Date of Award

Summer 8-2015

Degree Type

Masters Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts (MA)

Department

Psychology

Committee Chair

Daniel H. Tingstrom

Committee Chair Department

Psychology

Committee Member 2

Brad A. Dufrene

Committee Member 2 Department

Psychology

Committee Member 3

Keith C. Radley

Committee Member 3 Department

Psychology

Abstract

Considered the opposite of tattling, tootling is a procedure where students report their classmates’ positive behavior instead of inappropriate behavior. This study examined the effects of tootling on students’ behavior in three general education high school classrooms. An A-B-A-B withdrawal with follow-up design was used to assess the effects of the intervention on decreasing classwide disruptive behavior and increasing academically engaged behavior. Students wrote tootles anonymously on paper slips, and deposited them into a marked container. An interdependent group contingency procedure was used to create a class goal for the number of submitted tootles, which led to a class reward when achieved. The teacher recorded the number of tootles submitted on a publicly posted progress chart, and verbally reported a sample of tootles at the end of each class period. Students created a new name for the intervention, and voted on class rewards. All classrooms displayed decreases in disruptive behavior and increases in academically engaged behavior during intervention phases. These results suggest that tootling can provide high school teachers a method for positively reinforcing students’ prosocial behavior, and function as a preventative measure against disruptive behavior.

Doctoral dissertation: http://aquila.usm.edu/dissertations/909/

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