Educational Psychology, Vol. 22, No.

2, 2002

Teachers’ Causal Attributions for Behaviour

Problems in Relation to Perceptions of Control

SOPHIA MAVROPOULOU & SUSANA PADELIADU, In-Service Training

Institution ‘D. Glinos’, Aristotelio University of Thessalonika, Greece

ABSTRACT The general aim of this study was to examine the relationship between teachers’
perceptions of control and their causal attributions for behaviour problems. Elementary teachers
(n 5 305) were asked to rate each of 12 factors as the possible cause of the behaviour problem
described in a vignette and they also completed the Spheres of Control Scale. Teachers seemed
to agree that family and pupil-related factors might cause behaviour problems, while they
rejected school and organic factors. Overall, teachers seemed to have a high perception of
control in three distinct spheres of life, i.e. personal efŽ cacy, interpersonal relationships and
sociopolitical behaviour. Nevertheless, only perceived control in the area of interpersonal
relationships was found to be signiŽ cantly correlated with 4 causal attributions. Results are
discussed in the framework of in-service training for regular education teachers.

During the last decade the issue of behaviour problems has been on top of the
educators’ and researchers’ agenda, due to the high incidence of students presenting
these problems as well as the management difŽ culties voiced by the teachers (Merrett
& Wheldall, 1993). The education of students with behaviour problems appears to be
‘one of the most stressful, complex and difŽ cult challenges facing public education
today, and perhaps one of our greatest failures.’ (Osher et al., 1994, p. 7). Given the
ever-increasing demands and the limited resources in the mainstream school, regular
education teachers are less willing to tolerate pupils with challenging and provocative
behaviour than special educators (Shores et al., 1993; Chazan, 1994). Also, as Safran
& Safran (1987) reported elementary teachers regard ‘negative aggression’ and ‘poor
peer cooperation’ as the most disturbing and least tolerable classroom behaviours.
Furthermore, Ž ndings (Merrett & Wheldall, 1984; Houghton et al., 1988) revealed that
primary school teachers and secondary teachers, as well consider even the relatively
trivial problems (i.e. talking out of turn, hindering other children and idleness/slowness)
as the most troublesome and the most frequently occurring misbehaviours. The above

ISSN 0144-3410 print; ISSN 1469-5820 online/02/020191-22 Ó 2002 Taylor & Francis Ltd
DOI: 10.1080/01443410120115256
192 S. Mavropoulou & S. Padeliadu

Ž ndings may partially contribute to regular education teachers’ view that their class-
room is an inappropriate placement for students with behaviour problems (Schumm &
Vaughn, 1992) making those students prime candidates for special education.
Research on teachers’ attributions of speciŽ c behaviour problems has provided an
interesting insight to the identiŽ cation and referral process. Weiner’s theory of attribu-
tions (1985) offered the theoretical framework for this line of investigation. According
to his conceptualisation, causal factors accounting for one’s success or failure can be
classiŽ ed along three dimensions:
· locus of control (external versus internal);
· stability (stable versus unstable);
· controllability (controllable versus uncontrollable).
With respect to behaviour problems, a teacher who attributes misbehaviour to
internal, unstable and controllable factors (i.e. the teachers’ attitude) may think that her
own contribution may be effective in the treatment of the problem. On the other hand,
if a teacher explains misbehaviour as a result of strict and violent parental discipline
(representing an external, unstable and uncontrollable cause), then her expectations for
a successful educational intervention may be minimal. Therefore, the role of teachers’
causal beliefs about behaviour problems in their decision-making process is highly
critical.
Despite the extensive empirical evidence on the link between teachers’ attributions
and students’ academic achievement (Weiner, 1985; Fang, 1996), there is limited
research on teachers’ attributions and classroom behaviour problems. It has been
reported that teachers’ perceptions about the ownership of behaviour problems have
important implications for the referral and the types of management of behaviour
problems (Kauffman & Wong, 1991; Jordan et al., 1993; Podell & Soodak, 1993).
Elementary teachers seem to attribute behaviour problems to factors external to the
instructional and school setting (i.e. birth defects, need for attention, lack of family
stability, parents’ level of education; Guttman, 1982; Christenson et al., 1983). Also,
teachers are more likely to refer a student to special education when the cause of the
student’s learning problem is unknown, rather than when an environmental or medical
cause is suggested. Furthermore, when teachers believe that the problem is beyond the
student’s control, they are more likely to instruct, advise, socialize and seek help
(Brophy, 1985).
These Ž ndings were conŽ rmed by Soodak & Podell (1994) who supported the link
between beliefs and practices. According to their Ž ndings, elementary teachers tend to
attribute the student’s learning and behavioural difŽ culties mostly to his family situ-
ation or emotional difŽ culties (i.e. self-esteem, frustration) within the child. Moreover,
teachers’ beliefs were related to the solutions they selected: teachers who attributed the
student’s difŽ culties to the home situation, suggested parental involvement, whereas
those attributing these problems to school-based factors offered teacher-based interven-
tions.
With regard to the current situation in Greek schools, little is known. However,
Greek elementary teachers also appear to select forms of interventions depending on
the type of misbehaviour itself and the explanation they have given (Bibou-Nakou et al.
1999, 2000). SpeciŽ cally in this study, teachers appeared to give internal, pupil-related
explanations (i.e. the upbringing of the child and his/her personality traits) for all kinds
of misbehaviour (disobedience, off-task behaviour, playing the clown, disturbing oth-
ers) and to prefer neutral actions for all behaviour problems. Also, they appeared to
 Causal Attributions for Behavioural Problems 193

adopt the techniques of observation and interruption of the misbehaviour for handling
these problems, revealing a highly limited repertoire of behaviour management
methods. This lack of knowledge is fully acknowledged by the teachers themselves
since Padeliadu & Patsiodimou (2000) reported that Greek regular teachers (n 5 931)
from elementary schools selected the areas of ‘behaviour problems’ and ‘classroom
management’ as the top priorities to be covered in any in-service training on special
education.
Interestingly, another study on the perceptions of Greek regular and special
education teachers of the causes of severe behavioural conditions (such as autism)
revealed similar Ž ndings. In particular, the psychogenic myth still persisted amongst
some teachers in both groups (Mavropoulou & Padeliadu, 2000). Furthermore these
views had certain implications for teachers’ choices of instructional goals. That is,
regular education teachers who mostly held the above view seemed more concerned
with the social and psychological well-being of the autistic child perceiving the role of
the school as one of comforting and making children with autism more sociable and
happy. On the other hand, special education teachers were more goal-orientated,
promoting instruction in all the major areas in which children with autism experience
problems.
Teachers’ attributions of behaviour problems to external factors may be also related
to their subsequent expectations for control. As suggested by Skinner (1995), causal
attributions not only describe beliefs that explain human action, but they can promote
certain levels of control and motivation in individuals as well. Thus, perceived control
can also be conceptualised as another important construct for regulating human action
(Skinner, 1995). Perceptions of control refer to ‘generalised expectancies about the
extent to which the self can produce desired or prevent undesired events’ (Skinner,
1995, p. 30). The association of teachers’ perceived control and their practices has been
well supported by research. In particular, teachers with external locus of control tend
to have a custodial control ideology, whereas teachers with internal locus of control
hold a humanistic pupil control ideology (Lunenburg, 1992). Moreover, the level of
personal control in teachers has been found to increase in relation to the years of
teaching experience (Sherman & Giles, 1981). Pre-service teachers with an external
locus of control and low self-esteem were more apt to make a referral of students with
emotional disturbances, while this was not the case for experienced teachers (Schwartz
et al, 1997).
Although the link between causal attributions and selected interventions, as well as
the link between perception of control and interventions have been established, the
relationship between perception of control and teachers’ attributional beliefs for behav-
iour problems remains unexplored. The primary aim of this study was to investigate the
link between teachers’ perceptions of control and their causal attributions for behaviour
problems. A secondary aim was to examine regular teachers’ perceived control in a
multidimensional way (Paulhus, 1983, 1990).
The main research objectives of this study were to:

· examine regular education teachers’ causal attributions for behaviour problems;

· evaluate teachers’ perceptions of control;
· investigate the relationship between teachers’ perceptions of control and their
causal attributions;
· explore the relationship between teachers’ perceptions of control, their causal
attributions and teaching experience.
194 S. Mavropoulou & S. Padeliadu

Methodology
Participants and Procedures
A total of 305 teachers were randomly selected from the area of Northern Greece. All
teachers attended (by random selection) a 2-year in-service training programme run by
Aristotle University, intended to upgrade their initial 2-year training at Teacher
Academies. Forty-seven per cent of them were male, 53% were female and as a group
they had an average teaching experience of 13.8 years. Most teachers’ workplace was
located in cities (66.2%), whereas some of them (26.9%) were working in schools in
village areas. Regarding the class size, the mean number of pupils was 18.95.
All teachers were administered the following instruments together with a data sheet
on demographic information:
1. A vignette describing a child with behaviour problems, including a question on
the causes of his problems (see Appendix). The case of the student (male)
illustrated in the vignette emerged from literature on the type of behaviour that
are most common and troublesome for teachers, such as talking out of turn,
disobedience, physical aggression and distractibility (Merrett & Wheldall, 1984;
Houghton et al., 1988; Soodak & Podell, 1994; Oswald, 1995). Teachers were
asked to evaluate on a 4-point Likert scale (ranging from 1 5 totally agree to
4 5 totally disagree) each of the twelve (12) factors as the possible cause of the
behaviour problem described in the vignette. These causal factors were also
drawn from the literature (Soodak & Podell, 1994) and were grouped into three
categories (each including four items):
· pupil-related factors (brain damage, self-esteem, learning problems and school
failure);
· family-related factors (parental interest, family conditions, parental attitude and
family level);
· school-related factors (the number of students in class, school demands, teach-
ers’ attitude and lack of classroom rules).
To avoid any response bias, all items were intermixed.
2. The Spheres of Control (SOC) Scale by Paulhus (1983). This scale was chosen
because it provides a multi-dimensional measurement of perceived control
emphasizing personal efŽ cacy, social relationships and interactions (interper-
sonal control), and sociopolitical factors. Thus, it recognises an ecological
perspective and a continuous interaction between the individual and the social
context. Furthermore, it serves our aims to study the personal efŽ cacy and not
the teaching efŽ cacy. In particular, this scale is a three-dimensional battery of
measures of perceived control in the following spheres: personal efŽ cacy (sub-
scale 1), interpersonal control (subscale 2) and sociopolitical control (subscale
3). Each subscale consists of 10 items, rated on a 7-point Likert scale ranging
from 1 5 disagree to 7 5 agree. Half of the items in each scale are keyed in
opposite direction and these were intermixed in the scale. Regarding internal
consistency, alpha reliabilities for the subscales are 0.75–0.80 on cross-vali-
dation samples. Test-retest correlations at 4-week intervals are above 0.90 and
at a 6-month interval are above 0.70 for all three subscales. Also, factor analysis
conŽ rmed the three independent facets of perceived control that Paulhus has
advanced.
 Causal Attributions for Behavioural Problems 195

TABLE I. Mean values and standard deviations of teachers’

causal attributions of behaviour problems

Causal factors Mean* Standard deviation

Brain damage 3.07 0.728

Class size 2.94 0.723
Classroom rules 2.86 0.791
School demands 2.72 0.723
Teacher attitude 2.50 0.689
Family level 2.30 0.670
School failure 2.03 0.601
Parental interest 1.97 0.525
Self-esteem 1.96 0.632
Parental attitude 1.88 0.506
Learning difŽ culties 1.87 0.554
Family problems 1.80 0.517

* Mean values are presented in descending order.

* Higher mean values denote disagreement.

Results
Causal Attributions of Teachers for Behaviour Problems
When causal factors were grouped into three categories (pupil-related factors, family-
related factors and school-related factors), teachers seemed to agree that family-related
(mean value 5 1.99) and pupil-related (mean value 5 2.23) factors may function as
causes to behaviour problems. Also, they did not agree that school-related factors might
cause behaviour problems (mean value 5 2.76). The rating scale for each item ranged
from 1 to 4, with the higher means indicating strong disagreement. Multiple compari-
sons using post-hoc. Tukey tests between the mean values for the three groups of causes
showed signiŽ cant differences (P , 0.05) between all three groups of causes.
SpeciŽ cally, teachers believed that family problems (mean value 5 1.80), parental
attitude (mean value 5 1.87), as well as the learning difŽ culties (mean value 5 1.88)
and the low self-esteem (mean value 5 1.96) of the child would mostly explain his/her
behaviour problems (Table I). Furthermore, teachers did not tend to attribute behav-
iour problems to organic and school-related factors. In particular, they were found to
disagree that brain damage (mean value 5 3.07), the large number of students in the
classroom (mean value 5 2.94), the lack of classroom rules (mean value 5 2.86), the
intensity of school demands (mean value 5 2.72) or their own attitude (mean
value 5 2.50) could be the causes of behaviour problems.

Teachers’ Perceptions of Control

Overall, teachers seemed to have a high perception of control (indicated by higher
values) in all three distinct areas (Table II). The ranking for each item ranged from 1
to 7. In speciŽ c, teachers were found to have the highest perception of control in the
interpersonal sphere (mean value 5 5.77) and the lowest in the sociopolitical sphere
(mean value 5 5.43). The three means on each sphere of perceived control were found
to be signiŽ cantly different (F (2,912) 5 31.71, P 5 0.000). Multiple post-hoc compari-
sons carried out using the Tukey test showed that the perception of sociopolitical
196 S. Mavropoulou & S. Padeliadu

TABLE II. Mean values and standard deviations for teachers’ perceptions in each
sphere of control

Subscales Mean* Standard deviation

Interpersonal Control Scale (ICS) 5.77 0.56

Personal EfŽ cacy Scale (PES) 5.68 0.51
Sociopolitical Control Scale (SPC)** 5.43 0.54

* Mean values are presented in descending order.

* Higher values indicate internal control (range 1–7).
** Statistically different from ICS and PES.

control was the one that was signiŽ cantly lower than the perception of interpersonal
control (P 5 0.000) and the perception of personal efŽ cacy (P 5 0.000).

Relationship Between Teachers’ Perceptions of Control and their Causal Attributions

Perceived control in the area of interpersonal relationships was found to be the only
area of control signiŽ cantly correlated with four causal attributions (Table III).
SpeciŽ cally, the highest positive signiŽ cant, although low correlation was observed
between teachers’ perception of interpersonal control and class size (r 5 0.181, P ,
0.001): as teachers indicated higher control over their interpersonal relationships they
seemed to disagree that the large number of students in the class may cause behaviour
problems. Interestingly, the view that the number of students in class can be a cause for
behaviour problems was found to be the only factor linked at a signiŽ cant level with all
three spheres of perceptions of control (r 5 0.134, P , 0.05, r 5 0.181, P , 0.001,
r 5 0.115, P , 0.05). Moreover, as teachers’ perceived control in the interpersonal area
appeared to increase, their disagreement that the lack of parental interest (r 5 0.137, P
, 0.05) and brain damage (r 5 0.119, P , 0.05) may explain behaviour problems
seemed to increase as well. Also, as teachers’ perception of interpersonal control was
strengthened, their view that parents’ attitude may cause behaviour problems seemed
to be strengthened (r 5 2 0.189, P , 0.001).
Finally, it was found that as teachers’ perceived personal efŽ cacy seemed to increase
their view that behavioural problems may be due to the lack of parental interest for the
child was strengthened (r 5 2 0.13, P , 0.05).

Relationship Between Teachers’ Perceptions of Control, their Causal Attributions and Teach-
ing Experience
Interestingly, the only signiŽ cant positive correlation was found between teaching
experience and school-related causal factors (Table IV). Teaching experience was
positively correlated with three (out of 12) causal factors:

· school demands (r 5 0.187, P , 0.001);

· teachers’ attitude (r 5 0.139, P , 0.05);
· the lack of classroom rules (r 5 0.123, P , 0.05) (Table III).

These Ž ndings indicate that teachers with longer teaching experience appeared to
disagree that these school factors might cause behaviour problems, more than the
teachers with less years of teaching experience.
 Causal Attributions for Behavioural Problems 197

TABLE III. Intercorrelations between teachers’ perceptions of control in

each sphere and their causal attributions for behaviour problems

PES ICS SPC

Brain damage 0.051 0.119* 0.018

Class size 0.134* 0.181** 0.115*
Parental interest 2 0.132* 0.137* 2 0.078
Family problems 2 0.022 2 0.087 2 0.105
School demands 0.027 0.039 0.062
Teacher’s attitude 0.048 0.025 0.065
School failure 2 0.024 2 0.056 2 0.070
Classroom rules 2 0.022 0.018 0.015
Self-esteem 2 0.045 2 0.108 2 0.080
Parental attitude 2 0.071 2 0.189** 2 0.055
Family level 0.041 0.007 2 0.019
Learning difŽ culties 0.065 2 0.090 2 0.103

PES: Personal EfŽ cacy Scale, ICS: Interpersonal Control Scale, SPC:
Sociopolitical Control Scale.
* Indicates signiŽ cant correlations at a 0.05 level.
** Indicates signiŽ cant correlations at a 0.001 level.

Finally, there was no signiŽ cant correlation between teaching experience and percep-
tions of control in all three spheres, re ecting homogeneous perceptions of control
across the whole range of teaching experience in this sample of teachers.

Discussion
One of the aims of this study has been to explore teachers’ causal attributions for
behaviour problems. The underlying assumption for this research falls into the systems
theory and focuses on the argument that children’s development evolves through the

TABLE IV. Correlation coefŽ cients be-

tween teaching experience and causal
attributions for behaviour problems

Teaching
experience

Brain damage 2 0.079

Class size 0.078
Parental interest 2 0.028
Family problems 2 0.018
School demands 0.187**
Teachers’ attitude 0.139*
School failure 2 0.007
Classroom rules 0.123*
Self-esteem 0.090
Parental attitude 0.024
Family level 2 0.034
Learning difŽ culties 2 0.095

* Indicates signiŽ cant level P , 0.05.

** Indicates signiŽ cant level P , 0.001.
198 S. Mavropoulou & S. Padeliadu

interaction with the belief systems of signiŽ cant others (i.e. teachers) (Bronfenbrenner,
1979). At the macrosystem level, the family, community and school ‘blueprint’ (Bron-
fenbrenner, 1979, p. 26) for living are transmitted to the child through the belief system
of others affecting his/her developmental competence. As Sontag (1996) points out, it
is imperative that disability research utilises an ecological approach, paying attention to
the causal attributions of members of all contexts of development. Within this frame-
work teachers contribute as members of the child’s development and their beliefs are a
salient feature of the ‘ecological niche’ (Sontag, 1996, p. 323) for the individual
development.
According to our Ž ndings, teachers perceive factors related to the pupil and his family
context as the main causal factors of behaviour problems. Since this Ž nding is consist-
ent with the literature (Guttman, 1982; Christenson et al., 1983; Soodak & Podell,
1994; Bibou et al., 2000), it remains an alarming issue in the educators’ agenda.
However, the Ž nding that teachers have excluded brain damage as an explanation for
deviant behaviour is more optimistic. Furthermore, they seemed to incorporate a
transactional model including the child’s characteristics (namely, learning difŽ culties
and low self-esteem) and his home situation (such as, family problems and parental
attitude) for explaining misbehaviour at school. SpeciŽ cally, with regard to the home
situation, parental disinterest links not only to the interpersonal perceived control but
to personal efŽ cacy as well. It appears, then, that the more competent teachers feel in
two dimensions (i.e. interpersonal control and personal efŽ cacy), the more they are led
to attribute behavioural problems to parental disinterest. The attributional pattern
(based on a combination of external and internal factors) observed in teachers’
responses seems to be quite complex and somewhat justiŽ ed, in the light of current
knowledge supporting that con ict and coercion within the family, as well as the
learning difŽ culties and the poor self-image make some children more vulnerable to
deviant behaviour than others. However, it has to be noted that the nature of these
factors does not allow for much intervention on behalf of the teachers. As Kauffman
(1989) points out, educators should be aware of and concerned about the family’s
in uence on children’s conduct at school, without blaming the parents for children’s
misbehaviour.
Nevertheless, it was disappointing to Ž nd that teachers did not perceive school
factors as accountable for classroom behaviour problems, since for an effective manage-
ment of these problems, a teacher is required to examine the student’s present
environment to detect factors that contribute to disordered behaviour and those that
encourage desirable behaviour (Kauffman, 1989). Our expectation was that teachers
would scrutinise the role of the school in the development of behaviour problems, as
this is the environment they mostly have direct control on. The assumption that school
experiences in uence the increase or decrease of discipline problems has been well
supported through research. Physical conditions (i.e. the large number of students in a
class), the increasing amount of demands for school work, the use of classroom rules
and the teachers’ attitude have been identiŽ ed as contributing factors to the occurrence
of behaviour problems (Rutter et al., 1979). However, teachers did not appear to
recognise the contribution of school-related factors to the occurrence of behaviour
problems.
Interestingly, teachers’ responses were found to be associated, yet at a low degree,
with their teaching experience, indicating that as teachers acquire greater experience in
teaching they seem to ascribe behaviour problems to causes external to their own
context and themselves. It is probable that teachers with greater experience feel more
 Causal Attributions for Behavioural Problems 199

competent and more certain that their skills and interventions are the only available and
‘as good as possible’. Therefore, they may turn to external factors to explain the
persistence of students’ behaviour problems. A possible implication would be the lack
of re ective thinking about behaviour problems. This approach is also understandable,
since ‘behaviour problems constitute a direct threat to the responsibility of teachers to
create effective learning environments for whole classes of pupils’ (Cooper et al., 1994,
p. 15) and challenge the teachers’ skills in handling them in the eyes of colleagues,
pupils and parents. Also, the Ž nding that teachers rejected any school factors indicates
that they may feel detached from behaviour problems and constrained by the educa-
tional system, perceiving their role only as ‘curriculum-goal enforcers’.
Another signiŽ cant Ž nding of this study was that teachers seemed to have high
perception of their personal control and their competence in the interpersonal sphere
depending on their teaching experience, as predicted, based on previous research
(Sherman & Giles, 1981). This could be quite encouraging, as it is for the beneŽ t of
students to have teachers with an internal locus of control (Hawkes, 1991). Teachers
acting as role models with self-directed orientation will assist the development of
internal locus of control in their students. Nevertheless, these high perceptions of
competence did not appear to affect the majority of their causal attributions for
behaviour problems, since factors unrelated to school or themselves were considered as
causes of behaviour problems.
It is generally accepted that teachers’ role in the school is determined by the
sociopolitical context. As teachers in this study seemed to have low control over the
sociopolitical sphere of their life, they may also perceive they have limited control over
their own role in the school. As a result, they do not seem to turn into advantage these
higher perceptions of personal efŽ cacy and interpersonal control in terms of their role
in the school. It appears that their lower perception of control in the sociopolitical area
of life suppresses the importance of the two previous areas of control in the explanation
of behaviour problems. Finally, this could be due to the speciŽ c instrument used to
measure teachers perceived control. An alternative context-speciŽ c scale tapping on
teachers’ sense of control over school or behaviour problems could have been more
sensitive to this issue.

Educational Implications
Overall, this research establishes the need for in-service training focused more directly
on certain aspects of behaviour problems. The present study indicates that teachers
should become familiar with current conceptualisations of behaviour problems. In
particular, the need is to provide a comprehensive framework for the understanding of
behaviour problems, focused on the ecological approach. The integration of school,
family and biological factors as an explanatory and intervention model for misbehaviour
will ensure an effective action plan. In particular, teachers need to be encouraged to
appraise, analyse, and adapt their responses to emotional and behavioural difŽ culties in
their classroom. This need has been strengthened by the empirical evidence that Greek
elementary teachers with a teaching experience of 13 years give the greatest emphasis
to the area of ‘behavioural problems’ and their classroom management skills for their
in-service training (Padeliadu & Patsiodimou, 2000).
Teachers’ high perception of control will assist their involvement with behaviour
problems, regarding themselves as individuals having control over their own competen-
cies and interpersonal relationships. This implies that they can recognise their personal
200 S. Mavropoulou & S. Padeliadu

responsibility over their own life (apart from sociopolitical issues). Furthermore, it has
been supported that ‘people with high control construct more effective action plans and
exert sustained effort in their enactment’ (Skinner, 1995, p. 72). Such a level of internal
control can serve as a basis for developing awareness in educators who will be willing
and conŽ dent to examine how school factors may contribute to the occurrence of
challenging behaviour. However, teachers’ perceptions that school factors do not play
a role in the emergence of behaviour problems indicate their feeling of being powerless
in the classroom. Therefore, a major goal of any in-service training programme should
entail the empowerment of all teachers within the school system. It appears that even
skilled teachers who feel competent and having control over certain factors would only
be effective if they consider themselves as a powerful component of the school system.
The realisation that what happens within each class is not independent to the whole
sociopolitical context may be a crucial missing element of teachers’ training, regardless
of the speciŽ c context of training.

Correspondence: Dr Sophia Mavropoulou, In-Service Training Institution, ‘D. Glinos’,

Aristotelio University of Thessaloniki, 29, Arch. Mousiou, Thessaloniki, 54 006
Greece: (mavropou@eled.auth.gr)

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Appendix 1
Vignette
‘During the class session, Alexandros is constantly talking with his peers and his attention
is distracted. He refuses to work on his assignments and asks his teacher to repeat the
instructions for the completion of the assignment. His relationships with his peers are not
good, as they complain that he is hitting other children and uses bad language during the
break.’
Rate each of the following factors as cause of Alexandros’s behaviour problems.