Investigating teachers' practices towards dealing with unwanted behaviors in classrooms in relation to their classroom management strategies in early childhood education

Investigating Teachers' Practices towards Dealing with Unwanted Behaviors in Classrooms In Relation To Their Classroom Management Strategies in Early Childhood Education Children bring their social and cultural roots when they begin preschool. Those children from different backgrounds tend to behave in direction to their experiences and knowledge. This creates various difficulties for the teachers who want to carry out educational activities on a regular basis. Many researchers found that unwanted behaviors and disorganized discipline interrupt both children?s and teacher?s attention in classroom and then result with chaos. One of the most important tasks of a teacher is to achieve educational goals by eliminating troubles in the classroom. Thus, the teacher should know well enough how to deal with unwanted behaviors in her classroom and she should be aware of her competence in this regard. This study is aimed to sort out children?s unwanted behaviors in a preschool classroom and teachers? strategies to deal with such behaviors. The study also investigates the teachers? beliefs, opinions, and competencies for disciplining and coping with unwanted behaviors in classrooms. This research is an instrumental case study and qualitative research methodology was used for data gathering and analysis. Participants were 3 preschool teachers working at a preschool in Trabzon during 2012?2013 educational years. The data was collected through semi structured interviews, in-class observations, and document analysis. Then, the data was analyzed by using Nvivo. The results show that there is a gap between what the teachers do in classrooms and what they preach and they have unrealistic beliefs about their competencies on classroom management. Key Words: Preschool teacher, Classroom management, Discipline strategies, Unwanted behaviors