The effects of a classroom manager role on the social interaction patterns and social status of withdrawn kindergarten students.
Hand a withdrawn kindergartener a classroom helper job and watch friendly approaches and peer status climb fast.
01Research in Context
What this study did
The researchers gave shy kindergarteners a classroom manager job. The child handed out supplies, held the door, and picked helpers.
The team watched how often the child started friendly talk and how much peers liked them. They kept tracking after the job ended.
What they found
The helper role quickly lifted positive social starts. Peer acceptance jumped too.
Some gains stuck around after the job was over.
How this fits with other research
Gonzales et al. (2020) saw the same jump in peer engagement when a friend simply stood nearby. Both studies show that a small social cue sparks big preschool participation.
Davis et al. (1994) also boosted social starts, but they used quick high-five requests first. The manager role gives you a classroom-ready option that needs no adult prompts.
de Boer et al. (2014) tried disability-awareness lessons for peer acceptance. Their effect was small and faded fast. The manager role created a larger, longer boost with less talk and more action.
Why it matters
You can pull the shyest child into the group tomorrow. Pick a simple daily job: line leader, paper passer, light helper. Rotate the role so every quiet child gets a turn. Watch social bids rise and keep the job going for maintenance.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
We examined the effects of assigning a classroom manager's role on the frequency of social interactions and the sociometric standing of three withdrawn kindergarten students. Results showed that when the three socially withdrawn students were placed in the manager's role they substantially increased the frequency of their positive social initiations during free-play time, were the recipients of many more positive and significantly fewer negative social bids from their peers, were rated more favorably by their classmates on a sociometric rating scale, and were selected more frequently as best friends by their peers. In addition, follow-up data suggested partial maintenance of treatment effects when students no longer occupied manager positions.
Journal of applied behavior analysis, 1986 · doi:10.1901/jaba.1986.19-187