Causes, prevention, and interventions regarding classroom disruptions in digital teaching: A systematic review

Digitization and the Sars-CoV-2 pandemic are accelerating the use of digital tools in teaching. Therefore, this systematic literature review offers an overview of international studies with a particular focus on classroom disruptions and their causes, as well as on prevention and intervention strategies in digital settings. Selecting out of over 700 published articles from the last 20 years, the results show that, although the research on classroom management in general is numerous, the connection between digitization and classroom disruptions has received little attention so far. Studies of different methodological orientations have been conducted, but strongly teacher-focused. Also, there are conceptual inaccuracies leading to a variety of different findings and interpretations. Thus, this article provides a definition of the term digital teaching and critically discusses the classification of new findings, their emplacement in existing research, as well as their potential to expand existing models. Furthermore, the results summarize causes of disruptions in digital teaching, their possible prevention and intervention strategies.

Teacher Stress: A Psychobiological Approach to Stressful Interactions in the Classroom

Teachers report elevated levels of stress and psychosomatic illnesses compared to other professions. Teacher stress has far-reaching consequences on their health outcomes, the student's motivation, and the economy. However, research on teacher stress relies mainly on self-reports, hence, assesses stress on purely subjective perception. Personal or subjective aspects can strongly influence these measures, and biological stress may even be unnoticed. It is, therefore, necessary to include both subjective and objective measures to investigate stress, preferably in real-life situations. This review aims to demonstrate the importance of a psychobiological ambulatory assessment (AA) approach to investigate teacher stress, in contrast to purely subjective measures. We discuss classroom disruptions as the primary stress factor within the classroom and how a multimethod AA approach using psychological measures while simultaneously recording classroom disruptions and biological stress reactions of teachers would enable a much deeper understanding of stressful transactional processes taking place in the classroom that has not been achieved before.

Class- and subject teachers’ self-efficacy and emotional stability and students’ perceptions of the teacher–student relationship, classroom management, and classroom disruptions

Background Teacher self-efficacy and emotional stability are considered crucial resources for coping with classroom demands. We examined how class and subject teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs and emotional stability are related to teachers' and students' perceptions of the teacher–student relationship, classroom management, and classroom disruptions. Methods In a sample of eighty-two swiss german 5th and 6th grade classes, 1290 students, their class teacher (N = 82), and a selected subject teacher (N = 82) filled out a questionnaire assessing classroom disruptions, teacher–student relationships, and classroom management. In a first step, we conducted t-tests on whether class teachers and subject teachers differ in their self-efficacy beliefs and emotional stability. In a second step, we explored by correlation analyses the relations between teacher self-efficacy in classroom management and emotional stability and the teachers’ and students’ perceptions of classroom disruptions, teacher–student relationships, and classroom management. In a third step, we examined by stepwise multiple regression analyses to what extent psychological variables predict teacher perceptions after controlling for students’ ratings, representing rather “objective” classroom features. Results In class teachers, high self-rated emotional stability and self-efficacy are associated with a more positive appraisal of teacher–student relationships and classroom management skills (compared with student ratings). By contrast, in subject teachers, high self-efficacy beliefs are associated with a more favorable perception of classroom disruptions, teacher–student relationships, and classroom management, from both the teachers' and students' perspectives. Conclusions The results of the present study show a distinctive pattern for class teachers and subject teachers. In class teachers, high self-rated emotional stability and self-efficacy are associated with a more positive evaluation (compared to student ratings) of the teacher–student relationship and classroom management skills but not teacher perceptions of student misbehavior. On the contrary, subject teachers' firm self-efficacy beliefs are associated with more favorable perceptions of classroom characteristics, both from the teachers' and students' perspectives.