Georgia Southern University

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Perceptions of Disruptive Classroom Behaviors

Trent W. Maurer
Georgia Southern University, tmaurer@georgiasouthern.edu

Diana Sturges
Georgia Southern University, dsturges@georgiasouthern.edu

Danny Averette
Georgia Southern University, daverette@georgiasouthern.edu

Sun-A Lee
sunalee@georgiasouthern.edu

Deborah Allen
Georgia Southern University, debbieallen@georgiasouthern.edu

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Recommended Citation
Maurer, Trent W.; Sturges, Diana; Averette, Danny; Lee, Sun-A; and Allen, Deborah, "Perceptions of Disruptive Classroom Behaviors"
(2009). SoTL Commons Conference. 24.
http://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/sotlcommons/SoTL/2009/24

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 Faculty and Student Perceptions of Disruptive Classroom Behaviors

Trent W. Maurer1, Diana Sturges, Debbie Allen, Danny Averette, & Sun-A Lee

Georgia Southern University

Abstract: This project investigated differences between faculty and student

perceptions of disruptive student behaviors and effective class management

strategies. Participants (99 faculty, 179 students) from a single university

completed a mixed-methods on-line questionnaire. Quantitative analyses revealed

significant differences between faculty and student perceptions of behavior as

“disruptive” on nine of 15 behaviors. Additionally, significant differences

between faculty and student perceptions on the effectiveness of six of 13 class

management strategies emerged. Qualitative analyses reinforced those findings.

Taken together, the results suggest a substantial disconnect between faculty and

student perceptions of disruptive classroom behaviors and highlight areas for

faculty to improve with class management.

Keywords: disruptive behavior, class management, perceptions, faculty-student

differences

1
Direct correspondence for this manuscript to: Trent Maurer, Department of Hospitality, Tourism, and Family &
Consumer Sciences, Georgia Southern University, P.O. Box 8021, Statesboro, Georgia 30460,
tmaurer@georgiasouthern.edu.
 This investigation uses an online mixed-methods survey to explore faculty and student

perceptions of disruptive student classroom behaviors. It addresses two key gaps in the prior

literature on this subject: 1. How similar or dissimilar are faculty and student perceptions about

what constitutes “disruptive behaviors” in the classroom? 2. How similar or dissimilar are faculty

and student perceptions about the influence of various classroom management strategies on the

frequency of disruptive behaviors in the classroom?

Student disruptive behaviors in the classroom are a popular topic of both empirical

research (Boice, 1996; De Lucia & Iasenza, 1995; Morrissette, 2001) and faculty discussions

(Bartlett, 2004; Benton, 2007; mj_romo, 2008; Young, 2003). These venues note not only the

disturbing presence of disruptive behaviors in the college classroom, but also an alarming

increase in frequency in recent years (Lashley & de Meneses, 2001). Further, they describe at

length the demoralizing effect of those behaviors on faculty (De Lucia & Iasenza, 1995;

Morrissette, 2001; Wilson, 1990), many of whom were drawn to academe by the desire to teach

in a disruption-free environment (Amada, 1992). Many faculty are surprised to discover they

need to address disruptive behaviors in a college setting (Carbone, 1999) and are not adequately

trained or prepared to do so (De Lucia & Iasenza, 1995 ; Hernandez & Fister, 2001). Indeed,

most published advice for faculty does not address the issue of disruptive behaviors (Boice,

1996) despite the fact that faculty have become increasingly concerned about the issue (De Lucia

& Iasenza, 1995).

The impact of disruptive behaviors on faculty is not limited to a decrease in morale, or

even an increase in stress, discontentment with the profession, or burnout (Appleby, 1990;

Schneider, 1998). Faculty time devoted to planning classroom management strategies is time

that is not spent in lesson planning or other pedagogical work (Morrissette, 2001). Disruptive
behaviors, therefore, indirectly reduce the quality of the learning environment by requiring

faculty time and effort that should be directed at other forms of class preparation. Disruptive

behaviors also directly reduce the quality of the learning environment: as few as 10% of students

remain engaged in classes with high levels of disruptive behaviors (Boice, 1996) and students

report disruptive classroom behaviors significantly hinder their learning (Wulff, Nyquist, &

Abbott, 1987).

As educators, faculty are concerned not only about their working conditions, but also

about creating a positive learning space for their students (Feldmann, 2001). Disruptive

behaviors compromise both, yet many faculty do not effectively address classroom disruptions.

The reasons for this are twofold: 1. Faculty perceive a lack of administrative support for dealing

with disruptive behaviors (Amada, 1992; Hernandez & Fister, 2001) and are concerned that any

intervention might result in lower student evaluations (Tantleff-Dunn, Dunn, & Gokee, 2002)

which could lead to lower performance reviews by administrators. 2. Faculty do not know how

to effectively deal with disruptive behaviors (De Lucia & Iasenza, 1995; Hernandez & Fister,

2001). This second reason is richly illustrated in the literature, which is long on suggestions, but

short on empirical evaluations of actual effectiveness. Suggestions range from listing rules in the

syllabus (Mishra, 1992) to remaining silent until you have the full attention of the entire class

(Herr, 1989) to demonstrating immediacy in the classroom (Burroughs, 2007). Nowhere in this

literature is there data on how effective faculty and students think each of these strategies would

be on reducing classroom disruptions.

However, there is an even larger gap in the literature connected to the lack of data on

faculty and student perceptions of effective classroom management strategies: the literature has

yet to establish exactly what counts as “disruptive behaviors” to faculty and students or if the two
groups even use similar definitions. Clearly, both gaps need to be addressed if research on this

topic is to move forward. This paper proposes to take the first step in addressing those gaps by

using an online mixed-methods survey to explore faculty and student perceptions of disruptive

student classroom behaviors. Because of the lack of prior research specifically addressing these

issues, we propose two non-directional hypotheses:

H1: Faculty and student perceptions about what constitutes “disruptive behaviors” in

the classroom will be significantly different from one another.

H2: Faculty and student perceptions about the influence of various classroom

management strategies on the frequency of disruptive behaviors in the classroom

will be significantly different from one another.

Method

Participants

There were two categories of participants: faculty (N=99) and students (N=179).

Demographic information for both groups is presented in Table 1.

Materials

All participants completed an IRB-approved on-line mixed-methods questionnaire. The

questionnaire was administered through Survey Monkey and participants had to provide a

password to access the questionnaire. This questionnaire consisted of five demographic questions

(three for faculty only), 34 perception questions (three for faculty only, one for students only),

and six qualitative questions (one for faculty only, one for students only). Other than those

differences, both faculty and students received identical questionnaires. See Appendix.
Procedure

Faculty and students at a southeastern American university with an enrollment of

approximately 17,000 students were invited to participate in an on-line survey about student

attendance. All university faculty (N = 690) were notified via email of the existence of the

survey, the invitation to participate, the web address, and the password. Faculty members who

taught in the undergraduate program were encouraged to tell their students about the survey in

their courses. Students were notified about the survey in classes from participating faculty and

the authors. Faculty and students who wanted to participate navigated to the web page for the

survey, entered the provided password sent with the invitation to participate, and completed the

survey. The faculty response of 99 reflects a response rate of 14.35%. Because not all students

may have been notified about the survey, it was not possible to calculate the student response

rate.

Results

Quantitative results

To address hypothesis one and explore faculty and student perceptions of which

behaviors are considered “disruptive,” a series of Chi-squared analyses were run. (Chi-squared

was chosen over MANOVA because the dependent variables were dichotomous and not

normally distributed.) To control for inflation of Type I error with 15 dependent variables, a

Bonferroni correction was used to set a group wise alpha of p < .0033 (.05/15). For nine of the

15 behaviors, significant differences between faculty and students in the perception of those

behaviors as “disruptive” emerged. Results are presented in Table 2.

To address hypothesis two and explore faculty and student perceptions about the

influence of various classroom management strategies on the frequency of disruptive behaviors

in the classroom, a MANOVA with group membership (faculty/student) as the independent

variable and the 13 response strategies as the dependent variables was run. A significant

multivariate effect emerged for group membership, Pillai’s Trace = .24, F (13, 228) = 5.60, p <

.001, partial η2 = .24. Follow-up univariate ANOVAs for all 13 dependent variables revealed six

significant models. Results are presented in Table 3. Because group membership was the only

independent variable, univariate model statistics are identical to group membership statistics

within the model and can be interpreted as such. For all six significant models, faculty reported

the strategies would be less effective than students reported.

Faculty alone were asked two additional quantitative questions: 1. “To what extent does

disruptive classroom behavior make you consider leaving teaching for another profession?”; 2.

“How supportive do you perceive administrators at Georgia Southern to be when it comes to

faculty responding to disruptive classroom behaviors?”. Students alone were asked one

additional quantitative question, “How often do the disruptive behaviors of other students

interfere with your learning in a class?”. Results appear in Table 4.

Qualitative results

Two of the open-ended questions were subjected to qualitative analyses. The first

question, “How would you define “disruptive classroom behavior?” What would be some

examples?,” which was asked of both faculty and students, yielded five primary themes: 1.

Tardiness/late arrivals; 2. Text messaging; 3. Talking while the professor is talking; 4. Talking

on a cell phone/letting it ring; 5. Vague or overly broad general definitions (e.g., “Any activity

that distracts the instructor or other students.”). There were significant differences between

faculty and students in the frequency with which they mentioned each of these themes. Results

appear in Table 5.
 The second question, “What are the barriers for faculty in dealing with disruptive

behaviors?,” which was asked only of faculty, yielded four primary themes: 1. Fear of retaliation

on student evaluations, which could affect employment, promotion, tenure, and pay; 2. Lack of

administrative support in dealing with disruptive students; 3. A prevailing “customer” mentality

that treated students as consumers and that would allow them to demand that faculty let them

disrupt the classroom environment if that is what they chose to do; 4. A lack of knowledge and

training in how to deal with disruptive behaviors. See Table 5.

Discussion

This investigation used an online mixed-methods survey to explore faculty and student

perceptions of what counts as “disruptive student classroom behaviors” and the effectiveness of

various classroom management strategies in reducing the frequency of those behaviors. It was

hypothesized that significant differences between faculty and students would emerge in both sets

of perceptions. Both hypotheses were supported. Faculty and students significantly differed in

their perceptions of a behavior as “disruptive” for nine of 15 possible behaviors, and significant

differences between the groups emerged in the perception of how effective six of 13 class

management strategies would be.

For six of the nine significant differences between groups on the perception of a behavior

as “disruptive,” faculty were more likely to view the behavior as disruptive: texting, reading

papers/magazines, sleeping in class, drinking beverages in class, doing work for another course,

and using laptops for unrelated work. For the remaining three differences, students were more

likely to view the behavior as disruptive: talking out of turn, asking questions already answered,

and asking irrelevant questions. As seen in Table 2, the magnitude of many of these differences

is quite profound. For example, faculty were four times as likely as students to perceive doing
work for another course to be disruptive, and nearly twice as likely to perceive texting as

disruptive. Indeed, as one qualitative response from a student asserted, “Texting is NOT

disruptive.” Additional qualitative analyses (see Table 5) replicate these patterns. Likewise,

students were nearly three times as likely as faculty to perceive asking questions that have

already been answered as disruptive.

Here, it is possible that there exists a fundamental difference between faculty and

students in how this last behavior is perceived. Faculty may interpret repeat questions as a sign

that some students are struggling with the material and require further instruction, clarification,

or elaboration. In contrast, students may interpret repeat questions as a sign that their classmates

have not been paying attention. Faculty are likely to expect that students will learn at different

paces and that some will require more repetition than others; students, especially those for whom

the material comes easily, may either misinterpret the questions of their classmates as signs that

they haven’t been paying attention, or may resent having to spend more time going over material

they themselves have already assimilated. Of course, it is also possible that these students are

correct and that it is faculty who are misperceiving the situation—in our zeal to reach all of our

students, we may assume a student just requires “a little extra explanation” when in fact that

student hasn’t been paying attention.

The general pattern of these faculty-student differences is also revealing. Five of the six

behaviors that faculty were more likely than students to perceive as disruptive (excepting

drinking beverages in class) could be considered “disrespectful” but not necessarily “disruptive,”

particularly from a student perspective. If a student is not giving their professor the same

undivided attention their professor is giving them, that could be considered rude, even

disrespectful, and certainly a violation of the expectations many faculty set for their classrooms,
but is it necessarily “disruptive?” In what way is a student doing work for another course

disrupting the learning environment? That student’s own learning may be hindered by their not

paying attention, but does it really interfere with any other student’s learning? More importantly,

how could the offending student know if their behavior is being disruptive, particularly if they

believe the quiet and personalized nature of their behavior would not be distracting to anyone

else because they don’t think it would be distracting to them if others did it?

We argue that these behaviors could indeed be disruptive both to students, particularly

students with attention deficits who would be especially susceptible to any distractions, and to

faculty, who because of their view of the entire class are more likely to observe these

behaviors—and be distracted by them—than students sitting in another part of the classroom.

This last point is particularly important as distractions to faculty have the ability to affect all the

students in the classroom, rather than the few in the immediate vicinity of the surrounding

student. Consider this comment from a student’s response to how to define disruptive behavior:

I think the most disruptive classroom behavior is actually teachers getting off
topic and becoming distracted by other things. For example I don't think a cell
phone ringing causes a whole lot of distraction but rather a teacher making a big
deal out of the cell phone and completely losing train of thought.

Here, a single student’s action can disrupt the entire class by disrupting the professor’s teaching,

even if the individual effect of that behavior on other students’ learning would otherwise have

been quite small.

We concede that many students might initially have difficulty seeing the potential impact

of these behaviors on their peers and their professors, especially if the students whose learning is

disrupted or the professor who is distracted by their behavior do not bring it to the attention of

the offending student. Certainly, the egocentrism characteristic of adolescents and young adults

plays a role in this (Feldman, 2006). However, we believe this presents faculty with a unique
opportunity to address these behaviors in the manner we know best—by educating students that

these behaviors may not appear disruptive, but that it is entirely possible that they are interfering

with the learning of others in the classroom unbeknownst to the offending students. Students can

easily see why talking on a cell phone would be disruptive (over 95% in this sample thought so),

but it seems they need a little help to see why texting or reading a newspaper might be disruptive

to others, even if they think it would not be and even if it would not disrupt their own learning if

someone else did it. We need to teach them the Platinum Rule: Do unto others, not as you

would have done unto you, but as they would have done unto them.

This brings us to differences in the perception of class management strategies. For all six

significant differences between faculty and students, faculty perceived the strategies to be less

effective than students. It is likely that these differences emerged because of a very specific

limitation of this investigation: a convenience sample of students. Given the nature of the topic

of this investigation, the most parsimonious interpretation of these results is that those students

who took the survey were those most strongly motivated to do so (i.e., those most irritated with

the disruptive behaviors of their peers). In such a case, it is not surprising that these students

would think that the classroom management strategies would be more effective because they

would be effective if they were the violating student. Likewise, that would explain why so many

students appeared to endorse punitive, even draconian strategies, like dismissing the entire class

or yelling at the offending student; the students in the sample wanted punishment for classroom

disruptors because it was those students who learning was most being disrupted. However,

seasoned faculty (average years in teaching over 13 in this sample) may be more pessimistic

about the effectiveness of these strategies because of prior failures of those strategies to control

classroom disruptions. Although neither students nor faculty could reach 100% consensus about
the effectiveness of any strategy, they did appear to be largely in agreement that if faculty

completely ignored disruptive behaviors, their frequency would increase.

So why then do faculty not effectively address disruptive behaviors? This question is

particularly relevant given that for 10 of the 13 listed strategies, mean faculty responses indicated

a perception that the strategy would at least somewhat reduce classroom disruptions. The prior

literature suggested two reasons: 1. Faculty perceive a lack of administrative support for dealing

with disruptive behaviors (Amada, 1992; Hernandez & Fister, 2001) and are concerned that any

intervention might result in lower student evaluations (Tantleff-Dunn et al., 2002) which could

lead to lower performance reviews by administrators. 2. Faculty do not know how to effectively

deal with disruptive behaviors (De Lucia & Iasenza, 1995; Hernandez & Fister, 2001). The

results of this investigation offer support for both. Less than 50% of the faculty in the sample

perceived the campus administration to be supportive of faculty in dealing with disruptive

behavior. Over 13% specifically mentioned lack of administrative support as a barrier to dealing

with it, with another 6% mentioning fear of low student evaluations and yet another 6%

mentioning a “customer” mentality among administrators when dealing with students. A further

8% mentioned lack of knowledge or training as a barrier.

We believe there is an additional explanation for why faculty do not effectively address

disruptive behaviors that is suggested by our qualitative data: faculty cannot effectively define

what disruptive behavior is. Nearly half of the faculty in this sample, when asked to define

disruptive behaviors, gave an overly broad or general definition that would be impossible for a

student to interpret (e.g., “Any activity that distracts the instructor or other students.”). As we

have already seen, students and faculty interpret the same behaviors in different ways and

students may incorrectly assume that their behaviors are not distracting to anyone else. Although
such broad definitions are generally accurate, their lack of precision is what make is impossible

for students to know what faculty mean. Further exacerbating this problem, there is no

consensus among faculty about what constitutes “disruptive behaviors.” Two percent of faculty

did not perceive talking on a cell phone to be disruptive and eight percent thought drinking

beverages was. How is a student supposed to know what each of their individual professors

thinks is or is not disruptive if their only definition is, “Any activity that distracts the instructor

or other students?” How can students comply with a rule that they do not understand? How

much faculty time will be wasted trying to enforce such a nebulous rule?

Here we have a great potential, not only for educating students to think beyond

themselves and what they would find disruptive, but also for educating faculty to better

communicate their expectations to students along with the idea that different faculty have

different expectations. We must also face the possibility that we may have to “live with” certain

levels of classroom disruption or that certain disruptive behaviors may not logistically be

preventable, in spite of our best efforts. For example, nearly one in five faculty in this sample

identified student tardiness as an example of a disruptive behavior. Indubitably, late arrivals

have great potential to be disruptive, especially in certain types of classes or in rooms with

certain layouts (e.g., those where latecomers must walk in front of the professor, the board, and

many other students before they can get to a seat). However, rising enrollments can create

scheduling problems as it becomes more and more difficult to find classroom space for ever-

larger courses. When a faculty member is teaching classes on opposite ends of campus with only

a 10 minute passing period in between, would they still consider students arriving late to be

disruptive? If faculty do not have the ability to schedule their course classrooms any closer

together, realistically will students be able to do any better with their schedules? Does this
reality make a late arrival any less “objectively disruptive?” Does the latecomer miss any less

class time because of the reason why they were late? In situations like these where logistics limit

faculty options, we need further research and further discussion to explore the best ways to

minimize the impact of these disruptions not only on student learning but also on faculty stress,

discontentment, and morale.

Reflections from the Conference Session

During the session, when we queried attendees about the kinds of behaviors they see as

disruptive to class, answers included: using a cell phone/ringing phone, text messaging, asking

questions that have already been answered, arriving late/leaving early, using laptops for

unrelated work, sleeping, doing work for another course, working crossword puzzles, and

bringing a child to class. Obviously, there was substantial overlap between the behaviors they

spontaneously suggested before we presented our research and our own findings, which suggests

a fair amount of external validity to our results.

Additionally, we distributed a worksheet to attendees and had them form small groups.

In these groups, we asked questions similar to those on the survey:

1. To what extent do you experience disruptive behaviors in your classroom and

how important is this issue to you?

In response to this question, attendees nearly universally agreed that the problem does exist at

their institutions, though their levels of personal experience with it varied substantially from

“Somewhat important but not at the top of a priority list for me since I don’t experience them on

a regular basis” to “every class; very important.” Attendees also suggested the problem may be

more frequent for younger instructors and female instructors because students may be less likely

to afford them the same respect they give to older and male instructors.
 2. How do you deal with disruptive behaviors in your classes?

Again, attendees suggested many of the same strategies we evaluated in our project, from

ignoring the behavior to speaking privately with the student after class to ejecting the violator.

One attendee shared his method of assigning students to teams, each team representing a

“company” like in his industry. In each company, there is a student who is the “timekeeper”

who is responsible for taking attendance in his group and recording it on “timesheets” to be

turned in to the instructor every week. This student is responsible for deducting absent students’

“sick leave” for tardies and absences and once a student has used up all their allowed “sick

leave,” there are direct consequences for their grade in the course.

3. In your classes, what have you done to address disruptive behaviors that has

been effective?

Attendees offered examples using two very different strategies. The first strategy was largely

punitive, with items such as providing consequences for violations, listing prohibited behaviors

in syllabi, etc. The second strategy was more educational in nature, and consisted of items such

as teaching students about academic culture and how the different setting has different rules,

approaching students with an “I need you help” in maintaining the environment attitude, and

treating students with the respect we expect in return. Attendees thought each strategy could be

appropriate in certain situations, but that no one approach was a panacea.

4. What have you done that hasn’t been as effective?

Here, the most common response was to ignore the behavior, which is consistent with the results

of our investigation. Other examples included making the behavior public and trying to use peer

pressure to stop it, reminding students of the rules, confronting the violators, and ejecting the

violators. It should be noted that many of the strategies suggested as effective in the last
question were also listed in this section as ineffective, which indicates that no single strategy is

likely to be universally effective.

5. Is there any method or technique to address disruptive behaviors that you

would like to try?

Attendees offered several suggestions here, all of which focused on increasing student

engagement/involvement: using POGIL lessons, having students’ present the discussions,

involving students in co-creating classroom rules and guidelines, and considering how one’s

teaching may not be interactive or “entertaining” enough to prevent the boredom that appears to

lead to some of these behaviors.

Finally, one additional issue was raised during the session that provides additional food

for thought: In the era of helicopter parents who expect to be able to reach their child 24/7,

especially in the event of a campus/local emergency, how might we as instructors both recognize

this reality and still maintain a disruption-free classroom? As ever more college instructors are

temporary, adjunct, or otherwise non-tenure track, and therefore significantly more vulnerable to

students’ or parents’ complaints, what can colleges and universities do to assist their instructors

in creating healthy learning environments in the classroom? How can they reconcile mission

statements that praise a culture of engagement and a learner-centered approach with a business

model student-as-customer and customer is always right management strategy? In the era of

declining state appropriations for higher education and increasing (though mislead) public cries

for accountability, how long can institutions of higher education continue the status quo?
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 Appendix: Project Measures

Instructions:
This survey is designed to learn about faculty and students’ perceptions about classroom
management. Please indicate your answers to the questions below.

FACULTY VERSION:

Demographic Questions

1. Please indicate your gender:

a. Male
b. Female

2. Please indicate your ethnicity:

a. White
b. African-American
c. Hispanic
d. Asian
e. Other

3. Please indicate your College:

a. COBA
b. COE
c. CHHS
d. CIT
e. CLASS
f. COST

4. What is your employment classification:

a. tenured/tenure-track faculty
b. full-time temporary faculty
c. part-time temporary faculty
d. other

5. How many years have you taught in higher education? _____

Perception Questions

1. How would you define “disruptive classroom behavior?” What would be some
examples?
2. Which of the following would you consider “disruptive classroom behaviors?” Check all
that apply.
a. Talking while a professor is talking, like side conversations
b. Text messaging
c. Talking on a cell phone
 d. Reading a newspaper, magazine, or other publication that is not part of a class
activity
e. Sleeping in class
f. Eating in class
g. Drinking soda, water, or other beverages in class
h. Arriving to class late
i. Leaving class early
j. Packing up before class has been dismissed
k. Doing work for another class
l. Using laptops for non-class related things, like surfing the Net or playing games
m. Listening to music/iPods during class
n. Asking questions that have already been answered
o. Asking irrelevant questions
3. What factors contribute to disruptive classroom behaviors?
4. If a professor observes disruptive behavior in their classroom, what could happen to the
student? What are the professor’s options for responding to that disruption?
5. Name one method or technique that professors could use that you think would be
effective in responding to classroom disruptions and explain why you think it would be
effective.
6. Rate each of the following class management strategies in terms of the effect you think
they would have on classroom disruptions:

Would Would somewhat No effect either Would somewhat Would

significantly decrease way increase significantly
decrease disruptions disruptions increase
disruptions disruptions
1 2 3 4 5

a. Professor lists prohibited behaviors in the syllabus

b. Professor announces prohibited behaviors on the first day
c. Professor announces prohibited behaviors at the start of each class
d. Professor posts signs prohibiting the behaviors in the classroom
e. Professor penalizes students who engage in prohibited behaviors with loss of
points in the course
f. Professor penalizes students who engage in prohibited behaviors by dismissing
them from class for the remainder of the class period
g. Professor tells students who are caught engaging in prohibited behaviors to stop
the behavior
h. Professor asks the disruptive student if they are ok/if everything is alright
i. Professor stops teaching and is silent until the prohibited behaviors stop
j. Professor dismisses the entire class and does not cover the remainder of the
material for the day
k. Professor yells at the student engaging in prohibited behaviors
l. Professor speaks to disruptive students after class one-on-one
m. Professor completely ignores any classroom disruptions
 7. How often do you witness disruptive classroom behavior in your classes?
Never Rarely Occasionally Frequently Very Frequently
1 2 3 4 5

8. To what extent does disruptive classroom behavior make you consider leaving teaching
for another profession?
No impact at all Very Little Some A Fair Amount A Lot
1 2 3 4 5

9. What are the barriers for faculty in dealing with disruptive behaviors?
10. How prepared do you feel you are to effectively deal with disruptive behaviors if they
should arise in your classroom?
Completely Unprepared Neither Prepared Prepared Completely
Unprepared nor Unprepared Prepared
1 2 3 4 5

11. How supportive do you perceive administrators at Georgia Southern to be when it comes
to faculty responding to disruptive classroom behaviors?
Completely Somewhat Somewhat Completely
Neutral
Unsupportive Unsupportive Supportive Supportive
1 2 3 4 5

12. Indicate your opinion of this statement: “Georgia Southern should be doing more to
prevent disruptive classroom behaviors.”
Strongly Neither Agree
Disagree Agree Strongly Agree
Disagree nor Disagree
1 2 3 4 5

STUDENT VERSION:

Demographic Questions

1. Please indicate your gender:

a. Male
b. Female

2. Please indicate your ethnicity:

a. White
b. African-American
c. Hispanic
d. Asian
e. Other

3. How would you define “disruptive classroom behavior?” What would be some
examples?
 4. Which of the following would you consider “disruptive classroom behaviors?” Check all
that apply.
a. Talking while a professor is talking, like side conversations
b. Text messaging
c. Talking on a cell phone
d. Reading a newspaper, magazine, or other publication that is not part of a class
activity
e. Sleeping in class
f. Eating in class
g. Drinking soda, water, or other beverages in class
h. Arriving to class late
i. Leaving class early
j. Packing up before class has been dismissed
k. Doing work for another class
l. Using laptops for non-class related things, like surfing the Net or playing games
m. Listening to music/iPods during class
n. Asking questions that have already been answered
o. Asking irrelevant questions
2. What factors contribute to disruptive classroom behaviors?
3. If a professor observes disruptive behavior in their classroom, what could happen to the
student? What are the professor’s options for responding to that disruption?
4. Name one method or technique that professors could use that you think would be
effective in responding to classroom disruptions and explain why you think it would be
effective.
5. Rate each of the following class management strategies in terms of the effect you think
they would have on classroom disruptions:

Would Would somewhat No effect either Would somewhat Would

significantly decrease way increase significantly
decrease disruptions disruptions increase
disruptions disruptions
1 2 3 4 5

a. Professor lists prohibited behaviors in the syllabus

b. Professor announces prohibited behaviors on the first day
c. Professor announces prohibited behaviors at the start of each class
d. Professor posts signs prohibiting the behaviors in the classroom
e. Professor penalizes students who engage in prohibited behaviors with loss of
points in the course
f. Professor penalizes students who engage in prohibited behaviors by dismissing
them from class for the remainder of the class period
g. Professor tells students who are caught engaging in prohibited behaviors to stop
the behavior
h. Professor asks the disruptive student if they are ok/if everything is alright
i. Professor stops teaching and is silent until the prohibited behaviors stop
 j. Professor dismisses the entire class and does not cover the remainder of the
material for the day
k. Professor yells at the student engaging in prohibited behaviors
l. Professor speaks to disruptive students after class one-on-one
m. Professor completely ignores any classroom disruptions

6. How often do you witness disruptive classroom behavior in your classes?

Never Rarely Occasionally Frequently Very Frequently
1 2 3 4 5

7. How often do the disruptive behaviors of other students interfere with your learning in a
class?
Never Rarely Occasionally Frequently Very Frequently
1 2 3 4 5

8. Indicate your opinion of this statement: “Georgia Southern should be doing more to
prevent disruptive classroom behaviors.”
Strongly Neither Agree
Disagree Agree Strongly Agree
Disagree nor Disagree
1 2 3 4 5

9. If you engaged in a disruptive behavior in class, what would be the most effective way
for the professor to get you to stop doing that behavior and why?
Table 1

Demographic Information.
Group
Variable Faculty (N = 99) Student (N = 179)
Gender
Male 43 (43.4%) 30 (16.8%)
Female 56 (56.6%) 149 (83.2%)
Ethnicity
White 86 (87.8%) 138 (77.1%)
African-American 3 (3.1%) 34 (19.0%)
Hispanic 1 (1.0%) 0 (0.0%)
Asian 3 (3.1%) 2 (1.1%)
Other 5 (5.1%) 5 (2.8%)
College
Business 21 (21.2%) —
Education 8 (8.1%) —
Health/Human Sciences 17 (17.2%) —
Information Technology 2 (2.0%) —
Liberal Arts/Social Sciences 32 (32.3%) —
Science and Technology 18 (18.2%) —
Other 1 (1.0%) —
Employment classification
Tenured/tenure-track 82 (82.8%) —
Full-time temporary 10 (10.1%) —
Part-time temporary 2 (2.0%) —
Other 5 (5.1%) —
Years teaching in higher 13.43 (9.92) —
education
Note. One faculty member did not report ethnicity. Only faculty were asked to list College.

Numbers for years teaching in higher education are mean and standard deviation.
Table 2

Chi-squared Analyses of Perceptions of “Disruptive Behaviors” (N = 278)

Group
Behavior Faculty (N = 99) Student (N = 179) Χ2 Φ
Talking out of turn 2.17* 0.09
No 8 7
Yes 91 172
Text messaging 33.05* 0.34
No 20 100
Yes 79 79
Talking on a cell phone 1.10 —
No 2 8
Yes 97 171
Reading newspaper/magazines 48.97* 0.42
No 23 120
Yes 76 59
Sleeping in class 18.25* 0.26
No 39 118
Yes 60 61
Eating in class .41 —
No 66 126
Yes 33 53
Drinking soda/water in class 5.28* 0.14
No 91 175
Yes 8 4
Arriving late .62 —
No 26 55
Yes 73 124
Leaving early 2.68 —
No 29 70
Yes 70 109
Packing up before dismissal 2.02 —
No 21 52
Yes 78 127
Doing work for another class 81.90* 0.54
No 27 147
Yes 72 32
Using laptops for surfing Net or playing games 21.64* 0.28
No 24 95
Yes 75 84
Listening to iPods/music .68 —
No 19 42
Yes 80 137
Asking questions already answered 34.08* 0.35
No 81 82
Yes 18 97
Asking irrelevant questions 37.92* 0.37
No 64 48
Yes 35 131
Note. df = 1. Φ = effect size as measured by phi coefficient, unreported if test statistic did not meet significance.

* = p < .0033.
Table 3

MANOVA Analyses of Faculty/Student Differences in Effective Management Strategies (N =242)

Faculty (N = 83) Students (N = 159)
Strategy M SE M SE F (1, 241) Partial η2
List prohibited behaviors
2.15 .07 2.25 .05 1.45 —
in syllabus
Announce prohibited
behaviors on first day 2.07 .07 2.04 .05 .11 —
of class
Announce prohibited
behaviors at start of 2.36 .09 1.90 .07 15.74* 0.06
class
Post signs in the
2.72 .08 2.37 .05 14.50* 0.06
classroom
Penalize students with
1.66 .07 1.21 .05 26.55* .010
point loss
Penalize students with
1.66 .09 1.37 .06 7.64* 0.03
ejection from class
Tell disruptive students to
1.96 .07 1.93 .05 .14 —
stop
Ask disruptive students if
2.35 .08 2.45 .06 1.03 —
they are ok
Stop teaching and remain
silent until behavior 2.12 .10 2.15 .07 .04 —
ceases
Dismiss the entire class 3.11 .14 2.37 .10 17.83* 0.07
Yell at the disruptive
3.16 .13 2.30 .09 30.32* 0.11
student
Speak to disruptive
1.84 .07 1.72 .05 1.87 —
student after class
Completely ignore the
4.22 .09 4.15 .07 .32 —
behavior
Note. Partial η2 is effect size as measured by partial eta-squared, unreported if test statistic did

not meet significance. Response options: 1 = “Would significantly decrease disruptions” to 5 =

“Would significantly increase disruptions.”

* = p < .01.
Table 4

Descriptive Statistics for Group-Specific Questions

Response Option
Question 1 2 3 4 5 M SD
Faculty
Leave profession 46.9% 29.2% 17.7% 5.2% 1.0% 1.84 .97
Administrative support 9.6% 20.2% 24.5% 28.7% 17.0% 3.23 1.23

Student
Disrupts own learning 2.4% 31.4% 46.2% 15.4% 4.7% 2.89 .86
Note. For “Leave profession” response options 1 = “No impact at all” to 5 = “A lot”; for

“Administrative support” 1 = “Completely Unsupportive” to 5 = “Completely Supportive”; for

“Disrupts own learning” 1 = “Never” to 5 = “Very Frequently”.

Table 5

Qualitative Analyses
Group
Theme Faculty Student
Definition/Examples of disruptive behaviors
Tardy/Arriving late 18.2% 6.7%
Text messaging 17.2% 8.9%
Talking when professor is talking 43.4% 51.4%
Talking on cell phone/ringing 26.3% 32.4%
Vague/Overly general definition 46.5% 34.1%
Perceived barriers to class management
Student evaluations 6.1% —
Lack of administrative support 13.1% —
“Customer” mentality 6.1% —
Lack of information/training 8.1% —
Note. Numbers represent percentage of each group who mentioned that theme.