Token Economy for Sustainable Education in the Future: A Scoping Review

This research aims to examine the use of a token economy for education sustainability. It presents a recent review and evaluation of the token economy used among young learners and learners with special needs for behavior management and learning engagement in teaching. Online articles from Google Scholar, ERIC, and UKMLibrary were used. The terms used for reviewing the articles were token economy, token systems, positive reinforcement, and rewards. The scoping review protocol was used for this study. A total of 60 relevant articles published from 2000 to 2020 were filtered and grouped into three major themes for review: behavior management, learning engagement, and types of tokens. Findings suggested that although previous research had examined the impact of a token economy on behavior management and learning engagement, there was limited research on the correlation between teaching methods and social fairness. Teachers as the main participants in assessing the effectiveness of a token economy, were also lacking. Additionally, the use of social and physical reinforcers was found to assist in obtaining the desired behaviors and learning engagement from participants, thereby enabling them to sustain learners’ interest in future lessons.

Special Education and General Education Teacher Perceptions of Collaborative Teaching Responsibilities and Attitudes Towards an Inclusive Environment in Jordan

The purpose of this study was to investigate how general and special education instructors perceive their collaborative teaching responsibilities and their attitudes toward inclusive environments. A self-administered questionnaire was distributed to 300 teachers in accordance with the social interdependence theory and cooperative learning conceptual framework. The survey was composed of two parts. The first section examined collaborative teaching duties for both instructors. It included 29 items and four categories (planning, instruction, evaluation, and behavior management). The second section included 15 items to assess attitudes toward inclusion. The study enrolled a total of 233 teachers (123 in special education and 110 in general education) with a response rate of 78%. The results showed that there was agreement between general and special education on only one of the four domains (instruction). Additionally, special education teachers expressed a more favorable attitude toward inclusion than did general education teachers. The current situation’s implications were explored with an emphasis on the necessity for additional shared practical activities among teachers.

Investigating the Role of Academic Optimism in Classroom Management and Job Burnout of Elementary School Teachers

The aim of this study is to investigate the role of academic optimism in classroom management and job burnout of elementary school teachers. The method of this research is a descriptive correlational study. The statistical population in this study included all primary school teachers in Baneh who were teaching in this city during the academic year 2017–2018. The number of teachers in Baneh was 800, of whom 457 were female teachers and 343 were male teachers. According to Krejcie and Morgan table, the sample size was 260 people. The sampling technique in this study was cluster sampling. To collect data, the following questionnaires were used; Beard et al.’s academic optimism, the attitudes and beliefs of teachers regarding classroom management of Martin and Sass and Maslach Burnout. Data analysis was performed by Amos software. The results showed that the paths of scientific emphasis on behavior management, trust in education management, self-efficacy in behavior management, and education management were statistically significant. Also, the results showed that the paths of scientific emphasis on emotional exhaustion, depersonalization and personal success; confidence in emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and personal success; and self-efficacy to emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and personal success are statistically significant.

Children with autism spectrum disorder at a dental appointment: problems, behavioral characteristics, recommendations

Relevance. Dental care is one of the principal unmet health needs of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Based on the available publications, the study discusses the dental profile of a child with autism and the social factors affecting the oral health of such children.Materials and methods. A search was performed of publications for the 15 years in the Medline database using the terms autism”, behavior management/techniques”, child”, dental care for children with other abilities”, dental education”, dental disease”, pediatric dentistry” to find relevant publications.Results. In the found publications, the authors most frequently mention poor oral hygiene. However, they disagree regarding the caries occurrence rate in children with ASD. Insufficient specialized training of dentists on interaction with special children may be one of the reasons for the limited access to dental care.Conclusions. Dental treatment of an autistic child requires a thorough knowledge of comorbidity, relevant behavioral management and customization of treatment protocols according to individual needs. The effectiveness, safety and rationale of the known dental treatment strategies for children with ASD require further study and improvement.