A CASE STUDY OF EDUCATIONAL AND CLASSROOM BEHAVIOR 1

A Case Study of Educational and Classroom Behaviors Relating to Math Skills in Homeless

Children

Department of Psychology, University of Cincinnati

PSYC 5053 Research Methods, Children's Learning

November 19, 2023

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Abstract

This case study examines whether behavioral problems can affect the duration of time

children solve the problem. Data from homeless students attending midwestern schools was

collected to analyze their performance in differing areas of math learning. The students were in

grades second through fifth, and their ages ranged from eight years to eleven years old. The

students came from different backgrounds and went to a variety of different schools within the

midwestern region. We took a closer look at four different students' data to compare their

educational and classroom behaviors. Two students were from suburban midwestern schools and

the other two students were from urban midwestern schools. It was found that students with low

classroom behaviors were able to improve their math learning skills. These variables, educational

and classroom behavior, can be attributed to their math learning skills and the effect that they

have on a child’s ability to learn math.

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Introduction

In today’s society, there are stereotypes that children who have behavior problems while

at school would typically also have poor academic performance. When we refer to the phrase,

“behavior problems”, throughout the paper it includes bullying, teasing, acting negatively, and

not admitting mistakes.

Section 1

Children’s Classroom Behavior

According to Bulotsky and Fantuzzo (2010), it was shown that many children enter early

childhood classrooms in a state of not being ready to learn and they exhibit behavior problems

such as not being able to sit still, not being able to focus, or engaging in distracting behaviors

during class. This behavior leads children to begin acting negatively because they start believing

they are not good enough to attain new knowledge such as math and it also leads to children

having poor academic performances throughout their school year. Furthermore, it is shown that

these concerns occur frequently in urban public schools, in places where there are high

concentrations of children living in poverty (Bulotsky and Fantuzzo, 2010). Research revealed

that if homeless children exhibit behavioral problems, they are also likely to have poor academic

performance (Masten et al., 1997). Masten and colleagues (1997) reported that the support of

parents could be one of the factors that contribute to homeless children’s classroom behaviors.

Homeless parents who live in shelters are more likely to be occupied focusing on their basic

survival needs rather than their children’s learning, and they won’t pay as much attention to their

children’s learning achievement.

Parents are known to play an important role in their children’s school environment, such

as the child’s development of intelligence or their academic achievement (Becher, 1984). If

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parents are not paying attention to their children’s academic performance, children are not likely

to get any compliments or punishment due to the outcome of their grades in school. This will

lead the children to not value their schoolwork, give up on trying to attain good grades, and

begin showing signs of behavioral problems in school.

Section 2

Bad Academic Performance

There are many factors that could result in homeless children having poor academic

performance in the classroom such as having low regulatory emotional self-efficacy (RESE), or

high mobility (Cartwright et al., 2018; Lafavor et al., 2020). These factors then become the cause

of children having issues with attendance, academic delays, or any other behaviors that should

not occur in the classroom. These issues would then cause the child to have negative thoughts

regarding their learning skills and as a result, exhibit poor academic performance (Masten et al.,

1997). Poor academic performance, specifically in math, refers to having a low score or

answering many problems incomplete or wrong. This could be interpreted that children who

have poor academic performance are more likely to answer many questions wrong when they are

attempting to solve math problems. Therefore, children who exhibit behavioral problems in the

classroom would cause them to have poor academic performance in math, which gives them

more problems than other children who exhibit good behavior in the classroom.

Sufficient research has been conducted to examine children who have behavioral

problems and the effect it would have on their academic performance in math. However, very

minimal research has been conducted on children who exhibit behavioral problems and the effect

it has on the duration of time children spend solving a math problem or completing the math

problem. This study examines the correlation between behavioral problems and the duration of
A CASE STUDY OF EDUCATIONAL AND CLASSROOM BEHAVIOR 5

time children spend solving their math problems. It was hypothesized that children who have

behavioral problems are more likely to spend less time-solving math problems in each session,

and not complete the math sessions.

Overview

In this study, data from four students was selected from a summer math learning program

for homeless children. These four cases were chosen randomly based on the five questions they

answered in the survey. To measure classroom behaviors, five questions from the survey, given

to all of the students, were selected based on the emotions or behaviors they felt when they were

in the classroom. Classroom behaviors are an important measurement that could help predict

how a child would succeed or not regarding math learning. Being able to analyze and improve

classroom behaviors could help students improve their math learning skills as well as

performance. Finding solutions to improve the classroom behaviors of students would allow

them to better succeed in their math performance.

Method

Participants

Participants were 31 elementary students who attended a non-profit summer camp. The

summer camp occurred over a span of six weeks. At the summer camp, a math-enrichment

program was offered for each child allowing them to practice math skills for about 40 minutes

per day. The math enrichment program was offered four out of the five days children attended

for all six weeks. Each child was given a tablet and a login to IXL, a math-practice app, and was

given a choice to decide what they wanted to practice. Adult volunteers were available for the

children to help them make decisions and stay focused on their work.
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Measures

Survey Questions

Participants answered a survey that was designed to capture various beliefs, attitudes, and

behaviors of the children. The survey was given to participants at the beginning and the end of

the program. Participants' responses to each survey question were scored in a range from one to

three. We focused on survey questions concerning classroom behaviors and selected five

questions out of a total of 43 questions. The questions were “I tease other kids at my school,” “I

feel good about myself when I do good things, ”I admit my mistakes when I do something

wrong,” “I do the right thing when a teacher asks me to,” and “I feel like I do not belong in this

school.” Based on the average score of the participant's responses to the survey questions, it was

determined whether the participant had high or low classroom problems. If an average score was

above two then it was considered they had high classroom behavior problems, whereas if the

student’s average was below two then it was considered they had low classroom behavior

problems.

Time Spent Practicing

To determine the amount of time participants spent practicing on each problem

individually during each session was recorded in minutes. For our analysis, we calculated the

average time spent during each session individually for each participant.

Case Selection

Four participants were selected randomly based on high or low classroom behaviors and

based on their location. Two participants were selected from each location with one participant

having high classroom behavior problems and the other participant having low classroom
A CASE STUDY OF EDUCATIONAL AND CLASSROOM BEHAVIOR 7

behavior problems for each location. The chosen participants were two females and two males.

Two participants were from a suburban midwestern school and the other two were from an urban

midwestern school. The demographics of the participants were one white, one Hispanic/Latino,

and two black/African American. The participants will be referred to as Student 1, Student 2,

Student 3, and Student 4.

Procedures

Four case studies were examined focusing on their post-survey responses and time spent

practicing math problems during their IXL session. In this IXL session, the participants' scores

were analyzed based on their completion of each problem set, and their time spent on each

problem set.

Results

To interpret the relationship between educational and classroom behavior problems and

math learning skills in homeless elementary students, the four cases below were analyzed. These

four students' data came from Project Plus. Students were determined to have high or low

classroom behavior problems based on their average scores on the survey questions. If a

student’s average was above two then we considered them to have high classroom behavior

problems, whereas if the student’s average was below two then we considered them to have low

classroom behavior problems.

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Figure 1.

Student 1’s Average Time Spent for Each Session

Student 1 is a Hispanic or Latino, female student who is 8.42 years old in the second

grade. Student 1 answered 40 total survey questions, based on her behaviors during the time she

was at school. Among those 40 questions, 5 of the questions were selected to measure classroom

behaviors. It was reported that she never teased other kids at her school, and sometimes felt good

about herself when she did good things. Furthermore, it was indicated that she always did the

right thing when the teachers asked her to and never felt like she didn’t belong in her school.

However, it was also shown that she never admitted her mistakes when she did something

wrong. Based on these survey scores, it was concluded that she had low classroom behavior.

During her course of practicing math during the summer, Student 1 spent an average of 19.73

minutes practicing math. With a total of 15 days of the session, Student 1 first spent a lot of time

practicing with a maximum of 30 minutes and a minimum of 10 minutes until her 12th day of the

session but rapidly dropped to spending time of 8 minutes. However, her time practicing math
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increased and was able to finish strong during her last two days of sessions, with an average of

22 minutes and 16 minutes.

Figure 2.

Student 2’s Average Time Spent for Each Session

Student 2 is a white, female student who is 8.58 years old. She answered a variety of

survey questions related to classroom behavior in her second-grade class. On one of the

questions, she responded that she never teased the other children at school. On another, she said

that she feels good about herself when she does good things. She also answered that she admits

to her mistakes when she does something wrong, and that she sometimes does the right thing

when a teacher asks her to. She also reported that she never felt like she did not belong in the

school. Based on the answers to these questions, it showed that she had high classroom behavior

compared to her classmates. Of the 35 IXL sessions, Student 2 completed 21 problems, while 14

were incomplete. She also missed some of the dates between the start and end of the session. For

the first half of the 35 sessions, Student 2's average amount of time spent practicing was 9.41

minutes. For the second half, her average time was 4.83 minutes, which shows her time spent
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practicing decreased throughout the sessions. Her average amount of time spent practicing for all

of the sessions was 7.06.

Figure 3.

Student 3’s Average Time Spent for Each Session

Student 3 is a Black or African male student who is 8.25 years old in the third grade.

Student 3 answered 40 total survey questions, of those 40, 5 of the questions were selected to

measure classroom behaviors. Based on this student’s responses to the survey questions, he was

classified into the low classroom behavior category for his location. Student 3 reported that he

never teases other kids at his school. He reported that he feels good about himself when he does

good things and that he admits his mistakes when he does something wrong most of the time.

He also reported that some of the time, he does the right thing when a teacher asks him to. For

the survey question, “I feel like I do not belong in this school”, Student 3 did not have a response

recorded. Throughout the summer, Student 3 participated in eleven total days of the program

and spent an average of 2.15 minutes practicing math. During the first 4 days of the program, he

began with an average of 4.28 minutes practicing math but dropped off in his math practice the
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following three days to 2.24 minutes. He finished the summer stronger with an average of 2.79

minutes practicing math the final four days he participated in the program.

Figure 4.

Student 4’s Average Time Spent for Each Session

Student 4 is a Black or African American male who is 8.17 years old and is in third

grade. He answered survey questions about his behavior during school. He responded that he

never teased other children at school and he never felt like he did not belong in the school. He

then said that he always does the right thing when his teacher asks him to. He also reported that

he always admits his mistakes when he does something wrong and he always feels good about

himself when he does good things. Based on his answers to these questions, it was found that he

had high classroom behavior. Throughout the sessions, he answered fewer questions and spent

less time practicing. Throughout the sessions, Student 4 spent an average of 3.53 minutes

practicing math. He started the first four days of the sessions with an average of 3.03 minutes

practicing math, the following four days he had an average of 2.62 minutes practicing, and ended

the last two days with an average of 3.75 minutes practicing. He increased the difficulty of the
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problems twice, but ultimately lowered it back down after not being able to complete the

problems.

All four students had similar responses to the survey questions with few discrepancies

between each other. For example, for the survey question based on how they felt about

themselves when they did good things, all students, except Student 1, felt good, while Student 1

sometimes felt good. As far as their math skills, three out of the four students were able to

improve over the summer in their math learning skills. Among the high classroom behavior

problems students, they were less confident in their math learning skills, despite one of them

improving but not that much significantly. Among the low classroom behavior problem students,

they also experienced less confidence in their math skills, but as they continued in the program

they became more confident and comfortable and were able to improve more compared to the

high classroom behavior problem students.

Discussion

Figure 5.

Average time duration for Student 1, Student 2, Student 3, and Student 4

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Classroom behaviors have an impact on math learning skills and can be predictive of how

well a child can learn and practice math. Many factors play a role in classroom behaviors, such

as limited resources, large class sizes, and other external factors that students in urban public

schools experience. In this study, we examined the relationship between classroom behavior and

the amount of time spent solving math problems.

This case study examined math performance data from four students who participated in

a summer math program. With the four case studies, we were able to interpret whether high or

low classroom behaviors could predict how well they did with their math learning skills. We

were able to find that students with low classroom behaviors were able to improve their math

learning skills. Along with the improvement, these two students showed confidence in their math

skills before the program and after. These two students show that when you behave well in class

and feel confident in yourself you can succeed in academics. Despite all having confidence in

themselves, one of the students with high classroom behaviors did not improve whereas the other

did. Seeing the difference between the two students with high classroom behavior problems and

their math learning skills shows that there may be other factors that can contribute to the

relationship between math learning and academic and behavioral problems.

In this particular case study, there were some limitations. For example, this case study

only examined a small number of students, which means that it would be difficult to generalize

our results. The results would be easier to generalize if there was a bigger sample of students.

The students answered survey questions about themselves, which means that there is room for

bias in their responses. Input or observations from teachers may warrant more accurate and

unbiased results.
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Classroom behavior, good and bad, can impact any student’s ability to learn, and this is

no different from math learning. Furthermore, several disparities in low-income schools can

influence students’ behavior in the classroom and therefore influence their ability to learn and

practice math. Better classroom management techniques, as well as self-regulation skills and

more self-efficacy, could help improve classroom behavior, and therefore improve learning

outcomes overall. Other solutions that can positively influence math learning outcomes could

include implementing targeted supports, such as RTI (response to intervention).

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Childhood Research Quarterly, 26(1), 61-73. doi:10.1016/j.ecresq.2010.04.004

Cartwright, M. D., Kloos, H., Mano, Q, R., Hord, C. (2018). Child-guided math practice:

The role of regulatory emotional self-efficacy for children experiencing homelessness. In

CogSci, 1, 1452-1457.

Lafavor, T., Langworthy, S. E., Persaud, S., & Kalstabakken, A. W. (2020). The relationship

between parent and teacher perceptions and the academic success of homeless youth.

Child & Youth Care Forum, 49(3), 449-468. doi.org/10.1007/s10566-019-09538-0

Masten, A., Sesma Jr., A., Si-Asar, R., Lawrence, C., Miliotis, D., & Dionne, J.A. (1997).

Educational risks for children experiencing homelessness. Journal of School Psychology,

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