Methodology
Study Setting and Participants
*This study was launched in the fall semester of 2020, in a small, Catholic university in St. Louis, Missouri. The participants included two professors that taught the early and mid-clinical practicum courses at the university.
*Clinical/Practicum instructors were invited to complete a questionnaire and participate in an interview about trauma informed indicators and how trauma informed practices are included in the clinical/practicum classes in a teacher preparation program.
*A sampling of students’ classroom behavior management plans from the same teacher preparation program were then analyzed for the presence of trauma informed indicators.
_______________________________________________________________________
Instruments:
*The main instrument utilized for the pilot study was The Missouri Model for Trauma-Informed Schools.
*Qualitative data were derived from interviews from two professors.
*Quantitative data were composed of information acquired from five instructor questions given to the two professors.
*Trauma informed indicators were used to review a sampling of students’ classroom behavior to identify how pre-service educators are prepared for trauma informed practices in schools.
______________________________________________________________________
Data:
*Quantitative data were composed of a frequency count of five Missouri Model indicators from seven student classroom behavior management plans. These included student indicators of safety, trustworthiness, choice, collaboration, and empowerment.
*Qualitative data was obtained from professor interviews conducted via Zoom.
______________________________________________________________________
Analyzing Data
*A convergent parallel study was utilized for both quantitative and qualitative data. The data were merged to provide a comprehensive analysis of the research problem. The interviews conducted were analyzed and coded for emerging themes.
*The classroom behavior management plans were analyzed through frequency counts on the pre-identified words. This provided the needed quantitative and qualitative picture for the data.
*Qualitative data were derived from professor interviews regarding any trauma-informed practices encountered that may be incorporated into their instruction as clinical/practicum instructors.
*Frequency counts were utilized with the pre-service educator’s classroom behavior management plans. Five key trauma-informed indicators were counted to identify the frequency of each key term infused in the plans.