The impact of school-wide discipline on student academic achievement and behavior in elementary schools in South Carolina

This study reviews the impact of School-Wide Discipline on academic achievement and student behavior in elementary schools. In this study, Title One elementary schools in South Carolina were identified that have fully implemented the Positive Behavior Intervention Support and those Title One schools not implementing PBIS.;This study incorporated the principles of quantitative research to test the null hypotheses. Data used in this study were examined using the following statistical procedures: Descriptive Statistics, Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) and the t-test. In order to examine the hypotheses, an analysis of variance test was performed to examine mean differences of the independent variables (i.e., schools with or without a school-wide discipline program) and dependent variables (student discipline referrals and academic achievement (test scores). The t-test was used to measure consistency between the treatment and non-treatment schools.;The researcher telephone-surveyed Title I elementary schools of districts in South Carolina that did not implement any kind of school-wide programs. A list of Title I schools was obtained from the State Department of Education.;The results revealed that the school type (PBIS vs. non-PBIS) was not shown to have an effect on student performance in ELA and mathematics. Gender was shown to have an effect on ELA performance where females performed better than males In all cases, the non-PBIS students had a greater scale score average than PBIS students. Because the statistical tests comparing the performance difference between these groups were all not significant, we cannot say that the non-PBIS students performed better than the PBIS students.;The results revealed that the school type (Positive Behavior Intervention Support versus Non-Positive Behavior Intervention Support) was shown to have an effect on student behavior. The statistical tests comparing the number of discipline referrals between these groups were significant.;KEY WORDS. School-wide Discipline, Positive Behavior Intervention Support (PBIS), Intervention Strategies, Discipline Referral Rate, Academic Achievement, Palmetto Assessment of State Standards (PASS), Behavior Management, Classroom Discipline, Non-classroom Discipline, Student Discipline.