1. University of Nottingham
Educational Psychology, Challenging Behaviour and the Attribution of Blame and Responsibility
Andy Miller
School of Psychology
University of Nottingham
12th March 2007

2. Learning outcomes Knowledge and understanding of:
Possible approaches to ‘causation’ for challenging behaviour
Key concepts from systems theory
The contribution of attribution theory to professional work in this area

3. Key text
Miller, A (2003) Teachers, Parents and Classroom Behaviour. A Psychosocial Approach. Maidenhead. Open University Press.

4. What can psychology offer?
Applied behavioural analysis
Systems theory
Attribution theory
Interpersonal (consultative) skills

5. Types of ‘causation’ Predisposing Precipitating Prolonging
e.g. experiences in early life, uninspiring curriculum planning
Precipitating
e.g. a chance remark, a dispute among students over equipment
Prolonging
e.g. reaction of other students, having some temporary need met
Perpetuating
e.g. change in peer status, change in teacher’s class management style

6. Some properties of systems

7. Some properties of systems
parts are connected together in an organised (often very complex) way (e.g.cells in the brain)

8. Some properties of systems
parts are connected together in an organised (often very complex) way (e.g.cells in the brain)
parts of the system are affected by being within the system (eg heart in the body, child in a family)

9. Some properties of systems
parts are connected together in an organised (often very complex) way (e.g.cells in the brain)
parts of the system are affected by being within the system (eg heart in the body, child in a family)
causation is usually recursive rather than linear

10. Some properties of systems
parts are connected together in an organised (often very complex) way (e.g.cells in the brain)
parts of the system are affected by being within the system (eg heart in the body, child in a family)
causation is usually recursive rather than linear
homeostasis

11. Linear causation ?

12. ….. or?

13. Circular (or recursive) causation

14. … and so on ‘wheels within wheels’ eg other staff at school
partner at home
headteacher at school
sibling at home
etc. etc

15. Homeostasis
analagous to the maintenance of room temperature at a constant level in a central heating system or a biological system.
parts of the system act together in a concerted way so that over a period of time the system displays regularity (‘implicit rules’).
‘over time a system functions so as to maintain a dynamic equilibrium; deviations from equilibrium are continually corrected’ (Dallos 1991)

16. The school as a psychosocial system (Miller and Leyden 1999)

17. The Nottingham Psychology of Behaviour in School Project
Sequence of studies with teachers and students (primary and secondary) and parents, including
studies of causal attributions for difficult behaviour in schools
various views of ‘causation’
studies of agents judged to be most likely to bring about improvement

18. Some studies (1)
Survey of 428 junior school teachers across 10 LEAs seeking their explanations for difficult behaviour of any of their pupils
Croll, P. & Moses, D. (1985) One in Five. The Assessment and Incidence of Special Educational Needs London. Routledge and Kegan Paul.
In-depth interviews with 24 primary teachers across 8 LEAs (The ‘Successful Strategies’ Study)
Miller, A. (1995) Teachers’ Attributions Of Causality, Control And Responsibility In Respect Of Difficult Pupil Behaviour And Its Successful Management. Educational Psychology. 15(4)

19. Some studies (2)
105 Yr 7 pupils from the same inner city secondary school.
Miller, A., Ferguson, E. & Byrne, I. (2000) Pupils’ Causal Attributions For Difficult Classroom Behaviour. British Journal of Educational Psychology. 70,
144 parents (106 mothers and 38 fathers) from the same inner city primary school.
Miller, A., Ferguson, E. & Moore, E. (2002) Parents’ and Pupils’ Causal Attributions For Difficult Classroom Behaviour . British Journal of Educational Psychology.72,

20. ‘Adverse home circumstances’ as a cause of difficult behaviour in schools
High ? ?
teachers
parents ? ?
Yr 7
students
Low

21. Elton Report:
‘Our evidence suggests that teachers’ picture of parents is generally very negative. Many teachers feel that parents are to blame for much misbehaviour in schools. We consider that, while this picture contains an element of truth, it is distorted’
(Department for Education and Science p.133)

22. ‘Teacher unfairness’ as a cause of difficult behaviour in schools?
High ?
Yr 7 students
parents ? ?
teachers
Low

23. The contribution of Bernard Weiner
Weiner (1986, 2000) identified 3 dimensions along which most attributions were found to lie:
Locus (whether the cause was internal or external to the person)
Stability (whether the cause is fixed or can vary)
Controllability (whether the person is able to control the cause)

24. Relationship between attribution, blaming and help giving
‘….when teachers assume that student failure is attributable to forces beyond the student’s control, they tend to respond with sympathy and avoid giving punishments. If, however, the failures are attributed to a controllable factor, such as lack of effort, the teacher’s response is more likely to be anger; retribution and punishments may follow’ (p203)
(Woolfolk Hoy and Weinstein (2006) summarising Weiner’s studies)

25. Attribution of controllability
Direction of high controllability attributions for cause of challenging behaviour made by 24 teachers (from Miller 2003)
Attributions made to:
No of teachers
Parents 17
Teachers 12
Pupils 9

26. Changing attributions?
by explicit programmes - attribution retraining?
by more implicit means - consultative skills, modelling?

27. Attribution retraining
usually an attempt to help somebody move away from external and uncontrollable attributions and towards internal and controllable ones (an explicit component of cognitive behavioral therapy)
teaching students to attribute failure to their use of an ineffective strategy transfers their focus from themselves as failures to their specific actions and assures them that a change in strategy will produce better results (Porter 2007)
National Institute for Clinical Excellence recommends CBT as treatment of choice for childhood depression (NICE 2005)

28. Attribution retraining (an example)
Attribution retraining to reduce peer directed aggression among 384 male 3rd - 6th grade students (Hudley et al. 1998):
moderate to strong effects for many students
no effects for some students
treatment effects generally diminished over time

29. Consultative skills ‘accessible reasoning’ positive reframing
(e.g. hostile vs protective parent)
(in the context of full range of consultant skills - Miller 2003)

30. Who is most able to help make an improvement?
Yr 5& 6 pupils’ choices (N=206)
primary teachers’ choices (N=30)

31. Who is most able to help make an improvement?
Yr 5& 6 pupils’ choices (N=206)
primary teachers’ choices (N=30)
parents
38.5%
26.7%

32. Who is most able to help make an improvement?
Yr 5& 6 pupils’ choices (N=206)
primary teachers’ choices (N=30)
parents
38.5%
26.7%
John himself
27.8%
6.7%

33. Who is most able to help make an improvement?
Yr 5& 6 pupils’ choices (N=206)
primary teachers’ choices (N=30)
parents
38.5%
26.7%
John himself
27.8%
6.7%
teacher
11.7%
43.3%

34. Who is most able to help make an improvement?
Yr 5& 6 pupils’ choices (N=206)
primary teachers’ choices (N=30)
parents
38.5%
26.7%
John himself
27.8%
6.7%
teacher
11.7%
43.3%
someone else
11.2%
23.3%

35. Who is most able to help make an improvement? (Miller & Black 2001)
Yr 5& 6 pupils’ choices (N=206)
primary teachers’ choices (N=30)
parents
38.5%
26.7%
John himself
27.8%
6.7%
teacher
11.7%
43.3%
someone else
11.2%
23.3%
other pupils
10.7% 0%

36. Home-school tensions (getting ‘uncaught’ in the middle)
“Sometimes, before meeting, parents or teachers proposed angry confrontations with each other ….. Sometimes the teacher thought the school social worker was siding with the parents, while the parents thought the opposite”
Kolvin et al 1981

37. References
Dallos, R. (1991) Family Belief Systems, Therapy and Change. Buckingham. Open Univerisy Press.
Dowling, E. & Osborne, E. (1995) The Family and the School. A Joint Systems Approach to Problems with Children (2nd edition) London. Routledge.
Department of Education and Science (1989) Discipline in Schools (The Elton Report). London: HMSO.
Hudley, C., Britsch, B., Wakefield, W. D., Smith, T., Demorat, M. & Cho, S.-J. (1998) An attribution retraining program to reduce aggression in elementary school students Psychology in the Schools, 35, 3,
Miller, A. (2003) Teachers, Parents and Classroom Behaviour. A Psychosocial Approach. Milton Keynes. Open University Press.
Miller, A. & Leyden, G. (1999) A Coherent Framework For The Application Of Psychology In Schools. British Educational Research Journal. 25, 3,
Miller, A., Ferguson, E. & Byrne, I. (2000) Pupils’ Causal Attributions For Difficult Classroom Behaviour. British Journal of Educational Psychology. 70,

38. References (contd)
Miller, A & Black, L. (2001) Classroom Beliefs and Successful Behaviour Plans: A Vignette Study of Primary School Pupils and Teachers. Educational Psychology in Practice. 17, 3,
Miller, A., Ferguson, E. & Moore, E. (2002) Parents’ and Pupils’ Causal Attributions For Difficult Classroom Behaviour . British Journal of Educational Psychology.72,
Porter, L. (2007) Behaviour in Schools. Theory and Practice for Teachers. Open University Press.
Woolfolk Hoy, A. & Weinstein, C. S. (2006). Student and teacher perspectives on classroom management. In Evertson, C. M. & Weinstein, C. S. (Eds.) Handbook of classroom management: research, practice and contemporary issues. London. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates
Also, Learning Behaviour. The Report of The Practitioners’ Group on School Behaviour and Discipline (2005). Led by Sir Alan Steer. (Search using the ref: DOC-EN)