Psychology in the Schools, Vol.

41(1), 2004
Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com).

2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

DOI: 10.1002/pits.10139

POSITIVE PSYCHOLOGY AND EXTERNALIZING STUDENTS

IN A SEA OF NEGATIVITY
WILLIAM R. JENSON, DANIEL OLYMPIA, MEGAN FARLEY, AND ELAINE CLARK

University of Utah
Students with externalizing disorders make up from three to five percent of the population in
public school classrooms and are some of the most difficult students to manage in an educational
setting. Behavioral excesses and deficits exhibited by these students are a major factor in poor
retention rates for new teachers while the students themselves have the highest school drop out
rates and experience some of the most restrictive educational settings of any disability. The
authors of this article draw upon recent theoretical and applied work in the study of optimism to
describe several essential elements of positive psychology and optimal functioning that may be
unavailable or lacking in the lives of these students. A variety of factors intrinsic to the nature of
these students, as well as environmental and interpersonal factors, are described. These factors
often place these students in a sea of negativity with minimal opportunities for positive educational experiences or personal relationships. Vigorous debate concerning the effects of positive
reinforcement on motivation, academic functioning, and other variables also continues. However, recent advances in proactive behavior management strategies (i.e., positive behavioral
support, whole school management/discipline, etc.) are promising, despite a lack of sufficient
data to draw firm conclusions. The authors describe several student, teacher, and classroom
programs that provide empirically based strategies to promote positive successful experiences
and high rates of praise for students with externalizing behavior disorders. Without components
of positive psychology it is very likely that schools will continue to lose these students, and at a
significant cost to society down the road. 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Positive psychology and optimal life experiences are often what we want for our families and
ourselves, but they tend to be elusive and difficult to obtain for many students with disabilities.
This is especially true for students with externalizing or disruptive disorders. Labels commonly
applied to externalizing students include behavior disordered, seriously emotionally disturbed,
conduct disordered, oppositional defiant disordered, and attention deficit hyperactivity disordered
(Gelfand, Jenson, & Drew, 1996; Quay & Hogan, 1999). These disabilities are called externalizing
because the characteristic behaviors are directed to and affect other people that are external to the
student (Gelfand et al., 1996). Typical externalizing behaviors include noncompliance, aggression, inattention, impulsivity, arguing, and rule breaking, all of which are directed at the people
who surround and interact with the students (e.g., educators, parents, and peers).
As a function of the aversive quality of these negative behaviors it is all too easy to overlook
the impact on the internalized psychological state or well being of these students. It can be inferred
indirectly from the higher rates of depression, substance abuse, school drop out, and poor outcomes in early adulthood that the lives of externalizing students are far from optimal (Patterson,
Reid, & Dishion, 1992). Given the accumulation of evidence supporting tenuous and marginal
outcomes for these students, it is clear that we need to look at more options, including those
offered by positive psychology.
Flow, Competence, and Optimism
Flow and competency are two linked concepts relating to well-being, happiness and selfesteem. Flow is a concept characterized by Csikszentmihalyi (1990) as an optimal experience

This Project was supported in part by: US Office of Education, Leadership in High Incidence Disabilities Personnel
Preparation Grant, H325H010082.
Correspondence to: William R. Jenson, Ph.D., 327 MBH Hall1705 East Campus Center Drive, Department of
Educational Psychology, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT 84112. E-mail: jenson@ed.utah.edu

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associated with a sense of being in control, highly focused attention, mental enjoyment of an
activity for its own sake, and a match between the task at hand and ones own skills. Essentially,
it is a description of doing something enjoyable with such adeptness and ease that the experience
seems to just flow or occur with little or no effort. Csikszentmihalyi interviewed hundreds of
people in an attempt to assess common threads of a flow experience independent of the behavior
itself. The behavior could be any activity that was enjoyable and required a challenging degree of
skill. His research determined that endeavors such as sports, artistic activities, and hobbies often
lead to such flow experiences, considered optimal in nature (Csikszentmihalyi, 1990). Clearly
competency and the ability to perform a task without thinking are part of the flow experience
because they involve a sense of mastery over a behavior that is recognized and valued by others.
Two skills recognized and valued in school environments are academic abilities and social
skills. The main focus of schools is acquiring academic knowledge and abilities. Social skills
facilitate this by helping students adjust to school environments by getting along with others,
learning how to problem solve, and forming friendships. Academic ability and social skills, however, are lacking in the repertoires of the majority of externalizing students (Dishion, Andrews, &
Crosby, 1995; Hinshaw, 1992b; Patterson et al., 1992). Students with externalizing behaviors are
likely to be deficient in a variety of academic skills, especially reading (Hinshaw, 1992a; Rutter &
Yule, 1970). Similarly, the social interactions of externalizing students tend to be abrasive, uncooperative, and unstable (Dishion et al., 1995; Patterson et al., 1992). Thus the two sets of skills
required and valued in school settings (academic ability and social skills) will not provide an
optimal flow experience for many students with externalizing behaviors. At best the school experience will be a struggle for these students.
Optimism is a persons positive hope for the future. Having a positive outlook on the future
has been linked to positive mood, perseverance, effective problem solving, academic success, and
a long life. A lack of optimism has been linked to social estrangement, depression, passivity, and
failure (Peterson, 2000). Optimism about the future appears to be a dual function of the accumulation of past successful experiences and recognition of positive aspects of a persons current
environment (Peterson, 2000; Seligman, 1991, 1997). Externalizing students, however, often find
it difficult to be optimistic about the future, especially in school.
Some evidence suggests that nearly 50% of the variance associated with a subjective feeling
of well being and happiness is inherited (Tellegen et al., 1988). Highly genetically determined
positive temperaments identified in infancy are closely linked to successful adaptation to the
environment and feelings of well being (Diener, 2000). The importance of temperament has long
been recognized. In fact, La Rochefoucauld noted as early as 1940 that happiness and misery
depend as much on temperament as on fortune (p. 23). Unfortunately, students with externalizing
disorders have disproportionately high rates of difficult temperaments (Chess & Thomas, 1984;
Gelfand et al., 1996; Patterson et al., 1992). Educators do not have much tolerance for difficult
temperament-related behaviors, especially in the structured environment of schools (Carey, 1998).
If handled inappropriately, this poor fit between temperament and the educational environment is
said to produce a reaction pattern of oppositional and aggressive behavior (Carey, 1998, p. 522).
From a temperament perspective, characteristics determined at birth put externalizing students at
a disadvantage in terms of optimal positive school experiences.
Having preferences, choices, and decisions respected, or being allowed to act in self determined ways, have been shown to increase happiness and a sense of well being, and motivation has
been directly linked with the degree of self-determination experienced by an individual (Ryan &
Deci, 2000; Schwartz, 2000). Externalizing students are often characterized as unmotivated, especially in academic environments. These students often have limited educational choices, and decisions are made for them because of their difficult behaviors. Of all disabilities, students with

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externalizing disorders are the most segregated in special education and alternative placements
(Shapiro et al., 1999). Students exhibiting these externalizing behaviors and their associated deficits in academics and social skills are the most likely to be chronically suspended or expelled
from school (Stage, 1997). More often than any other disability, students with externalizing disorders make the ultimate self-determined choice by dropping out of school. Externalizing students have one of the highest school drop out rates and are three times more likely to drop out of
school than students with visual, auditory, or orthopedic impairments (U.S. Department of Education, 2002).
The literature on common negative experiences for many externalizing students has been
briefly examined. It is also important to review opportunities for positive experiences available to
students with externalizing behaviors in school settings.
The Sea of Negativism in Educational Settings
Just how positive are teachers in public education? Teachers seem to think they are positive
and see themselves as primarily using positive techniques to manage behaviors in their classroom
(Elliott, 1988; Nicholas, Olympia, & Jenson, 2001). However, these self-reports of positiveness
are in stark contrast to the naturalistic observation studies done in public schools assessing positive and negative interactions between teachers and students. In a frequently cited early study,
White (1975) reviewed 16 studies examining the praise rates of 104 teachers, representing 8340
minutes of observation time and found that rates of disapproval were higher than rates of approval
in 13 of the studies. Student instructional-related behaviors garnered the majority of positive
teacher-student interactions. According to the research, rates of disapproval far exceeded the rates
of approval for student behavior, especially after the second grade. Since this initial work, other
studies and reviews have similarly reported high rates of negative interactions between teachers
and students (Beaman & Wheldall, 2000; Thomas et al., 1978).
Research studies on positive and negative interactions between teachers and externalizing
students are even more discouraging. In their review, Shores, Gunter, and Jack (1993) report that
teachers are more likely to attend and react to students inappropriate behaviors and less likely to
respond to positive behavior by using verbal praise and other positive techniques. Overall rates of
positive teacher interactions in classrooms serving students with externalizing disorders are also
alarming low. Shores et al. found praise rates as low as one per hour for externalizing students and
4.4 per hour for students with learning disabilities. The general findings from the research show
that the overall general rates of positives to negatives for students with externalizing disorders are
alarming low (Sutherland, Wehby, & Copeland, 2000). However, it is not just the overall low rates
of positive interactions between teachers and students with externalizing disorders that are problematic, it is the instructional message delivered in the negative interactions.
The typical teacher and student interaction is one in which the teacher issues a command, the
student complies (or not), and the teacher gives feedback (Shores et al., 1993). Positive teacher
feedback for compliance in these interactions, however, rarely occurs. For example, Gunter and
Shores (1994) found that teacher praise following student compliance occurs infrequently (i.e.,
.08 times per minute). In a study of 206 students at moderate-high risk for developing aggressive
behavior, Van Acker, Grant, and Henry (1996) found that teacher praise for compliant behavior
did not even exceed chance levels for either group, whereas teacher reprimands for inappropriate
behavior were highly predictable for the high risk group. Strain, Lambert, Kerr, Stagg, and
Lenkner (1983) found that 82% of students who had a low social-developmental rating never
received a positive behavior response from a teacher even when they consistently complied with
teacher requests. Van Acker et al. (1996) reported that teacher praise appeared to be a random
event unrelated to student behavior. The message that we are sending to externalizing students in

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this curriculum of noninstruction (Gunter et al., 1993) is that when students behave appropriately, nothing positive will happen, but when they misbehave, they will be punished. If this is the
primary predictable event in a childs school environment, optimism about the future will surely
suffer.
Why Is It So Negative?
If a positive educational environment is considered valuable in obtaining an optimal educational experience, why are negative interactions so common? There are several reasons that negative procedures are used with such high frequency and especially with students who have
externalizing disorders. Many negative interventions are less time intensive than positive procedures, easier to administer, and result in a rapid (although temporary) suppression of problematic
behavior (Maag, 2001). The fast but temporary suppression effects of punishment are obviously
reinforcing to teachers.
Coercive interaction between a student and a teacher is another mechanism that maintains
negative exchanges (Maag, 2001; Shores et al., 1993). In these situations, the degree of aversiveness increases between the teacher and the student. For example, the teacher issues a command
and the student resists with an aversive behavior. This process escalates until either the teacher
withdraws the command or the student relents and follows through with the request. The whole
process is rewarded with a strong variable schedule of reinforcement that shapes increasing aversive and intense behaviors (Patterson et al., 1992; Gunter & Coutinho, 1997). To stop this everincreasing negative environment, very often positive management techniques are recommended
(Maag, 2001; Shores, et al., 1993). The question then becomes Are positive techniques effective
enough?
The Debate Over Positive Behavior Management Techniques
It seems simple. To rectify a negative environment all that is needed is an increase in positive
techniques used in that environment. However, it is not that simple. Many educators and researchers have questioned the damaging effects of positive procedures and their overall effectiveness in
changing disruptive behavior (Kohn, 1993; Pfiffner, Rosen, & OLeary, 1985; Rosen et al., 1984;
Sansone & Harackiewicz, 2000). An important, yet controversial publication concerning the detrimental effects of positive behavior management procedures is Alfie Kohns (1993) Punished
by Rewards.
Instead of systematically using positive techniques in the classroom, Kohn promotes a trio
(The Three Cs) of educational alternatives, the first consisting of academic content which
should be useful, interesting, and worth learning for the student. Second, there is community
or the cooperative learning community in which students feel safe, feel free to ask for help, and
come to care for one another. The third is choice where students are asked to think about what
they are doing, and what they must do to make good choices. Kohn states:
You show me a school that really has those three Cs-where students are working with one another in a
caring environment to engage with interesting tasks that they have some say in choosingand Ill show
you a place where you dont need to use punishments or rewards (interview by Brandt, 1995).

Although Kohn is not a researcher, he makes several important points in his book, including
the impact of using techniques to effectively praise students if it is absolutely necessary. An
active research-based debate bolstered by several large-scale studies provides contradictory evidence to Kohns position. This debate has culminated in two extensive meta-analyses on the issue
(Cameron & Pierce, 1994; Deci, Koestner, & Ryan, 1999) and extensive reviews of the metaanalytic findings (Eisenberger & Cameron, 1996; Eisenberger, Pierce, & Cameron, 1999; Lepper,

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Henderlong, & Gingras, 1999). More research is needed before the true relationship between
rewards and motivation is revealed.
It is interesting to note that the effects of reward on student motivation may be less of an
absolute effect (i.e., reward used or reward not used) and more subject to the nature of the contingency between the behavior and reinforcement (Chance, 1992; Dickenson, 1989; Eisenberger
& Cameron, 1996). The danger is then twofold; first, undermining motivation by simply giving
rewards noncontingently, and secondly, the use of inappropriate reward contingencies (Dickenson, 1989). The lesson appears to be clear when using rewards with externalizing students. First,
if rewards are given for low performance based (busy work) tasks, motivation will be compromised. Second, if rewards are given only for exceeding high performance with unrealistic goals
leading to frequent failure, motivation suffers and problematic behaviors increase. Educational
environments, in which rewards are contingently given for successful performance towards realistic goals are far more likely to enhance motivation and decrease problematic behaviors.
Praise and Positives: Are They Enough?
Aside from the arguments on whether rewards decrease or increase intrinsic motivation, there
is the question as to how effective positives only are in changing behavior. This is a crucial
question for externalizing students. Rosen et al. (1984) showed that when teachers stopped providing negative feedback to externalizing students who had previously been successful, their
academic and social behavior markedly deteriorated. Similarly, Pfiffner et al. (1985) tried an
all-positive approach to classroom management for externalizing students in which all negatives
(i.e., verbal reprimands and privilege loss) were minimized. The research found that if praise was
used alone it was an ineffective management strategy; however, if something more than praise was
given, that is, augmenting praise with special privileges or incentives, student behavior was as
appropriate as a classroom that mixed positive and negative consequences. For externalizing students, praise may not be enough and must be enhanced with other positive motivational strategies.
Other studies have shown that combined positive techniques can be effective in reducing
disruptive behaviors in school settings. In an extensive meta-analysis to assess the effectiveness of
interventions to decrease problem behaviors, Stage and Quiroz (1997) reported a large effect size
(.86) for positive techniques. However, when positive interventions were combined with appropriate punishment interventions (i.e., response cost) the effect size was enhanced (.97). It is also
interesting to note that when group contingencies were used for both positive and negative consequences, the effect size jumped to 1.02. This was the largest effect size obtained in the study,
suggesting that group contingencies controlling inappropriate peer reinforcement may be one of
the most promising approaches to managing disruptive behavior for externalizing students.
Guidelines for Optimal Environments
In designing an optimal and realistic environment for externalizing students several guidelines should be used. First, positive reinforcement and negative consequences should be consistently applied to appropriate and inappropriate behaviors rather than randomly applied or used at
near chance levels (like those found in many classrooms) (Van Acker et al., 1996). Second, when
positive consequences and praise are applied, reward contingencies should be for successful performance towards a challenging but realistic and attainable goal (Chance, 1992; Dickenson, 1989;
Eisenberger & Cameron, 1996). Third, a mix of positive and negatives should be used, not an all
or nothing application of positive or negative consequences (Cantrell, Stenner, & Katzenmeyer,
1977; Rhode, Jenson, & Reavis, 1992). The ratio of the mix, however, should place a heavy
emphasis on positives and a leaner emphasis on negatives. Fourth, setting events such as inappropriate commands and reprimands should be minimized to reduce coercive interactions that result

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in increasingly negative environments (Shores et al., 1993). Fifth, contingencies that reduce peer
attention for inappropriate behavior and reward appropriate group behavior should be applied
(Stage & Quiroz, 1997; Kehle et al., 2000). The remainder of this paper is a review of researchbased strategies than can be used by, and with, externalizing students to increase positives and
effectively manage behavior.
Self-Management Strategies for Positives: Get em Yourself
Self-management strategies are some of the most effective approaches for students with
externalizing disorders to influence the positiveness of their academic environment. This is
because the student is taught the strategy rather than the teacher. Self-management strategies
generally include such techniques as self-monitoring, self-evaluation, and specific recruitment of
feedback and praise from teachers. Through self-management students have demonstrated their
ability to influence the frequency of teacher praise, feedback, and reinforcement (Craft, Alber,
& Heward, 1998; Seymour & Stokes, 1976; Stokes, Fowler, & Baer, 1978).
Teachers are often asked to change their own classroom behavior in order to effect changes in
their students behaviors. Self-management strategies enable students to increase the rate of teacher
praise they receive by first reviewing the quality of their own work and then appropriately requesting teacher feedback. This intervention is cost efficient since students are trained to implement the
intervention, not the teachers. Added benefits of students learning and using self-management
skills are that they have been shown to be very effective in reducing disruptive behavior and
generalizing to other environments (Hrydowy, Stokes, & Martin, 1984; Rhode, Morgan, & Young,
1983; Seymour & Stokes, 1976; Stage & Quiroz, 1997). Teachers overall perceptions about students who use these skills are also likely to change in a positive direction. This is an especially
valuable benefit for students with externalizing disorders who are frequently viewed negatively by
adults (Connell, Carta, & Baer, 1993; Craft et al., 1998; Stokes et al., 1978).
Stokes et al. (1978) taught both nondisabled and behavior problem preschool children to self
monitor and assess the quality of their academic work and to cue teachers for feedback. Teacher
cueing included such comments as Have I worked well? and How is this work? In the initial
experiment, the children learned the cues with the trainer but failed to spontaneously generalize
them to new academic settings. However, when generalization training was introduced by teaching the students to vary their cues, raise their hands, spread cues across time, and wait for the
teacher to be near, the rates of teacher feedback and praise significantly increased. For children
labeled deviant, 1.0 praise statements were given per day at baseline, compared with 4.4 praise
statements per day in the generalization condition. The authors demonstrated that preschool
children can actively recruit a natural community of probable reinforcement (Stokes et al., 1978,
p. 301) through self-monitoring and assessment coupled with learning how to solicit teacher praise
with natural and diverse recruitment behaviors.
Self-monitoring and recruitment of praise can be important strategies for students with externalizing disorders in changing the quality and positiveness of their environments. However, these
two strategies can be enhanced by a third strategy, self-evaluation and matching to an adults
evaluation. In a study by Connell et al. (1993) preschoolers with developmental delays were
taught to self-monitor their clean-up skills at transition time in the classroom. Picture checklists
and a sad face/happy face self-monitoring system were employed during training. In addition, the
experimenters reinforced students with small toys for matching self-monitoring ratings with the
experimenters ratings of the students work. While the students performance improved through
self-monitoring training alone, generalization to the classroom setting was poor. The addition of
accurate matching and self-recruitment skills training for teacher feedback significantly increased
generalization and contingent teacher praise.

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Rhode et al. (1983) used a powerful shaping and fading procedure consisting of selfevaluation with matching to a teachers evaluation for disruptive externalizing students in a resource
class. The students were gradually taught to self-evaluate their appropriate behaviors and match
their evaluation to the resource teachers evaluation. Students were reinforced primarily for correct matches rather than just for improving their behaviors. The self-evaluation skills (with correct
teacher matches) helped to generalize their improvements in regular classroom settings.
The effectiveness of self-management has been documented across several researchers and
in many settings with diverse disabilities (Cooper, Heron, & Heward, 1987; Craft et al., 1998;
Hrydowy et al., 1984; Shapiro & Cole, 1994; Sherman & Cormier, 1974; Young et al., 1991).
Although self management can be an important strategy to enhance positive aspects of educational
environments for externalizing students, several variables must be addressed. First, expecting
appropriate behavior to be recognized and praised by teachers is not enough. Students have to
actively recruit praise and point out their improvements. Second, recruitment skills have to be
diverse, natural, and appropriate to the classroom setting or they will be ignored or even punished.
Third, teaching students to accurately self-evaluate their behaviors and match them to the perceptions of the teacher increases feedback and praise from the teacher and also facilitates generalization. There also may be a fourth powerful approach, that of teaching teacher pleaser skills.
Social Skills for Recruiting Positives: The Teacher Pleaser Approach
Students with externalizing disorders often have to wage an uphill battle because of past
behavioral excesses and the teachers perceptions of these students. Externalizing students have
been especially difficult to include in regular education settings because of these past behaviors
and perceptions (Jenson et al., 1993; MacMillan, Gresham, & Forness, 1996; Shapiro et al., 1999).
Although the effectiveness of teaching externalizing students social skills has been questioned,
this approach can be an important tool if steps are taken to promote generalization and if they are
also coupled with self-management skills for recruiting positives (Quinn et al., 1999; Sheridan,
1995). Teaching these skills with recruitment and generalization strategies should improve the
overall positiveness of a students environment.
Graubard, Rosenburgh, and Miller (1971) initially proposed an intervention strategy that
trained students in the use of specific social skills in order to recruit positive teacher attention.
Graubard et al. trained students with intellectual disabilities to make eye contact with teachers, to
nod to teachers when material was both presented and understood, and to compliment teachers by
making statements such as Now I understand or I like the way you taught that lesson. These
teacher pleaser social skills significantly improved teacher and student interactions with significantly fewer negative contacts reported by teachers.
Cantor and Gelfand (1977) confirmed this approach by showing that students who actively
responded to adults in socially positive ways received more adult attention and were rated as more
attractive than children who acted unresponsively. Others have replicated the strategy with preschoolers (Connell et al., 1993; Stokes et al., 1978), elementary students with behavior disorders
(Morgan, Young, & Goldstein, 1983), at-risk students (Hrydowy et al., 1984), students with developmental disabilities (Mank & Horner, 1987), and students with autism (Harchik, Luce, & Sherman, 1990). Harchik et al. (1990) worked with four autistic children and adult workers in a group
home environment. Each child was trained to make socially appropriate statements (e.g., check it
out) or ask evaluative questions (e.g., how am I doing) to adults that could potentially set the
stage for positive attention. Cues provided by the students resulted in positive praise from adults
5084% of the time across both trained and untrained settings. Morgan et al. (1983) found significant improvements in recruiting appropriate teacher interactions for three students with exter-

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nalizing disorders who were trained to prompt teachers for help and approval of their work and
then to praise teachers when the help and approval was provided.
One approach used a Teacher Pleaser social skills program to recruit positive teacher feedback in transitioning externalizing students ( Jenson et al., 1993). The Teacher Pleasers program
was constructed to maximize the likelihood of successful transition from a restrictive special
education program into less restrictive neighborhood school programs. Students were taught in the
context of a social skills program to initiate teacher pleaser statements and then self-monitor
their behaviors when they were exhibited in the less restrictive classroom settings. These students
were taught to volunteer statements (i.e., Can I help you with something during recess?), solicit
feedback (e.g., How am I doing? or I want to do a good job in your classroom), or compliment
and praise the teacher for help (e.g., Thanks, now I understand). Teachers in the new classroom
environments were unaware the externalizing students had been taught the Teacher Pleaser social
skills.
These students were taught to use their Teacher Pleaser social skills in their new classrooms
and also completed a self-evaluation to rate their use of skills. Sixteen students were returned from
a special school for students with externalizing disorders and tracked for a year. Fifty percent were
sent to a regular classroom, 33% were placed in regular classrooms with resource help, and 17%
were returned to a self-contained classroom housed in their neighborhood school. Students were
also observed to be on-task almost as much as their non-disabled peers (77% vs. 87%). Teachers
also reported acceptable levels of basic interaction and coping skills, appropriate peer socialization, academic ability and stability of each student in their original placement.
Noncompliance, arguing, and disruptive behaviors characterize many students with externalizing disorders (Patterson et al., 1992). Noncompliance has been identified as a central (king
pin) behavior that affects many other related behaviors (e.g., arguing, temper tantrums, aggression). High rates of coercive noncompliance lead to a degradation of the students environment
resulting in poor social skills development, academic deficits, poor social acceptance, delinquency, and other deleterious outcomes (Patterson et al., 1992).
Neville and Jenson (1984) introduced the idea of a simple social skills program intended to
increase compliance and social acceptance by adults. With the Sure I Will program, students are
taught to identify a request from a teacher and respond with the phrase sure I will (and then
comply). Students are randomly reinforced for repeating the sure I will phrase followed by
compliance. The program was evaluated using five elementary students with externalizing behaviors, including high rates of noncompliance (Michielsen, 1990). Students were taught the Sure I
Will program across 10 group sessions through a direct instruction format with modeling, roleplaying, drill and practice, and discrimination training. The students behaviors were then independently observed in their classroom with multiple probes by other staff across various school
environments. Four out of five students made significant improvement in compliance from approximate baselines of below 40% compliance (i.e., to teacher requests) to above 80% after the introduction of the program. Findings were independently replicated by Martin-Le Master (1990)
using the same Sure I Will program and a different group of students with externalizing disorders.
Significant increases in student compliance were supported by anecdotal reports of teachers documenting increases in positive interactions with the student and the students overall improvement
in social skills and adjustment. In Martin-Le Masters (1990) study, several of the externalizing
students continued to exhibit the Sure I Will response, even when it was no longer reinforced in
the reversal phase of the single subject design and at follow-up.
Social skills behaviors that recruit teacher praise and which are highly valued by teachers
appear to enhance the basic positive educational environment of externalizing students. Instead of
negative teacher and student interactions (i.e., arguing), compliments from a student for helping or

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responding to a request with Sure I Will makes for a better positive fit between teacher and
student.
Teacher-Based Approaches: Changing the Classroom Climate
Many teachers want to be positive, particularly in daily interactions with students who have
disabilities. Time demands, overcrowded classrooms, and difficult students, however, can capture
a large portion of a teachers time and attention. Further, the very nature of the behaviors that
define externalizing students, i.e., noncompliance, aggression, arguing, and disruptiveness can
make this goal of using positive psychology difficult. However, if a teacher has the mindset that
his or her classroom will be positively managed there are several techniques that can ensure that
goal. These techniques include random signaling programs, teacher self-management, public posting of positives, and teacher self-evaluation.
Random signaling programs have also been referred to as beep tape programs because
sounds are recorded at random intervals and played back in the classroom. When the sound goes
off the teacher determines if the student is behaving appropriately and if so, the student is then
reinforced. These programs have the benefit of a predetermined number of sounds, which essentially guarantees a specified number of positives to be delivered to the students by teachers. Random signaling programs have been used successfully by teachers for several years, and their
effectiveness has been well documented in the research literature (Glynn, Thomas, & Shee, 1974;
Maag, Reid, & DiGangi, 1993; McDougall & Brady, 1995).
Van Houten and Sullivan (1975) and van der Mars (1988) demonstrated the positive utility of
audio signaling devices for increasing the rate of teacher praise. Similarly, Henderson, Jenson and
Erkin (1986) introduced a complete classroom management system using random signaling procedures in 1976. The Practice Skills Mastery Program comes with pre-recorded cassettes with a
schedule of random beeps ranging from three beeps in 45 minutes to as many as 25 beeps in a
45-minute period. The program also contains a token point system where the points awarded
randomly vary each time an audible signal sounds off in the classroom. Three separate elementary
resource classrooms for learning disabled and externalizing students, ages seven to 12 years, used
The Practice Skills Mastery Program for a 1986 study by Hendersen, Jenson, and Erkin. The
on-task behavior of the entire classrooms increased from 55% at baseline to well above 80%
during treatment. Over the 40 days of the study, the expected achievement gains in reading and
math for the three classrooms were doubled.
Public posting has been shown to be a powerful behavior change intervention in which
improvements are graphed and displayed (Van Houten, 1980). With a slightly different approach
using data from random observations cued by audio tape, praise comments of teachers were coupled with public posting to improve teacher praise rates. In this study, 12 teachers of preschoolers
with disabilities were randomly observed teaching, and data were collected on their daily praise
rates (Gross & Ekstrand, 1983). The results of the observations were then graphed and displayed
in the classrooms. Results from this study showed that publicly posting praise rates nearly doubled
the rate observed during baseline with improvement maintained at a two-month follow-up.
A recent version of the signaling program has been developed using classroom computers
and soundboard technology (Althouse et al., 1999). This program allows a teacher to use a classroom computer to generate random signals from 0 to 100 per hour with additional imbedded bonus
signals. The program can run across the day and track when each signal occurs and what point
value was assigned to that signal. One advantage of this new program is that in addition to audio
beeps, WAV sound files may also be used. For example, one sound that can be picked from an
array of choices in the program mimics money falling into a container while another consists of an
audience clapping. Many other sounds can be downloaded from the Internet.

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Jenson, Olympia, Farley, and Clark

Even simple audio recordings of teaching interactions played back and self-evaluated later
has been shown to increase teachers praise rates and positive interactions with students (Strong,
1997; Sutherland, 2000). Sutherland and Wehby (2001) used audio recording of classroom interactions with twenty teachers in self-contained classrooms for students with emotional and behavior disorders. Independent observations revealed that the ratio of teacher praise for behavior as
compared to their reprimand rate for inappropriate behavior changed substantially from 2:1 during
pretreatment to approximately 6:1 for treatment and following. In essence, teachers tripled their
praise rates for appropriate behavior while holding their reprimand rates for inappropriate behavior relatively constant. It is interesting to note that during the treatment there were collateral
increases in more desirable teaching behaviors and students increased rates of correct answers to
instructional questions.
Summary
Excessive behaviors like aggression, noncompliance, arguing, tantrums, and disruptiveness
make children with externalizing behaviors very difficult to manage in school and often lead to
their segregated educational placement. Behavioral deficits in social skills, self-management skills,
and academic skills compound the difficulty for teachers, especially as these students get older. A
positive psychology approach to these students is problematic at best; however, we have no better
alternative. If continually punished and forced to experience failure, these are the students who
drop out of school, commit crimes, and cost society millions of dollars in rehabilitation and
incarceration (Walker, Colvin, & Ramsey, 1995). A positive psychology focused approach is an
effective means for maintaining and educating these students. There have been advances in recent
years with the movements to positive behavioral support approaches and whole school management and discipline. Functional behavior assessment has advanced techniques to assess the motivating consequences and the antecedent conditions that set the occasion for many of these problematic
behaviors. Although these appear to be a positive trends, it is not enough and more needs to be
done.
We have pointed out several approaches and techniques to promote positive psychological
environments for students with externalizing behaviors. These students must be given some selfdetermining freedom, which can be done with self-management strategies to recruit their own
rewards. Students with serious behavior problems must experience some type of educational flow
experience if they are to remain in education. This can be done with positive academic curricula
that emphasize reading and success with social skills programs that actually work to help these
students fit in with other students. Students with externalizing disorders need a sense of optimism
about their future or they will simply give up and drop out. Classroom programs and teacher
programs that ensure positive successful experiences and high rates of praise can engender this
optimism. Without these positive psychology components we will lose these students. Basically,
the decision is to pay now by providing positive psychological approaches that keep these students
in school, or pay later when these students reach adulthood and experience problems that require
legal or community based remedies.
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