Validation of the Undesirable Behavior Strategies Questionnaire: Physical Educators’ Strategies within the Classroom Ecology

1 Introduction

Establishing an effective learning environment within Physical Education (PE) is largely dependent on the teacher’s ability to manage students’ undesirable behaviors (UBs). UB is any kind of behavior that could negatively affect the classroom environment and may appear as students’ reaction to the lesson content (i.e., reluctance to attend), to the teacher’s instructions (i.e., rude answers), or to other classmates’ behavior (i.e., bullying, arguments) (Oliveira & Graca, 2013). Relative literature suggests that students’ UBs show a high frequency of occurrence during the last decades (Jimenez, Valero-Valenzuela, Anguera, & Suarez, 2016), taking the form either of verbal (e.g., ridiculing, humiliating, unsettling), or physical violence (e.g., harassing, attacking, or provoking) (Osher et al., 2004). This rising trend has been connected to student life challenges (Martínez-Fernández, Díaz-Aguado, Chacón Gómez, Martín-Babarro, & Martínez-Arias, 2021), to peer relationships (Hsu, Li, & Pan, 2017), or to ineffective PE lesson planning (Hovdal, Larsen, Haugen, & Johansen, 2021).

Teachers’ instructional approach and professional understandings seem to be rather important in terms of preventing or dealing with students’ UB. Teachers who can adjust their program of action based on the interactions occurring within the learning environment are more effective when dealing with UBs (Barker & Annerstedt, 2014; Pozo et al., 2018). Teachers’ effectiveness in this field may develop along the years of experience (Grube, Ryan, Lowell, & Stringer, 2018), or because of their participation in professional development programs (Morrison & Gleddie, 2019). However, until today, studies have shown that PE teachers learn to deal with students’ UB rather empirically, based on their personal characteristics, or contextual influences (Cothran & Kulinna, 2015; Kulinna, Cothran, & Regualos, 2006).

For this reason, many recent studies advocate for the adoption of complexity thinking approaches in teachers’ preparation/support to deal with students’ UBs (Grube et al., 2018; Grube, Little, & Stringer, 2023; Hovdal et al., 2021; Mercanoglu, 2021). In educational research, complexity thinking focuses on the social nature of teaching and learning, and the multidimensional interactions occurring among human and nonhuman elements (e.g., teachers, students, curriculum, social relationships, objects, spaces, etc.) (Davis & Sumara, 2006). These interactions are responsible for the emergence of patterns or phenomena that are nonlinear and diverse in their nature and may create a disequilibrium (like an UB) to the lesson’s flow or effectiveness. It is important therefore, to support teachers to employ a complexity thinking perspective when dealing with UBs, so that they can reflect on the logic underpinning their decisions and handle students’ behaviors by adopting a proactive approach (e.g., promote desirable behaviors).

2 Materials and methods

3 Results

3.1 EFA and CFA

The instrument validation process started with the use of EFA and initially extracted five factors based on the Scree plot test (Cattell, 1966) In the five-factor solution, the item “I take time to resolve conflicts within the class” was loaded in two factors and was thus removed. This was a confounding item since in relative literature, conflict resolution may be handled with various strategies or styles (Hovdal et al., 2021). The items “I use physical exercise as punishment (e.g., push-ups, running) to deal with unwanted behavior” and “I rigorously apply pre-agreed consequences in the event of deviation from the rules/routines/expectations I have set” were removed due to low loading values and conceptual misalignment with other factor items. The final solution extracted four factors based on the Scree plot (Figure 1). According to Field (2016), when the communalities are low (<0.6) and less than 250 individuals participate in a study, the final number of extracted factors in EFA is more accurately determined by the Scree plot (pp. 740–742). In our case, the four-factor solution explained a cumulative 47.45% of the total explained variance (KMO = 0.809, χ 231 2 = 1,266,684, p < 0.001) (Table 2).

Figure 1

The Scree plot test for the four-factor solution.

Table 2

Factor loadings and communalities for the four-factor solution for the UBSQ-PE

	Items	Factor loadings	Communalities	Cronbach’s alpha	% Variance explained
Differentiation of Instruction	I adjust the lesson’s challenge to handle UB	0.766	0.570	0.801	24.5
	I modify the lesson content and give students a variety of choices in pursuit of desired behavior	0.656	0.391
	I incorporate the teaching of desirable behavior into my learning objectives.	0.573	0.403
	I apply differentiated instruction techniques to prevent UB	0.560	0.417
	I plan lesson activities taking care of my students’ safety to prevent UB	0.545	0.383
	I set specific learning goals	0.441	0.314
	I set specific criteria for evaluating students’ performance	0.426	0.312
Interaction for Students	I seek the parents’ help to deal with UB	0.939	0.804	0.662	8.75
	I discuss with students’ parents to determine what is causing their UB	0.654	0.563
	I seek for other teachers’/colleagues’ help to deal with UB	0.365	0.134
	I observe the student to determine the type of UB and its causes	0.305	0.248
Classroom Management	When an UB occurs, I deprive the student of a privilege or the right to participate in a favorite activity	0.644	0.442	0.544	7.84
	When an UB occurs, I remove the student to a time-out area	0.513	0.263
	When an UB occurs, I deny the entire class the opportunity to participate in a favorite activity	0.392	0.174
	When an UB occurs, I verbally reprimand the student	0.356	0.155
	During the lesson, I keep proximity to students who exhibit UB	0.326	0.265
Interaction with Students	I encourage communication and cooperation among students within the class	0.851	0.583	0.747	6.26
	I seek to create a climate of collaboration in the class	0.637	0.531
	I give responsibilities (e.g., leadership) and accountability to students to enhance their in-class interaction	0.536	0.407
	I discuss with students to understand their needs and emotional state	0.439	0.297
	I encourage my students to interact within the class and create groups on their own	0.426	0.247
	I plan my lesson in a way that students remain satisfied	0.367	0.277

The first factor included seven items (Cronbach a = 0.80) to measure Differentiation of Instruction Strategies (24.5% of the variance), the second factor consisted of four items (Cronbach a = 0.66) to measure Interaction for Students Strategies (8.75% of the variance), the third factor included five items (Cronbach a = 0.54), to measure Classroom Management Strategies (7.84% of the variance), and the fourth factor included six items (Cronbach a = 0.75) to measure Interaction with Students Strategies (6.26% of the variance). Based on Doyle’s paradigm, the first factor related to the teaching task system, the third factor to the classroom management task system, and the second and fourth factors to the social relations task system (i.e., teachers’ interactions for and with students). CFA indicated a good fit of the data to the four-factor solution (χ²/df ratio = 1.52, CFI = 0.906, TLI = 0.890, SRMR = 0.079, RMSEA = 0.05). Model MI did not recommend any justifiable changes to the model, and all factor loadings were significant (Table 3). This supported the fact that the items were good indicators of the underlying factors.

Table 3

CFA – factor loadings

Factor	Item	CFA-Factor Loadings
Differentiation of Instruction	I adjust the lesson’s challenge to handle UB	0.643
	I modify the lesson content and give students a variety of choices in pursuit of desired behavior	0.623
	I incorporate the teaching of desirable behavior into my learning objectives	0.656
	I apply differentiated instruction techniques to prevent UB	0.634
	I plan lesson activities taking care of my students’ safety to prevent UB	0.545
	I set specific learning goals	0.505
	I set specific criteria for evaluating students’ performance	0.518
Interaction for Students	I seek the parents’ help to deal with UB	0.375
	I discuss with students’ parents to determine what is causing their UB	0.595
	I seek for other teachers’/colleagues’ help to deal with UB	0.252
	I observe the student to determine the type of UB and its causes	0.546
Classroom Management	When an UB occurs, I deprive the student of a privilege or the right to participate in a favorite activity	0.958
	When an UB occurs, I remove the student to a time-out area	0.351
	When an UB occurs, I deny the entire class the opportunity to participate in a favorite activity	0.326
	When an UB occurs, I verbally reprimand the student	0.534
	During the lesson, I keep proximity to students who exhibit UB	0.281
Interaction with Students	I encourage communication and cooperation among students within the class	0.612
	I seek to create a climate of collaboration in the class	0.744
	I give responsibilities (e.g., leadership) and accountability to students to enhance their in-class interaction	0.62
	I discuss with students to understand their needs and emotional state	0.479
	I encourage my students to interact within the class and create groups on their own	0.507
	I plan my lesson in a way that students remain satisfied	0.557

4 Discussion

The aim of this study is to develop a UBSQ-PE, an ecologically relevant instrument to examine UB strategies of teachers and provide initial validity and reliability evidence for its use in PE. Following a two-part methodological approach, using EFA and CFA, as well as MANOVA tests, the results of the present study provided support to the factorial validity and reliability of UBSQ-PE. The four factors of UBSQ-PE, namely, Differentiation of instruction, Interaction for students, Classroom management, and Interaction with students allow us to investigate UB ecologically. As an application of Doyle’s classroom ecology paradigm (Doyle, 1977), UBSQ-PE asserts that teachers use UB strategies in different systems of classroom ecology (e.g., classroom management, teaching, and social relations) and in regard to their personal and professional characteristics. The results are discussed here along with Doyle’s systems of classroom ecology.

As noted in our study, early career and primary school teachers were concerned about classroom management, more than PE teachers working in secondary education or teachers who had spent more years in schools. Similar findings are reported in relevant literature (Garrahy, Cothran, & Kulinna, 2005; Goyette et al., 2000; Oliveira & Graca, 2013; O’Neill & Stephenson, 2014; Tsouloupas & Carson, 2016; Zhang, 2021). With the change in grade level or with the advent of teacher experience, the classroom ecology changes. This may happen either because students lose their interest in lesson activities as they grow older (Cothran & Kulinna, 2007; Kulinna et al., 2006), or because teachers adopt loose accountability systems for keeping students engaged (James & Collier, 2011). Based on Doyle’s paradigm, managerial classroom systems that focus on cooperation rather than compliance produce a positive classroom climate that helps students behave with respect and responsibility during classroom activities. Thus, if PE teachers can engage students actively in the classroom managerial system (e.g., establish together rules for appropriate behavior, allow students to co-decide classroom routines and protocols), instead of reducing demands in their instructional system, as it usually happens in secondary education (Siedentop, 2002), then a more positive classroom climate will be established. Relevant studies show that UBs may be the result of a “casual” learning environment, or a consequence of the teacher’s inability to accommodate the student social system within the instructional system (Hastie, 1995; Supaporn et al., 2003). That is the reason why classroom management needs to shift to complexity thinking understandings of the classroom as a “social system” (Postholm, 2013), within which teachers may adopt either a teacher-as-friend stance (Tilga, Hein, Koka, & Hagger, 2020) or student-centered social task systems (Hastie & Siedentop, 2006), so that students are encouraged to experience personal relevance and value in classroom activities (Hovdal et al., 2021). Social interaction strategies such as counseling, recreational enrichment, expressing and recognizing emotions, etc., may be used as effective tools for keeping students on task and avoiding overly regulated management systems (Oliveira & Graca, 2013).

Concerning classroom instruction, it was critical to note that the teachers in this study dealt differently with UBs to increase their instructional time. Female PE teachers were more willing to differentiate their instruction than their male colleagues. Similarly, older PE teachers or teachers who had attended postgraduate studies or professional development seminars differentiated their instruction more, compared to younger colleagues or colleagues with limited knowledge in this field. These findings are supported by literature showing that female teachers, as well as teachers who have more years of teaching or professional experience, seek to adopt a variety of coping strategies within their classrooms by reflecting on what is happening during instruction (Levy & Khoury-Kassabri, 2021; Tsouloupas et al., 2014). Based on Doyle’s paradigm (1986), teaching is effective when teachers can locate key resources or events in the dynamics of the classroom environment and develop/modify their program of action accordingly. The four factors of the UBSQ-PE instrument can provide explicit evidence on the UBs that may occur across different task systems as a part of the adoption of different instructional strategies within PE. As it is evident from many studies, the effectiveness of an instructional strategy – as initially designed or exhibited by the PE teacher – depends on the negotiations that will take place during its implementation (Barney & Christenson, 2013; Barney & Prusak, 2016; Barney & Strand, 2006; Strand & Bender, 2011). These negotiations may be either verbal, motor, or social. Thus, it is important for the teacher to observe what is happening and afterwards respond with the selection of the appropriate strategy.

Doyle (1986) suggested that teachers need to keep a balance between the primary vectors of classroom activities (e.g., action, order) and student-initiated responses (e.g., changes to lesson content, engagement, etc.). Studies show that female teachers adopt affective curriculum goals and participatory processes as primary vectors (Burke & Collins, 2001; Pounder & Coleman, 2002), while male teachers are more conservative and prefer to adopt procedural leadership teaching styles (Eagly, Johannesen-Schmidt, & Van Engen, 2003). Overall, the more teaching or professional experience that teachers gain, the more confident they feel to implement their program of action, despite the presence of UBs (James & Collier, 2011; Zee, de Jong, & Koomen, 2016). The framework adopted in the development of the UBSQ-PE instrument allows us to study teachers’ effectiveness in dealing with UBs in relation to the complexity of each classroom’s ecology. Since effective PE teaching is closely related to the purposefulness of instruction (Hovdal et al., 2021), the selection of authentic and context-relevant instructional tasks will ultimately produce a task-oriented learning ecology within which the occurrence of UB will be minimized (Cervelló, Jiménez, del Villar, Ramos, & Santos-Rosa, 2004; Claver, Martínez-Aranda, Conejero, & Gil-Arias, 2020; Moreno-Murcia, Sicilia, Cervelló, Huéscar, & Dumitru, 2011).

From an ecological point of view, over-regulatory teaching styles bring short-term reductions to UB, since they fragment student-generated responses to the classroom social system (Doyle, 1986). The development of cautious thinking by the teachers is necessary to improve their ability to understand the consequences of their instructional decisions and choose possible alternatives (Hovdal et al., 2021; Pozo, Grao-Cruces, & Pérez-Ordás, 2018). Instructional activities that hold students socially accountable while caring for their needs can maintain the flow of the lesson and the commitment of students to learning (Hastie et al., 2016; Hovdal et al., 2021; Lindsay, 2014; Supaporn et al., 2003). When lesson flow is protected, teachers are more able to meaningfully reflect on the factors that influence student learning (Hastie, 2016). In the long run, such an ability can increase teachers’ confidence in their teaching and sense of mattering (Richards et al., 2017). It therefore seems that PE teacher education, or professional development programs should be designed with a focus on preparing future practitioners with the skills and knowledge needed to keep the flow of classroom ecology balanced, despite potential student pressures. The use of models such as Teaching Personal and Social Responsibility, Adventure Education, or Cooperative Learning has been suggested in ecological studies as an effective means for this purpose (Carlson & Hastie, 1997; Dyson & Strachan, 2004; Hastie, 1995, 2000; Sinelnikov & Hastie, 2008). The different factors of the UBSQ-PE instrument can allow researchers to trace differences in UB strategies based on the structure and activities of each curriculum model.

Overall, regardless of their age and professional knowledge, all participants in this study recognized the importance of the social task system as a way to deal with UB. As reported in similar studies (Dyson et al., 2010; McCaughtry et al., 2008), social relation strategies – adopted as part of the teacher’s interaction with students or for students (i.e., with colleagues or parents) – can improve lesson quality, by changing the lesson’s focus from managing students UB to encouraging their appropriate behavior (Barker & Annerstedt, 2014; Shingjergji, 2016), or fostering supportive behavior (Ahmadi et al., 2023). Researchers favorably report on the use of social relation strategies, as a way of strengthening teacher-student-parent relations within the school context (e.g., one-on-one discussions, developing mutual respect, getting to know others) (Garrahy et al., 2005; Goyette et al., 2000), or within the wider school community (e.g., family discussions, teacher–student communication, respect for the rights of all students) (Hovdal et al., 2021). The above strategies establish a climate of moral engagement and mutual support (Hsu et al., 2017), which can afterwards be transferred from the PE classroom to everyday life situations (Sullivan, Johnson, Owens, & Conway, 2014). This is rather important if we consider that ecological analyses within a PE classroom may extend beyond the PE subject to the wider school ecology. Towards this direction, the newly developed instrument can bring more caution concerning the co-dependency between PE courses and school administration support programs.

Finally, male teachers in this study had lower scores than female teachers regarding their social relation strategies with and for students. While there is no single explanation for this difference, it is worth taking it into account, so as to sufficiently support all teachers to understand and deal with the interrelationships taking place within the classroom’s ecology. Based on our results, the lower scores of male PE teachers in their social relation strategies may relate to the reported conservatism of male teachers during the design of instruction (Eagly et al., 2003). Given the importance of socioemotional learning processes for every student’s holistic development (Richards, Ivy, Wright, & Jerris, 2019), it would be worth implementing professional development programs for all PE teachers, within which they could be introduced to the principles of social connectedness and belonging (Klemola, Heikinaro-Johansson, & O’Sullivan, 2013), so that they can integrate them during instruction. In essence, we call for an ecological integration of socio-emotional learning in future pedagogical work in the context of PE, so that several aspects of classroom dynamics (e.g., task presentation, student-teacher interactions, student negotiation of content and tasks, etc.) can be addressed in their interdependence and with a focus on student equity.

5 Conclusion

In this study, Doyle’s ecological paradigm was a useful framework for developing an instrument for evaluating the UB strategies of PE teachers. We found that PE teachers applied UB strategies across three main task systems of the classroom ecology: management (maintaining order), instruction (promoting learning), and social relations (encouraging interactions), based on their personal and professional characteristics. Older PE teachers or teachers with higher levels of professional knowledge and experience differentiated their instruction to prevent UB. For this reason, they did not use classroom management strategies as much as young and early career PE teachers did. Female PE teachers were more willing than males to embrace differentiated teaching and social relations strategies. For all PE teachers, social interaction was an important element of classroom ecology. Given the theoretical paradigm adopted in this study, the above findings may have practical implications for the professional development of PE teachers. As evidence indicates a relationship between teachers’ personal/professional characteristics and the way they deal with UB, the newly developed instrument could provide valuable information on teachers’ decision to choose a strategy “as life in the gym unfolds.” Furthermore, the stability or effectiveness of PE teachers’ strategies could also be studied in relation to parameters such as their responses to student pressures, the flow of the lesson, the pace of learning activities, or their capacity to maintain student participation. According to Hastie (2016), these concepts are understudied fields of the ecology paradigm.

6 Limitations

This study is not without limitations. Initially, the validity and reliability evidence of the UBSQ-PE instrument are still to be accumulated for the field of PE teaching. Given the fact that the sample in this study came from only one geographical area, more UBSQ-PE validation tests are needed in the future. Second, relevant studies are needed to combine UBSQ-PE data with systematic observation data to better understand the effects of different UB strategies on PE teaching/learning goals and events related to the content covered in the classroom. Overall, an ecological examination of PE teachers’ strategies could help us develop anthropological understandings of the ways they handle UBs across the interacting task systems, so that they get classroom work done.

7 Practical Implications

The different dimensions of Doyle’s paradigm in relation to the four factors of the UBSQ-PE instrument presented in this study can help teachers and teacher educators reframe discussions on effective instruction within PE. Based on insights gained during the process of conducting the present study, our intention is not to suggest the UBSQ-PE as an instrument for recording PE teachers’ technical skills in dealing with students’ UB. From our own experience as PE teachers and teacher educators, we acknowledge that students need opportunities and time to respond to teachers’ program of action. For this reason, teachers need to be able to acknowledge the strategies they adopt during instruction and adapt these in relation to the influences, properties, and realities of their classrooms. Our experience shows that some PE classes are over-instructed and under-practiced, in the sense that more time is spent on organizational issues, compared to instructional or social ones. Therefore, the question of what strategies work best, in our opinion, needs to focus on teachers’ finding ways of crafting programs of action that help students navigate effectively within the dynamics of the classroom ecology. The enactment of instructional, managerial, and social strategies that are in the best interest to the classroom’s “common good” may afford more learning to occur. Thus, with the employment of the UBSQ-instrument we hope to strengthen the arguments for the wider adoption of complexity thinking approaches in PE, as approaches that understand classroom life as dynamic and unpredictable. Such understandings can afford PE teachers and researchers more opportunities to reflect why students behave as they do and what should be done from the teachers’ part so that the accumulation of positive classroom experiences is achieved.