Mediating Mechanisms of the Incredible Years Teacher Classroom Management Program

Håvard Horndalen Tveit; May Britt Drugli; Sturla Fossum; Bjørn Helge Handegård; Christian A Klöckner; Frode Stenseng

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2020.555442

Mediating Mechanisms of the Incredible Years Teacher Classroom Management Program

Front Psychol. 2020 Sep 29:11:555442. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.555442. eCollection 2020.

Authors

Håvard Horndalen Tveit¹, May Britt Drugli^{1

2}, Sturla Fossum³, Bjørn Helge Handegård³, Christian A Klöckner⁴, Frode Stenseng^{5

6}

Affiliations

¹ The Regional Centre for Child and Youth Mental Health and Child Welfare - Central Norway, Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), Trondheim, Norway.
² Centre for the Study of Educational Practice (SePu), Innlandet University College, Hamar, Norway.
³ The Regional Centre for Child and Youth Mental Health and Child Welfare - North, UiT The Arctic University of Norway, Tromsø, Norway.
⁴ Department of Psychology, Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), Trondheim, Norway.
⁵ Department of Education and Lifelong Learning, Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), Trondheim, Norway.
⁶ Queen Maud University College, Trondheim, Norway.

Abstract

This study examined whether, and the extent to which, the Incredible Years Teacher Classroom Management program predicted positive development of children's emotional, behavioral, and social adjustment through changes in the child-teacher relationship. Using data from a longitudinal quasi-experimental intervention trial with a matched control condition, including 1,085 children (49.7% girls, mean_age = 4.22 years; SD_age = 0.88 years), the potential associations were tested by means of multilevel path modeling. The mediation model demonstrated that (1) children in the intervention condition achieved more favorable changes in the child-teacher relationship than the control condition; (2) changes in the child-teacher relationship were associated with changes in the target outcomes; and (3) the intervention effects were mediated via changes in the child-teacher relationship.

Keywords: Incredible Years; child–teacher; intervention; multilevel mediation; relationship.