Changing interactions, relationships and behaviour: exploring the use of child-directed play and coaching skills in the primary classroom

Providing school staff with training in how to support children displaying externalising behaviours is, therefore, an increasingly important role for educational psychologists. This study investigates the effects of a twilight training session in the use of child-directed play and coaching skills on teacher-reported interactions, teacher-child relationships and pupil behaviour. <br><br>An embedded pretest-posttest design was employed, with forty-four primary school teachers and support staff completing baseline and post-training measures.

Measures included a non-standardised questionnaire regarding participants’ use of child-directed play and coaching skills, the Student Teacher Relationship Scale and the Sutter-Eyberg Student Behaviour Inventory-Revised. Four supplementary, open-ended questions were used to gain insight into participants’ experiences of implementing child-directed play and coaching skills in the classroom. Thematic analysis and a range of statistical tests were employed to analyse the wealth of data.