AN EVALUATION OF TRAUMA INFORMED TEACHING PRACTICES IN AN URBAN MIDDLE SCHOOL

Abstract

Dissertation AbstractSince the mid 1990’s, businesses around the world have implemented trauma informed practices into the fabric of their day to day operations. School districts across America have increased investments in trauma informed teaching programs to assist students experiencing trauma, and the administrative staff that interact with students on a daily basis. Although studies have sought to discover the effectiveness of trauma informed teaching, more research is needed to build proper parameters for success that are applicable throughout the many different forms of trauma implemented practices. The purpose of this study is to discover the effectiveness of trauma informed teaching in an urban middle school. This mixed methods study acquired information over a three year span to analyze changes within the six following outcomes during the implementation of trauma informed teaching: Methods in which teachers are integrating trauma informed practices in their classrooms and how often are teachers using said practices, student safety, sense of belonging, suspension rates, behavioral referral rates, and Measures of Academic Progress (MAP) scores, which include reading and mathematics. Quantitative data from a second middle school is utilized to discover if the students learning environment, behavior, and grades are benefited by the implementation of trauma informed practices. In this study, it was discovered that teachers believe that trauma informed practices improve the learning environment for students. Over the three year time period, the student suspension rates and behavior referral rates fell, while sense of belonging and safety declined. Reading and mathematics test scores rose slightly. This study adds to existing literature by documenting the assessment of the implementation and effectiveness of trauma informed teaching with documented, structural data based evidence. Current data suggests that trauma informed teaching is successful upon implementation, but how success is measured is vague at best in current literature. Keywords. trauma informed, urban schools, implementation, teaching