Date

12-4-2025

Department

School of Behavioral Sciences

Degree

Doctor of Philosophy in Psychology (PhD)

Chair

Bethany Mims

Keywords

behavior interventions, barriers, Big Five personality traits, teachers

Disciplines

Educational Psychology

Abstract

Maladaptive behaviors negatively affect both students and teachers. Students’ academic success, mental health, and safety are jeopardized by these behaviors, while teachers experience increased stress and burnout when managing them. Behavior interventions have been shown to reduce maladaptive behaviors and improve outcomes. Although most teachers agree that certain factors act as barriers to implementing behavior interventions, there is no consensus on the frequency or impact of these barriers. Guided by the Big Five Theory, this quantitative study examined how teachers’ levels of extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism, and openness were associated with differences in their perceptions of the frequency and impact of 13 barriers to implementing behavior interventions. Teachers from three rural school districts in the southeastern United States (N = 152) completed two online surveys. Data were analyzed using one-way ANOVA and MANOVA. One-way ANOVAs revealed that extraversion was the only trait significantly associated with overall frequency and impact scores, with teachers lower in extraversion reporting higher levels of both. No significant differences were found for the remaining four traits. However, MANOVA analyses identified statistically significant differences across all five personality traits at the item level, indicating that teachers’ personality trait levels are associated with differences in how they view barriers to behavior interventions. These findings support the study’s central research question and highlight the importance of considering individual personality differences when addressing barriers to behavior intervention implementation.

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