Condensed notes

Motivation
Linnenbrink & Pintrich (2002) – motivation as an enabler for academic success
What is motivation?
 Process whereby goal-directed activityinstigated + sustained. Process
rather than product – must be inferred from observable behaviours
 Why is it important? Cattell, Barton, & Dielman (1972)  20-25% percent
of student achievement can be attributed to motivation
How do we assess motivation?
 Different methods: direct observation, ratings by others, self-reports
 Different indexes: choice of task, effort, persistence, achievement
 PFSSW – Pupil’s feelings about school work inventory (Entwistle, Kozeki,
& Tait, 1989) Measures: affiliation, interest, and responsibility. Interest is
related to positive perceptions of teachers.
 MRQ – Motivation to reading questionnaire (Wigfield & Guthrie, 1997)
 Harter (1981) – intrinsic and extrinsic motivational scale. Challenge,
curiosity, and mastery subscales – tapped motivation. Judgement and
criteria subscales tap more cognitive-informational structures – what
does the child know, on what basis does he/she make decisions? Intrinsic
scorers more autonomous in making these judgements. Younger children
have higher intrinsic motivations, but are extrinsic in making cognitive
judgements. 9th graders gradually shift towards extrinsic motivations, but
have more intrinsic understanding of whether or not they are successful.
Intrinsic motivation  confidence in cognitive ability and performance
Theories of motivation & how they are applied
 Theories can be behavioural, social learning, cognitive, or humanistic
 Attribution theory (Wiener, 1995) – desire to understand the causal
determinants of their own and others’ behaviour. Cognitive model
o The way we make judgements determines our locus, stability, and
controllability – helps understand how pupils’ perceptions of
success or failure can influence whether they succeed in the future
o Attributions for success – ability, effort, task difficulty, luck, poor
teaching, strategy used
o Schools who insist that the success of students is wholly a result of
teaching and school policies  encourage learned helplessness,
demotivate students
o A student who fails an exam may say it was due to instructor bias
(external, stable, uncontrollable) or lack of ability (internal, stable,
uncontrollable)
o For success it is adaptive to attribute the success to stable, internal
factors such as ability or skill or talent as these factors should also
be present in future tasks
o Attributions to unstable but controllable internal factors such as
effort = adaptive - effort can be modified based on the demands
o Adaptive attributions = success, enhanced academic efficacy, and
positive affect such as pride or hopefulness (Weiner, 1986)
 o Graham (1984) – a teacher’s expression of pity following failure 
student will attribute failure to low ability
o Following a failure/success, teacher should help student make
adaptive but accurate attributions. Failures: if the failure was due
to lack of appropriate strategy use, not useful to tell student to try
hard. In contrast, it is useful to attribute success to trying hard
 Goal orientation theory (Dweck, 1986)
o Goal orientation is a function of an individual’s view of the nature
of intelligence (Dweck, 2000)
o Three types of goals: mastery, performance, or social goals
o But need all three types of goals in order to be successful in life
o An entity theorist (intelligence is fixed)  a performance goal
orientation. If confident in their intelligence – will be mastery
oriented, but if helpless will avoid challenge and will not persist.
o Incremental theorist (intelligence is changeable) learning goal
orientation. Mastery oriented regardless of confidence.
Attributions will be positive and adaptive
o Pintrich & Schunk, 2002 – empirical study demonstrating that
mastery goals are related to achievement
o CRIT: Not necessarily bad to adopt performance goal approach –
students high in both performance and mastery did not experience
more anxiety and negative affect, and were equally motivated
compared to those high in mastery and low in performance
(Pintrich, 2000). Need to reconceptualise the theory that mastery
goals are adaptive and performance goals are maladaptive
 Self determination theory (Deci and Ryan, 1985)
o The process of utilizing one’s will – want to feel self-determined
and responsible for their actions and choices
o Intrinsic motivation – the need to be competent and self-
determining in relation to the environment
o Challenges must be achievable to feel competent – the more an
activity helps us feel competent and autonomous motivation
o Mitchell (1993) – interest  “catch” or “hold” factors – catch
factors stimulate interest (e.g. innovative techniques such as
exciting computer programme), “hold” factors make content
meaningful so students view the content as useful (e.g. a particular
maths lesson is useful for bookkeeping)
o Harackiewicz, Barron, Tauer, Carter, & Elliott, 2000 – hold factor
seems to be better at maintaining interest and motivation
 Self worth theory (Covington, 1984) – self-worth is a critical dimension
of human functioning. Positively correlated with wellbeing.
o High effort that results in failure implies low ability, leading to
feelings of shame and humiliation.
o Students would rather feel guilty (by putting in low effort) than
feel shame
o Effort withdrawal, procrastination, cheating – all efforts to prevent
students from feeling like they lack ability.
Importance of social life: sense of belonging, adhering to social norms, desire to
be accepted by peer group can influence goal types – e.g. students who feel like
they belong more likely to adopt mastery goals (Anderman & Anderman, 1999)
Assessment

What are the purposes of assessment? (Burden, 1996)

 Are we more interested in the product of learning or the process of
learning? What should education be about? EPs are instrumental in
shaping these values
 To classify children and assist the decision-making process (e.g. into
ability group) or diagnosis (e.g. into SEN group)
 To provide an explanation for children’s learning difficulties
 To obtain a summary of cognitive ability
 To link assessment findings to subsequent intervention – especially with
dynamic based assessments
 To help and empower – to track progress
 We all go through different types of assessment – we have to do well in
assessment in order to succeed well in life
 Assessment is a process rather than just a test
 In order for an EP to carry out an assessment, must be able to assess
across as many factors as possible
 Political dilemmas – political aspect is often overlooked

What is psychometric assessment? (Advantages and disadvantages)

 Abilities are stable attributes that develop as an interaction between
environment and hereditary - Norm-referenced, normally distributed
 Originally developed by Binet (late 1800s)
 The purpose of psychometric/standardized testing is to
categorize/classify by measuring past learning to predict future learning
 Advantages
o Quick to use and easy to interpret
o Best predictor of academic success (is it really?)
 Disadvantages
o Intelligence is measured as ability to learn – but psychometric
measures past learning, not learning potential
o Provides little data on how to intervene
o May be biased against linguistic and cultural groups (Lunt, 1993)
o Used to represent overall ability when only a fraction has been
tested (Lunt, 1993)
o Woodworth & Thorndike – adults who, after much practice,
became adept at determining the length of short lines  was not
generalizable to long lines learning to estimate the size of a
certain type of 2D shape does not make one better at estimating
the size of other 2D shapes
o All-or-nothing – either right or wrong, with little to show the
extent to which a child can complete a task with some assistance

What is dynamic assessment? (Advantages and disadvantages)

 Assumes intellective functioning is characterised by adaptation/change
 How an individual learns is more important than what an individual has
learnt
  Important to work out zone of proximal development (the level of
potential development that the child can achieve with help)
 Believe three elements of change:
o Skill
o Rate of learning
o Amount, degree, nature of medi(ation required to bring change
 Advantages
o Superior predictive validity
o Stronger evidence of learning potential (e.g. Grigorenko, 2009)
o Can help develop intervention methods
o Reduces feelings of anxiety and apprehension of the child (Bethge,
Carlson, & Wiedl, 1982)
 Disadvantages
o Time-consuming compared to psychometrics
o Decision-making is subjective
o Doubts about generalizability across domains
o Difficulties over reliability and validity
o Few examples of systematic implementation (Tzuriel, 2001)
 Lauchlan & Elliott (2001) – explored value of assistance performance
assessment in 9-year-old children with learning difficulties. Result: mixed,
but a measurement of high learning potential = valuable if accompanied
by a programme of cognitive intervention designed to foster LP
All approaches are important (Lidz, 1991)
 Psychometric measure: determine how far a child’s knowledge base
deviates from the norm
 Curriculum-based assessment: determine the content of the child’s
knowledge base within a specific domain
 Dynamic assessment: derive hypotheses about how a child learns, how
responsive the child is to attempts to intervene, and what seems to be
interfering with the child’s ability to profit from existing attempts at
instruction
 Kaufman (1994) – EPs should be familiar with psychometric tests, CBA,
and dynamic assessment, but latter two should not be seen as alternatives
 Lauchlan (2001) – Dynamic approach may be best suited to meeting the
social, emotional, and cognitive needs of children with learning difficulties
Belonging and community
What is a psychological sense of community?
 A group, sharing a relationship, common ties, a shared area, develops over
time
 4 characteristics of a community: fulfilment of needs (values and value),
membership (boundaries, belonging, emotional safety), influence and
power, shared emotional connection (contact, shared events)
 Belongingness – the extent to which individuals feel personally accepted,
respected, included, and supported by others in their social environment
(Baumeister & Leary, 1995)
Theories underlying community
 Maslow’s (1943) – belonging is a part of the hierarchy of needs
 Bowlby (1969) – attachment theory
 Baumeister & Leary (1995) – belongingness hypothesis
 Bronfenbrenner & Morris (2006) – bioecological theory
o Family is the first unit to which a child belongs, followed by layers
of other groups that affect his/her psychological development
o Microsystem, mesosytem, exosystem, macrosystem
o Saab (2009) – microsystems contain informal social networks,
friends, teachers, peers
o Mesosystem: school resources and processes at an organizational
level. Management and teaching practices reflect school culture
o Exosystem: comprises the broader community
Why is it important to develop a sense of community in schools?
 Schools play a major part in developing cohesive communities (Home
Office, 2004, O’Brien and Bowles, 2012)
 Belonging – positive mental health as a child (e.g. Royal & Rossi, 1996)
and as an adult (e.g. Bond et al., 2007)
 Belonging – positive behaviour (e.g. Payne et al., 2003)
 Life satisfaction, self efficacy, physical health (O’Brien & Bowles, 2013)
 Caspi et al (2006) – followed cohort longitudinally from childhood to
young adulthood (1972 start) – social isolation during childhood was
associated with increased cardiovascular risk in adulthood
 Coping ability: Battistich et al., 1999
 Hale (1998) – to lower students’ stress levels, must instil a sense of
belonging
 Entwistle, Kozeki, & Tait, 1989 – affiliation linked with perceptions of
teaching
 Individuals from ethnic minorities and with learning difficulties more
likely to report lower levels of belonging (Nepi et al., 2013) – In a fully
inclusive school: SEN students struggle to gain good social position.
Interestingly, high-proficiency learners were more accepting of peers
What are the consequences of not developing a sense of community?
 Crime rates higher (Home Office, 2004)
 Not engaged and poor relationships – reduced social competence,
increased socially disruptive behaviour (Bond et al., 2007)
  Children may seek acceptance elsewhere, potentially in risk taking and
negative relationships (Maddox & Prinz, 2003)

How can psychologists ensure that children develop a sense of community and
feel that they belong?
 Experimental intervention:
 Walton & Cohen, 2007 – 2 experiments: black and white students led to
believe they might have few friends in the intellectual domain or received
an intervention that mitigated doubts about social belonging in college –
black students dropped in academic performance when led to believe
they didn’t belong and improved when led to believe they did belong.
 Improve social experience of school by training teachers (Catalano et al.,
2004)
 Okonofua, Paunesku, & Walton, 2016 – tested whether teachers could be
encouraged to adopt a more empathic rather than punitive mindset about
discipline - to value students’ perpectives whilst encouraging better
behaviour. Then, found that empathic response to misbehaviour
sustained students’ respect and motivation to behave well in class.
 Appreciative inquiry (Cooperrider et al., 2001)
 The Child Development Project (Lewis et al., 2001) includes:
o Buddying
o Home-involvement activities – short activities with a parent
o Whole-school community-building activities (students, parents,
and school staff working on something together eg mural)
o Class meetings – setting class goals and ground rules
o Cooperative learning – students working in small groups or pairs.
Avoiding intergroup competition
o Literature based reading – 250 multicultural books, offering
discussion questions
o Developmental discipline – emphasizes relationship building, unity
building activities
o The five schools (out of 12) that implemented these highly
achieved greater concern for others, altruistic behaviour,
motivation to be kind and helpful, acceptance of outgroups,
enjoyment of class
Metacognition
Define metacognition
 The ability to monitor and regulate one’s own thinking processes
 Self-monitoring, self-questioning

Illustrate the evidence for effectiveness of relating metacognition to an

educational setting
 Vygotsky (1978) – a learner’s actual achievement is a combination of their
own ability and the effectiveness of the communication between teacher
and learner
 Isaacson & Fujita (2006) – metacognition is predictor of academic success
 Relevance to school: successful learners are more likely to use a range of
cognitive skills and strategies (Eyde & Altman, 1978)
 Short et al. (1993) found that more successful learners had a better sense
of what they had done in the past – metacognitive awareness of strategies
that work and how to employ them
 Male (1995) students with moderate learning difficulties can think about
their own thinking, but only when there are very clear authentic
similarities. It’s more accessible when the tasks are authentic real-life
tasks.

What is the role of the psychologist? Metacognitive measures
 Weil (2013) –Typically intervene around sensitive period of growth
between 12-15. Period where metacognitive abilities are ripe for
development. Seize these opportunities
 Self-talk questionnaire – Lee, McDonough, & Bird, 2014 – also conduct
interviews. self-managing, self-correcting, strategizing, focusing,
persevering
o Persevering is the most common type of self talk, rather than a
metacognitive self talk
o Rosenzweig, Krawlec, Montague (2011) – self-instruction, self-
questioning, and self monitoring directed and helped mathematical
problem solving. Self-verbalisation such as negative self-talk,
expressions of confusion and frustration, and task-irrelevant self-
talk was unproductive in facilitating problem solving
 Sperling (2002) – junior metacognitive awareness inventory – 18 item. “I
ask myself if there is an easier way to do things when I am done with a
task” – high internal reliability and predictive validity
Individual and group approaches
 Rabel & Wooldridge, 2013 – Think aloud protocols – exploratory talk in
maths, more effective when using “initiation-response-feedback”
technique, which encouraged the use of “why” and “how” questions
o Self-talk is a tool used by children to regulate their own behaviour
and thinking. Statements are often metacognitive in nature in that
they reflect the awareness and regulation of their own thinking
o 5 types of self talk – self-managing, self-correcting, strategizing,
focusing, persevering
  Doran & Cameron (1995) – reciprocal teaching
o Summarizing, questioning, predicting, and clarifying
o Teacher reads title of the day’s story and elicits predictions from
the students as to what they would expect to learn from a story
with this title
Classroom/whole school approaches
 Story grammar (Danoff, Harris, & Graham ., 1993) – 5-step process that
uses 7 questions to help children think about the story. Gives a scaffold to
help children think about structure for writing stories
o Students with and without a learning disability were taught a
previously validated writing strategy
o Had a positive effect on 4th and 5th graders’ writing for 4/6
students immediately after instruction
 McGuinness (1999) – taught infusion thinking lessons, where students
where taught to enquire about their own different types of thinking:
searching for meaning, critical thinking, creative thinking, problem
solving, decision making. Children could then reflect on what they were
doing (e.g. critical thinking in science or creative thinking in geography) –
by explicitly giving a name of the type of thinking they did. Longitudinally
– changes took time to build and were not even across all learners. Some
small effect sizes in increasing attainment in maths and reading
o Teachers also reported important changes in their images of
themselves – increased awareness of importance of teaching
thinking, being more open to alternative approaches and allowing
children to be more independent in their thinking
 Houtveen et al (2007) reported positive results on the effects of strategy
instruction and reading comprehension. Teachers who demonstrated
better metacognitive strategy instruction also produced students who
made better progress in metacognitive knowledge. In a follow-up study,
students who were in their original experimental group had substantially
better results on reading comprehension than those students who were in
the control group. Conclusion was that teachers can teach their students
metacognitive skills and these skills will in turn lead to better results in
reading comprehension
 Kramarski, 2002 – metacognitive training outperformed worked out
maths examples
o Participants had cooperative learning only or COOP + META
o IMPROVE method: students were taught to formulate questions
about comprehension, connection, strategic, and reflection
questions
Poverty
What is the scale of the problem of low achievement in schools?
 Impact of poverty on educational attainment is well-documented (Social
Exclusion Unit, 2004)
 4.5 million children live in poverty (Social metrics commission, 2015)
 There is no single explanation for why learners from poor backgrounds
do badly in educational terms
o Multiple factors implicated at the micro, meso, and macro levels
 Looked after children especially vulnerable (Cassen & Kingdon, 2007),
10x more likely to be excluded, 9x more likely to have SEN
Evidence for the links between poverty and low achievement
 Payne et al (2012) – strong relationship between poverty, exclusion, and
mental health problems
 Attending a school with a higher proportion of poverty is linked to
externalizing problems, regardless of whether the child his/herself is
from a poor background (Flouri & Midouhas, 2016)
 Ferguson et al (2007) – poverty li
Why is there a link between poverty and low achievement?
 Goodman & Gregg, 2010 – longitudinal study
o Millennium cohort study – children from poor families  less
advantageous early childhood caring environments
 Home life:
o Parenting style – single largest factor explaining lower cognitive
performance of low-income children relative to middle-income
children. (Sutton Trust, 2009, p1) Important – maternal sensitivity
and responsiveness
o At least half the gaps in school achievement are already present at
school entry, with parenting consistently emerging as the single
most important factors in gaps in school readiness
o Waldfogel & Washbrook (Sutton Trust, 2009): Millenium Cohort
study in the UK and Early Childhood Longitudinal Study
 Parenting differences between low and higher income
families associated with sizable differences in cognitive
development
 Parenting style emerges as single largest domain explaining
lower cognitive performance of low-income children
relative to middle-income children
 Maternal sensitivity particularly important
 Home learning environment – HLE – second most important set of factors
o Includes parents’ teaching behaviours
o Provision of learning materials and activities, including books and
CDs, computer access, TV watching, library visits and classes
o Together, these aspects of HLE account for 16-21% of the gap in
school readiness
What are the policies in place already, and are they effective?
 Three policy responses, especially for low-income children:
  Early childhood education policies to improve children’s school
readiness
 Policies to improve parenting – empowering parents
 Policies to ensure gaps do not widen during primary school years, by
promoting school achievement: the pupil premium, free school meals,
school inspection
 Interventions to promote HLE – giving books and reading help, computers
Policies to improve early childhood intervention
 In England, free early education for some two- and all three-year olds up
to a maximum of 15 hours per week, 38 weeks of the year
 Feagans & Farran (1994) – daycare intervention for poverty group
children. Included control group and LPS group (non-poverty group).
Although the experimental group performed in the fall but not in the
spring – convergence of the experimental and control groups suggests
washout.
 Every Child a Reader, Every Child Counts (Shanahan & Barr, 1995) –
intense reading and numeracy interventions provided at age 5 and 6.
Evidence suggests very positive impact, but question the cost
effectiveness of the programme – it requires considerable upfront cost
Policies to improve parenting (Goodman & Greg, 2010)
 Improving the home learning environment in poorer families (e.g. books
and reading pre-school, computers in teenage years)
 Helping parents from poorer families to believe that their own actions
and efforts can lead to higher educational outcomes
 Raising families’ aspirations and desire for advanced education – from
primary schooling onwards
What can psychologists do to contribute to breaking those links?
 Influencing school culture and staff development
 Universal and targeted interventions with children
 Ramey & Ramey, 1990 – early educational interventions, delivered in a
coordinated fashion with other needed services and then later followed
by supplemental educational support, long and intense, most effective
Intervening with children (Goodman & Greg, 2010)
 Reducing behavioural problems through building coping and
management skills (e.g. role of self regulation). Promote prosocial attitude
 Helping children from poorer families believe that their own actions and
efforts can lead to higher educational outcomes – parents’ locus of control
 AimHigher – Emmerson et al (2005)
o Seeks to encourage more people to participate in tertiary
education. Raises awareness of opportunity, increases aspirations,
and supports young people to make decisions about the future
o 4.6% improvement in mathematics year 9, 2.5 points average
improvement in GCSE scores amongst year 11 students, with 4%
increase in proportion intending to pursue higher education.
 However, Goodman & Gregg suggest schoolwide interventions are not as
effective as parental interventions
Bullying

What is bullying?
 Repeated oppression, psychological or physical, of a less powerful person
by a more powerful person or group of persons (Rigby, 1996). Social
hierarchy to maintain heightened position. over others (Vaillancourt,
Hymel, McDougall, 2003)
 IIR – Imbalance of power, Intentional, Repeated over time
 1.5 million young people have been bullied in the past year, 19% bullied
every day. More than half (55%) of LGBT students experience bullying
(Guasp, 2012), Students of lower social status are most easily and
effectively victimized by peers (Smith, 2012)
 2% of children are bully-victims
What are the problems associated with bullying?
 Mental health: Elevated psychiatric disorders in young adulthood,
controlling for childhood disorders and family hardship (Copeland, 2013).
After controlling for childhood psychiatric symptoms and family
hardships, bullies at risk for antisocial personality disorder, victims at
risk for generalized anxiety, agoraphobia, panic disorder. Bully-victims at
risk for depression, panic disorder, and agoraphobia.
 Witnesses: perception of high levels of peers victimisation is associated
with negative perceptions of school climate (Astor et al., 2002)
Principle theories of bullying

Group process theories – Social dominance theory (Hawker & Boulton, 2001)
 Social dominance orientation = adherence to the ideology that society
should be hierarchical/unequal between social groups
 Prejudicial attitudes coincide w/ antisocial behaviours e.g. violent hate
crimes against LGBT, racial, religious groups (Hecht, 1998)
 Indirect/relational – affiliative relationships/sense of belonging
 Participants completed survey about bullying perpetration in secondary
school (physical victimization, verbal victimisation, social manipulation,
attacks on property) and current propensity to accept social hierarchy
myths. Social dominance orientation correlated with 4 types of bullying
behaviour. Bullies’ sex moderated relationship between SDO and physical
forms of bullying (physical victimization, attacks on property)
Socio-cognitive deficit theories (within-child theory) (Shakoor et al., 2012)
 Poor Theory of Mind  developmental marker for victim, bully, or bully-
victim status through impact on children’s social relationships (effect size
larger for bully-victim based on prospective longitudinal study)
 ToM underpins everyday social interactions. May interpret ambiguous
situations as being hostile, or unable to stand up or negotiate conflicts.
 However, proactive bullies may show skills in perceiving and interpreting
social cues (ToM), but may have different goals and means of achieving
these
 Proactive vs reactive bullies – may be due to differences in cognitive and
affective empathy (Van Noorden, Haselagar, Cillessen, & Bukowski, 2014)
  Longitudinal study: Fanti & Kimonis (2012) followed 1,400 adolescents in
Greece from grades 7-9 – links between narcissism, impulsivity, CU traits,
and bullying. Impulsivity & narcissism predicted high levels of bullying.
All three contributed, combo of CU traits and conduct problems predicting
the highest levels of bullying
Theory of family influence – social-ecological diathesis stress (Swearer &
Hymel, 2015)
 Human development is a bidirectional interaction
 Diathesis-stress model: takes into account interaction of individual
vulnerabilities, life stressors, and aggression. Biological propensity
combined with environmental factors make bullying more likely.
 Stressors could be home violence  experiencing/witnessing violence or
bullying behaviour at home – family involvement in gangs, poor parental
supervision, negative fam environment, domestic violence & conflict
 Brendgen et al (2013) – genetic predisposition for aggression more likely
to be expressed when peer norms favoured aggressive behaviour but not
when peer norms disfavoured such behaviour. 25% of bystanders
intervene
 E.g. Thornberg, 2015, Hong & Espelage, 2012
Intervention approaches in schools
Meta-analysis of the effectiveness of anti-bullying
 Overall effective, decreased by 20-23% victimization by 17-20%
 Effective programmes are more intense  parent meetings, firm
disciplinary methods, improved playground supervision (Ttofi and
Farrington, 2011)
KiVa – anti-bullying programme (Finland)
 Permanent part of the anti-bullying work, not just one-year programme.
 Throughout the year, teachers carry out 20 hours of lessons involving role
play, video-clips about bullying, group work and written tasks (Kä rnä et
al, 2011) Children also learn social skills: respecting others, being a part
of a team, group dynamics, raising empathy, bystander prevention
 Universal – directed at all students, focus on prevention (e.g. student
lessons and online games). Indicated – when a bullying case has emerged
 RCTreduced bullying & victimization(Saarento, Boulton, & Samivalli, 2015)
 Hutching & Clarkson (2015) – UK pilot trial of a subcomponent in 17
schools (year 5 and 6 classrooms)  positive impact on levels of bullying
and victimisation. Teachers  high levels of pupil acceptance and
engagement in lessons
KiVa’s impact on cyberbullying?
 Salmivalli et al. (2011) – frequency of victims bullied via the Internet
and/or mobile phone (using the criterion of being targeted 2-3 times or
more often) decreased by 36% in the intervention schools, where it
increased by 14% in the control school
Reduction in the frequencies of cybervictimisation indicate that a generic
programme such as KiVa can be very effective in reducing cyberbullying as well
as other forms of peer-to-peer bullying

Individual intervention: Restorative justice

Restorative Justice
What is restorative justice?
 A value-based approach to responding to wrongdoing and conflict – ethos
is to establish trust, mutual respect, and tolerance.
 Focuses on the person harmed, the person causing the harm, and the
affected community (school)
 Focuses on transforming the wrongdoing by healing the harm it has
cause, particularly to relationships. Transforming the bad into good
 By working together to identify and address harm, and what can be done
to repair that harm, relationships can be put right and
schools/communities can be happier and safer places
 Gives opportunity for offender and victim to have a conversation
Describe the way restorative justice is applied in an educational setting
Processes involved:
 Restorative enquiry – 1-1 enquiring, being interested in what’s happening
 Restorative discussion – 1-2 power imbalance, conflict situation. Trying to
elicit a story from both people
 Mediation – 2 parties in conflict with 1 independent mediator
 Community, restorative, and family group conferences
The 5 Rs: Respect, responsibility, repair, re-integration, relationships
 Powerful questions without using “why”
 E.g. Can you tell me what happened? What were you thinking at the time?
How were you feeling at the time? Who has been affected by what you’ve
done? What do you need to do to put things right?
Restorative justice conference
 Meetings when the degree of harm has gotten significant
 Requires people to be well-trained in restorative practices
 Follows structured format, both parties there (w/ supporters), sit in circle
 All parties are helped to reflect on their actions and how these have
impacted on others
 An agreement is reached about what needs to be done to repair the harm
caused
How do we make it happen?
 Share the vision, encourage people to commit to the approach
 Identify core staff to receive “in the corridor-in the classroom” training
 Identify key staff to receive conference facilitator training
 Typically invite senior leader to join, inform children and their parents
 Monitor change

Examine a range of theories intended to explain how it works

Punishment v restoration (Walgrave, 2005)

Punitive Restorative
Aim is to suppress behaviour. Bad Recognizes the inherent value of
behaviour is something to be hidden misbehaviour and wrongdoing as an
opportunity for social and emotional
 learning
Authoritatian. Discipline. Focusing only Restorative practices that can bring
on the wrongdoers together all those who may be affected
by the wrongdoing together
Punishment and exclusions are used to Dialogue leads to understanding and
control misbehaviour and promote efforts to repair harm and restore
change relationships
Resentment, alienation, shame Understanding, efforts to repair harm
and build relationships

 Emotions and relationships

o Restorative approach – brings sense of stability, empathy and trust
o Helps child understand that they can repair relationships
o Safe space is important
 Procedural justice theory
o “You will have a chance to have your say”
o People want to be involved in decisions surrounding outcomes for
them
o Young people need to be engaged in process. Then they will feel
more ready to accept the consequences
 Responsive regulation
o No to Zero-tolerance
o Adapting the consequences to account for the harm caused
o Listening and respecting the community involved
o Take account of what has happened – can be different depending
on perspective
 Imagine there is a thread between all relationships – harm is done when
the thread is broken
Restorative justice – does it work?

Few psychologists have investigated the process of restorative justice. The focus
of research within criminology and sociology has often been on outcomes such as
re-offending rates and/or victim satisfaction

Weiner’s attribution theory (2002)

 Theory of interpersonal or social motivation has been explained in
relation to aggressive behaviour.

Describe a piece of research – an explanation of case study methodology –

how can this improve teaching and learning?

Queensland education department (1999) – study conducted involving 119

schools.
 Community conferences were used to deal with serious cases of harmful
behaviour, such as assault, use of drugs, damage to property,
victimization
 Participants highly satisfied with outcomes
  Majority had closer relationships with other conference participants after
conferencing
 All school administrators felt that conferencing had reinforced school
values
 In a pilot study introducing restorative practices, met with initial
resistance from teachers who were used to punitive measures. Interviews
at follow-up indicated that 95% of all disagreements had been resolved
through mediation and conference, significant reductions in the levels of
bullying and victimization leading to an increased perception that the
school was safe (Bitel, 2005)
Study predicated on Weiner’s causal attribution theory (Starbuck, 2008)
 Method: A qualitative case study research design was used with a
restorative justice conference as the case. Interested in how people
explained ambiguous hostile event
 Looked at attribution that all the parties made, looked at 2 conferences
 Results: during the pre-conference interview the wrongdoer who
perceived the harmed as responsible for an act of antagonism described
feelings of anger. Attributed actions to initial “causal act” by the harmed
 Wrongdoers confessed, made fewer inferences of hostility and intention
when asked what “X” thought (in response to a series of hypothetical
vignettes) following attendance at an RJ conference – changed attribution
 Victim’s feelings changed – reduced feelings of anger and increased
feelings of sympathy when interviewed following attendance compared to
pre-conference interview
 The wrongdoer felt better about themselves and thought they were not
bad people – focused on behaviour not the person

What are the benefits of using RJ?

 Harmed: restores power and peace of mind by putting their needs first
 Gives them a chance to have their say
o Tell wrongdoer how they’ve been affected, to understand “why
me?”, to get an apology, to say what can be done to make it less
likely the offense will happen again – a sense of justice
 For the wrongdoer:
o Gives them a chance to be seen as a person and figure a way
forward
Gives them a chance to have a voice, to apologize

Problems of restorative justice

 Can undermine teachers
Inclusion of children with SEND
Salamanca statement (1994) – 92 countries around world – calls for inclusion to
be the norm, enrolling in regular schools unless compelling reasons for doing
otherwise  UK has “inclusive education” and equality act (2010)
To discuss and define the inclusion of children with SEND within education
For inclusion
 Supporting children so that their SENDs don’t affect their education –
increasing participation and removing barriers
 Nowicki & Sandieson (2002) –children’s attitudes from meta-analysis of
studies 1990-2000  children without disabilities preferred to children
with physical/intellectual disabilities. Inclusion enhances attitudes
 Hegarty (1993) – difficult to justify specialized provision if does not give
rise to better outcomes
 Baker, Wang, & Walberg (1994-95) summary of meta-analysis: small to
moderate benefit of inclusion on academic and social outcomes
o McLesky et al (2014) key factors supporting high pupil
achievement in inclusive schools: student support and quality of
teaching, administrative and organizational features
o Teachers need to differentiate every learning experience for a
broad spectrum of needs. Shared decision making
Against inclusion
 Gresham & MacMillan (1997) – compared to mainstream pupils, pupils
with moderate SEN were more poorly accepted, more often rejected, had
lower levels of social skills, higher levels of problem behaviours

Reflect on the concept of inclusion from pupil and parental perspectives
 If the children, right from preschool, learn to develop and integrate with
each other, this will remove the stigma associated with disabilities and
segregated placements, enhancing the social status
To review research on the evidence of effectiveness of inclusion
Inclusion study (Buckley, Bird, Sacks, & Archer, 2002)
 Strong gains in literacy and expressive language in mainstream education
compared to special school  Children were fully included, accessing the
same curriculum with individual targets and in-class support
To explore how EPs can support inclusion
 Four theories: theory of planned behaviour, contact theory, attribution
theory, social exchange theory
 Used to empower young people, change social attitudes of other children
Theory of planned behaviour (Azjen, 1991)
 Behaviour determined by intention
 3 factors influencing intention and behaviour towards a classmate:
 Attitudes towards the behaviour - encourage positive attitudes among
parents, students, staff
 Subjective norm
 Perceived behavioural control: Do I know how to initiate an action?
 o Skilling up children so they know how they can interact with SEND
students, putting measures in place actually leads to more time
spend with these children in the classroom and in the playground
 TOPB was used to instil and empower/change attitudes of students/staff
o Roberts & Lindsell (1997) – Children’s attitudes towards SEND
correlated significantly with attitudes of teachers and mothers
o Roberts and Smith (1999) – attitudes and perceived behavioural
control predicted behavioural intentions to befriend PD children
o Intentions predicted amount of time children reported spending
with PD children on the playground and in the classroom
 TOPB Intervention: Used INSET (in service education training) to target
teacher attitudes and perceived behavioural control – resulted in more
positive and inclusive school ethos
Contact theory (Allport, 1954)
 Interactions between groups can change attitudes of in-group members
(e.g. no SEND) towards out-group and reduce stereotyping and prejudice
 Need: equal status, common goals, no competition between groups,
support of authorities, law, or custom
 Get groups to do cooperative learning, to engender positive attitudes
 FOR: Maras & Brown (1996) – primary school children in an integration
programme developed more positive attitudes, control group = no change
 AGAINST: Maras & Brown (2000)–difficultschools meet conditions required
Attribution theory (Weiner, 1985)
 Attributions due to locus of control, stability, controllability
 SEN children  maladaptive attribution styles learned helplessness
 Attribution retraining – Encourages to learn, feel successful, & in control –
about effort rather than ability (Bosnjak, Boyle & Chodkiewicz, 2017
Social exchange theory (Thibaut & Kelley, 1959)
 Desire for affiliation with others relates to the sum of the perceived costs
and benefits of interacting with them, set against some minimal level of
expectation – the comparison level
 Avoid “helpee-helper” relationship with SEN students
 Promote and encourage cooperative learning – groups w/ mixed abilities
 Johnson & Johnson (2014) – large meta-analysis found superior effect on
motivation and achievement
 Nind et al (2004) – cooperative learning  successful inclusion in class
when diversity exists
EP input at the individual level – acting as advocate for child
EP input at the group level and whole school levels
 Social emotional learning programmes and mentoring (Morrison Gutman
and Schoon, 2015)
 Nurture groups (Garner & Mills, 2011)
 Whole school staff training (Shaw, 2017)
 Development of special-mainstream school partnerships (Shaw, 2017)
 Bowlby’s principles can also be used
 Embed whole school policy, making sure staff feel supported
 Helping special school practices being transferred to mainstream school
practices