The effects of coaching based social emotional learning teacher professional development program on teacher-child relationships, and children's social competence and problem behaviors

The aim of this study is to determine the effectiveness of the professional development program implemented in order to increase the capacity of preschool teachers who teach children with low economic living conditions to support the social emotional development of children in their classrooms and to reduce their problem behaviors. In this direction, the effectiveness of the coaching support provided with the teacher training program on the behavior of the teachers towards children, teacher-child relationship quality, teacher-child interaction quality, and the social competence and problem behaviors of the children were examined. Pretest-posttest control group experimental design was used in the research. The participants of the study consisted of 20 preschool teachers, 10 in the experimental group and 10 in the control group, and 175 children (91 in the experimental group, 84 in the control group) aged 48-72 months who were receiving education in the classrooms of these teachers. In line with the purpose of the research, the Reaching Educators and Children (REACH) program, which was developed in the United States, was adapted for Turkish culture to be used in teacher trainings. A total of six teacher workshops, once every two weeks, were presented to the teachers in the experimental group through the program adapted to the Turkish culture. In addition, a total of 12 coaching sessions were held once a week in each teacher's classroom to support the teachers to implement the strategies they learned in the workshops. The practice-based coaching protocol used in the research was prepared on the basis of Classroom Check Up (CCU). The teachers in the control group, on the other hand, did not receive any intervention and were asked to continue their current practices. The research data were collected with the "Structured Teacher-Child Behavior Observation Tool" in order to determine the effect of the intervention on the teachers' behaviors that positive, negative and supporting the social emotional development and the problem behaviors of the children. "Student-Teacher Relationship Scale" was used to examine teachers' perceptions of the relationship quality with children. "Classroom Assessment Scoring System" was used to determine the quality of teacher-child interaction, and "Social Competence and Behavior Evaluation-30 Scale" was used to evaluate children's social competence and signs of emotional and behavioral problems. In addition, teachers and school administrators in the experimental group were asked to fill out a "Social Validity Questionnaire" in order to determine the social validity of the intervention program. The data obtained within the scope of the research were analyzed with a repeated measures two-way ANOVA test. Frequency and percentage values were used in the analysis of social validity data. As a result of the research, it was determined that the training and coaching support provided to the teachers significantly improved the behavior of the teachers in the experimental group towards children in their classrooms. Accordingly, it was determined that the teachers' behaviors that positive and supporting social-emotional development in the experimental group increased, while their negative behaviors decreased. In addition, it was determined that the intervention significantly increased the teacher-child interaction quality of the classes in the experimental group. In this direction, it was determined that the emotional support, classroom organization and insturactional support quality of the classes in the experimental group increased. In addition, it was determined that the perception of the close relationship that the teachers in the experimental group established with the children in their classes increased, while the perception of conflicting and dependent relationships decreased. It was found that the social competence of the children in the experimental group, whose teachers received training and coaching support, increased, and their anger-aggression and anxiety-introversion decreased. However, the intervention has been found to reduce the challenging behaviors observed throughout the classroom. Finally, it was determined that the teachers who participated in the intervention and the administrators working in this school reported a high level of satisfaction with the training and coaching support provided to support the social-emotional development of children and reduce problem behaviors. Keywords: Social-emotional learning, teacher-child interaction, teacher-child relationship, problem behavior, coaching.