School of Education Professor Examines PBIS in South Dakota Schools
In the article “An Examination of Critical features of Positive Frameworks: Impact in Rural Environments for School-based Practitioners,” published in Contemporary School Psychology, Oyen and colleague Sarah Wollersheim Shervey, Ph.D., examined the implementation of Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports (PBIS) in South Dakota schools.
Unlike other methods that focus on behavior of individual students, PBIS is applied to an entire school to improve the school context. They teach, model and reward expected behavior, and the schools also develop plans to respond to inappropriate behavior with consistent interventions.
“I have had the honor of being part of this work for over 10 years.” Oyen said. “I’m so excited to highlight the importance of creating positive environments for schools and how this can be related to academic achievement.”
Among the South Dakota schools studied, those that implemented PBIS with greater fidelity demonstrated stronger overall achievement, as well as higher English language arts and math achievement.
“This research highlights positive practices in rural elementary schools, which is an area of inquiry that is underserved and underrepresented in peer-reviewed literature,” said Oyen.
The study was conducted in partnership with the South Dakota Department of Education Multi-tiered Systems of Support PBIS project. Thirty-five elementary schools participated in the PBIS project in the state of South Dakota during the 2014-15 school year. Participating schools collected data to examine fidelity of PBIS practices as well as mean levels of academic achievement.
