Stability Balls and Student on-Task Behavior
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Stability Balls and Student on‑Task Behavior David M. Hulac1 · Lisa R. Mickelson1 · Amy M. Briesch2 · Helen Maroeca1 · Caitlyn Hartjes1 · Kaitlin Anderson1 · Kayla Ederveen1 Accepted: 23 October 2020 © Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract Stability balls have become a common option for alternative seating in classrooms. While the social validity of stability ball classroom seating remains high among students and teachers, findings on the effectiveness of this alternative seating method are mixed. This is particularly true when the intent of the intervention is to increase student on-task behavior. This study examined the effects of stability ball seating on students’ on-task behavior in a general education setting, using a within-subjects repeated measures design. Researchers observed twenty-four third-grade students in a public-school classroom across three conditions: all chairs, all balls, or choice. Across observation days, the study controlled for time of day, teacher, and classroom environment. Results indicate students are on-task less frequently when sitting on a stability ball. Student reports on social validity replicated prior findings; students found the stability ball to be desirable and easy to use. Keywords Stability ball · On-task behavior · Alternative seating · General education · Classroom intervention
Introduction The ability to attend to classroom activities, or remain on-task, affects a student’s ability to learn new information and tie that information to other previously learned concepts for future use (Dotterer and Lowe 2011; Reyes et al. 2012; Sirin and Rogers-Sirin 2004). Student on-task behavior is a strong predictor of educational success when controlling for academic skills, such as math and reading (Duckworth and Seligman 2005; Duncan et al. 2007). Thus, educators are often tasked with finding
* David M. Hulac [email protected] 1
Department of School Psychology, University of Northern Colorado, 501 20th St, Campus Box 131, Greeley, CO 80639, USA
2
Department of Applied Psychology, Northeastern University, Boston, MA, USA
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Vol.:(0123456789)
Journal of Behavioral Education
interventions that may increase the amount of time that students spend on task-relevant stimuli. Movement in Classrooms & Alternative Seating One such class of interventions involves increasing the amount of physical movement that students get during the day. To promote student in-classroom attention, increasing students’ physical movement may be a dually positive option, providing students with potential physical and academic benefits (Budde et al. 2008; Ericsson 2008; Erwin et al. 2012; Hill et al. 2010; McNaughten and Gabbard 1993; Reynolds and Nicolson 2007). The challenge in allowing more physical activity in the classroom is that many of the tasks students are completing require quiet, distraction free environments (e.g., complex math story-problem; reading a difficult passage). A student who is moving too much may distract other students (e.g., doin
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