions
within classrooms for students with EBD
should focus on the impact of the stu-
dents’ responses on teacher behavior
(Wehby et al., 1998). Although research
on parent-child relationships has shown
that children actively influence the be-
havior of their parents (e.g., Patterson,
1982; Wahler & Dumas, 1986), similar
research involving students with EBD
and the effects of their behavior on other
adults-including teachers-has only re-
cently been conducted. Carr et al. ( 1991 )
noted that if students continually misbe-
have following the delivery of a teacher
instruction, over time teachers might in-
struct these children less often. This pat-
tern might explain the reported low rates
of instructional interactions in class-
rooms for children with or at risk for EBD
(Van Acker et al., 1996; Wehby et al.,
1995). The aversive responses given by
students may have other implications.
As suggested by Gunter, Jack, DePaepe,
Reed, and Harrison (1994), the interac-
tions described in some observational
studies have characterized classrooms
for students with EBD as aversive; this
situation may lead to the use of escape/
avoidance behaviors by teachers as well
as students. This phenomenon needs to
be explored in a more systematic fashion
to better understand social behaviors
within classroom settings.
Role of Setting Events
A number of other areas that affect the
behavior of students with EBD and their
teachers should be explored. Foremost
among these areas is setting events,
which are complex events or combi-
nations of events that provide a sur-
rounding context that may alter the con-
tingencies between antecedent and/or
consequent events of specific behaviors
(e.g., Hendrickson, Gable, & Shores,
1987; Willems, 1974). Setting events
may include intrapersonal variables
(e.g., health, fatigue, biophysical char-
acteristics, drug effects), environmental
events (e.g., routines, activities, physical
arrangement, spatial density), or social
events (e.g., negative interactions) that
often are temporally distant but still in-
fluence stimulus-response relationships
(Bijou & Baer, 1961).
Gardner, Cole, Davidson, and Karan
(1986) noted the importance of viewing
setting events not as constant across per-
sons but as individualized events that
must be defined and examined on a case-
by-case basis. Homer, Vaughn, Day, and
Ard (1996) emphasized that setting
events can alter the likelihood of a given
behavior and the momentary value of
available consequences to that behavior.
These researchers asserted that existing
assessment technologies (e.g., func-
tional assessment) should include the
assessment of setting events and that
behavioral interventions should include
procedures for altering the effects of set-
ting events.
Limited demonstrations of behavioral
interventions using setting events have
recently appeared in applied research lit-
erature. These demonstrations have in-
cluded intrapersonal states (e.g., Homer
et al., 1996; Kennedy & Meyer, 1995);
previous negative interactions (Gardner
et al., 1986; Knapczyk, 1988; Wehby,
1990); and classroom environmental
events such as teacher-student ratios
(e.g., Murphy & Zahm, 1978), social
density (e.g., Brown, Fox, & Brady,
1987), and classroom structure (e.g.,
Jack et al., 1996; Shores, Gunter, & Jack
1993). No studies have investigated ef-
fects of setting events on teacher perfor-
mance.
Several major problems regarding the
current research on setting events need
to be addressed. For example, Fox and
Conroy (1995) suggested that inter-
observer reliability for measurement
systems used to assess setting events is
generally low. Therefore, interpretation
of the current research should be done
with caution due to the measurement of
setting events. Another major concern is
due to the fact that the dependent vari-
able(s) has been the rate of aberrant
behavior. Theoretically, setting events
affect the strength of the environmental
stimulus (antecedent and consequent
events), which then affects the rate of re-
sponding. If this theory is correct, then
the dependent variable must include the
relationship of the stimuli and conse-
quences to the student’s responses. The
research reported here thus is weak due
to few or no reliable measures of the in-
dependent variables, and also because
the critical dependent variables (i.e.,
stimuli-response-consequences) have
seldom been monitored. Research is
needed to (a) develop reliable measures
of setting events and (b) test the effects
of the defined setting events on the stim-
uli and contingency relationships to the
social interactions of the student with
EBD, not simply the rate of deviant
behavior (Fox & Conroy, 1995). In addi-
tion, the study of setting events may pro-
vide some promising information con-
cerning the behavior of teachers in their
day-to-day interactions with these stu-
dents. With the complex data systems
now available, such research is possible.
CONCLUSIONS
Advances in data collection and analysis
systems have allowed for a more sophis-
ticated look at the interactions of stu-
dents with EBD in educational environ-
ments. Although much remains to be
known about the social behavior of stu-
dents and teachers within these envi-
ronments, at least one major conclusion
may be drawn from the studies pre-
197
sented : Teachers generally are not very
/?<M~ve ~ in their
positive ~e~’r instructional
~~f/’MC~o~a~ proce-
/?yoce-
dures. In most of the studies discussed,
the use of praise or other types of posi-
tive social responses was seldom observed.
The lack of positive interactions-and
the subsequent lack of positive instruc-
tional programming-has created edu-
cational environments that are less than
ideal for students with EBD. As we con-
tinue to explore more variables associ-
ated with social behavior within class-
rooms for these students, a better under-
standing of the long-term impact of the
variables should occur.
Although technological advances in
observational research have led to an in-
creased knowledge regarding the social
behavior of students with EBD, it is
important to note some potential pitfalls
to thistype of research. Before any con-
clusions can be drawn, the reader needs
to be aware that there is a major chance
of measurement error with any obser-
vation system. Most of the studies de-
scribed here reported reliability (inter-
observer agreement) on the individual
codes and total agreement scores. Agree-
ment on behaviors that were high rate
was generally acceptable; however, be-
haviors that were low rate (e.g., aggres-
sive behavior) generally produced low
interrater agreement. When total per-
centage agreement was presented, the
higher rate scores tended to obscure the
lower agreement scores. As researchers
continue to add more variables to obser-
vational systems, it is critical to obtain
interrater agreement on low rate behav-
iors. The agreement issue is also relevant
when sequential analysis is used to look
at the relationship between specific tar-
get behaviors (for students or teachers)
and the antecedents and consequences
that surround those behaviors. In pre-
vious research, reliability scores on be-
havior sequences were not reported. As
research in this area moves toward
analysis of teacher-student sequences
(and the relation between them and cer-
tain setting events), researchers must
report agreement on the sequences as
well as on the individual codes.
The use of computer-assisted data
collection and analysis systems holds
great promise in providing better under-
198
standing of the classroom social behav-
ior of children and youth with EBD.
Using these systems to identify the moti-
vations associated with student and
teacher social behavior is important
prior to making recommendations re-
garding how to improve classroom so-
cial competence of students with EBD.
In addition, a better understanding of the
role of setting events on classroom inter-
actions is needed before substantial im-
provements can be made to classroom
interventions for these students.
About the Authors
RICHARD E. SHORES, EdD, is a senior
scientist with the Schiefelbusch Institute for
Life Span Studies at the University of Kansas
at Parsons. He currently directs a research
program on social interactions of children
with EBD and is involved in studies on the
effects of antipsychotic drugs used by per-
sons with dual diagnosis (developmental dis-
abilities and mental disorders). For most of
his professional life, Dr. Shores’ primary re-
search interest has been the social interac-
tions of children with EBD. JOSEPH H.
WEHBY, PhD, is an assistant professor in
the Department of Special Education at Pea-
body College, Vanderbilt University. He also
teaches undergraduate and graduate courses
in Peabody’s Department of Special Educa-
tion. Dr. Wehby’s research interest has also
been the analysis of social interactions in
classrooms for children with EBD. Address:
Richard E. Shores, The University of Kansas,
2601 Gabriel, Parsons, KS 67357.
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