A METAANALYSIS OF INTERVENTIONS TO DECREASE DISRUPTIVE CLASSROOM-BEHAVIOR IN PUBLIC-EDUCATION SETTINGS

We conducted a meta-analysis of 99 studies that used interventions to decrease disruptive classroom behavior in public education settings. D ue to the predominance of single-subject studies, we used the interrup ted Time Series Autocorrelation program (ITSACORR; Crosbie, 1993) whic h yielded a t statistic that was transformed into an effect size. A to tal of 223 effect sizes yielded a mean effect size of -.78, indicating that, on average, 78% of the treated students reduced their disruptiv e behavior compared to nontreated students. We found that studies usin g teacher rating scales were less likely to evidence reductions in dis ruptive classroom behaviors compared to studies using behavioral obser vation methodologies. We also found that students treated in self-cont ained classrooms were more likely to evidence a reduction in disruptiv e classroom behavior compared to students treated in regular classroom settings. With the exclusion of studies using teacher rating scales, comparison of treatment interventions showed no statistically reliable differences due to the large variability in the relative effectivenes s for students treated. Overall, results indicate that interventions t o reduce disruptive classroom behavior yield comparable results to oth er meta-analytic studies investigating the effectiveness of psychother apy for children and adolescents. This indicates that there are effica cious treatments used in public education settings to to decrease disr uptive classroom behaviors.