A Report on The Good Behavior Game

In this article in Review of Educational Research, Andrea Flower, Rommel Bunuan, Colin Muething, and Ramon Vega Jr. (University of Texas/Austin) and John McKenna (St. John’s University) report on their review of 22 studies of The Good Behavior Game, a classroom management strategy that has been around for four decades. The authors conclude that this approach, when properly implemented, has immediate, positive results on challenging behavior – for example, students off task, talking out of turn, swearing, putting down classmates, being out of their seats, and being aggressive toward others. 

Here’s how The Good Behavior Game works: the teacher identifies problematic behaviors, posts rules, describes rewards, and divides the class into two equal teams. When a student misbehaves, the teacher says what the infraction is and debits the student’s team. (The teacher also adds points for prosocial behavior.) The team with the fewest infractions and the most positive points gets daily and weekly rewards. 

“Effects of the Good Behavior Game on Challenging Behaviors in School Settings” by Andrea Flower, Rommel Bunuan, Colin Muething, Ramon Vega Jr., and John McKenna in Review of Educational Research, December 2014 (Vol. 84, #4, p. 546-571), http://bit.ly/1xU2Mtj

From the Marshall Memo #562