Most classroom management advice focuses on strategies: establish expectations, give clear directions, reinforce positive behaviour, respond consistently, and build strong relationships.

All of that matters. But a newly published study in the Journal of School Psychology raises a more interesting question: What helps teachers actually use effective classroom management practices consistently?

The answer appears to be more than simply giving teachers another list of techniques.

In a 2026 randomized controlled trial involving 134 elementary teachers, researchers compared two forms of classroom-management consultation. Both approaches helped teachers improve important practices and both were associated with fewer student rule violations. However, the enhanced approach produced stronger gains in how teachers responded to misbehaviour, particularly for teachers who initially placed less importance on classroom-management practices.

For teachers and school leaders, that finding matters. It suggests that effective classroom management is partly a question of knowing what to do—but also of removing the practical, motivational, and emotional barriers that make good strategies difficult to sustain.

The Study at a Glance

The research article, The Effects of Two Consultation Conditions on Teacher Classroom Management Practices and Student Rule Violations, was published in the August 2026 issue of the Journal of School Psychology.

Julie Sarno Owens and colleagues studied 134 general-education elementary teachers who were randomly assigned to one of two consultation conditions designed to strengthen classroom management.

The first was a standard Behavioral Problem-Solving approach. Consultants helped teachers identify concerns, select strategies, review classroom data, and receive performance feedback.

The second was an enhanced Multi-Component Motivational Consultation approach. It included the same problem-solving foundation but added motivational interviewing, cognitive-behavioural techniques, SMART goal setting, reflective tools, and explicit support for barriers such as limited knowledge, low confidence, competing beliefs, stress, or difficulty implementing a strategy in real classroom conditions.

According to Ohio University’s Classroom Behavior Support Project, participating teachers could receive up to ten consultation sessions. Classrooms were observed weekly, giving the researchers repeated measures of what teachers and students were actually doing rather than relying only on self-report.

What Did the Researchers Measure?

The study focused on several practical teacher behaviours that are common in evidence-based classroom management.

These included how effectively teachers delivered instructions, how often they used labeled praise—specific praise that tells students exactly what behaviour was successful—and how appropriately they responded when students broke classroom rules.

The researchers also tracked observed student rule violations.

Before the intervention, teachers rated how important they believed classroom-management practices were and how confident they felt using them. Those ratings helped researchers examine whether teacher beliefs affected the success of the consultation.

The Main Finding: Both Types of Coaching Helped

One of the most encouraging findings is that teachers in both consultation groups improved.

Across the trial, teachers increased their use of effective instructions and labeled praise. They also improved the way they responded to student rule violations.

At the same time, classrooms in both conditions experienced significant declines in observed student rule violations.

That is worth emphasizing. The study was not comparing “support” with “no support.” It was comparing two relatively thoughtful coaching approaches. Both produced meaningful improvements.

For schools, this reinforces an important idea: professional learning around classroom management is more likely to change practice when teachers receive ongoing consultation and feedback rather than a single workshop followed by an expectation that they will implement everything on their own.

Where the Enhanced Approach Made a Difference

The enhanced consultation showed a clear advantage in one area: teachers ended the intervention with stronger appropriate responses to student rule violations. The reported effect size was 0.47, a moderate effect.

More interestingly, the advantage was not equal for every teacher.

Teachers who initially rated classroom management as less important benefited more from the enhanced consultation than from the standard problem-solving model.

That detail may be the most useful finding in the entire paper.

If a teacher already believes a practice is important, understands how to use it, feels confident, and sees it as realistic, straightforward coaching and feedback may be enough.

But when a teacher is unsure whether a practice matters, feels overwhelmed, has tried similar strategies without success, or believes the strategy will not fit a particular class, simply repeating the recommendation may not change much.

The enhanced model treated those barriers as part of the implementation problem.

Classroom Management Is an Implementation Problem Too

Teachers are surrounded by classroom-management advice. The problem is rarely that no strategies exist.

The harder question is why a strategy that works in research does not always make it into daily classroom practice.

A teacher may know that specific praise is effective but feel unnatural using it. Another teacher may understand the value of clear routines but work in a classroom where transitions constantly change. A teacher may agree that consistency matters while simultaneously managing twenty other demands.

This study suggests that good professional support needs to address those realities.

That fits with a broader principle I have written about in my guide to creating a classroom management plan: the best plan is not the one with the greatest number of strategies. It is the one a teacher can use consistently enough that students understand what to expect.

What Teachers Can Take From the Study

The study was about consultation, not a new classroom technique. Still, several practical lessons translate directly to everyday teaching.

1. Use fewer strategies more consistently

If a management practice is difficult to maintain, the solution may not be adding another one. Choose a small number of high-value routines and responses that can actually be sustained.

2. Make praise specific

Both consultation groups increased their use of labeled praise. Instead of saying “Good job,” identify the behaviour: “Thank you for getting started as soon as the directions were finished.” Specific feedback makes expectations visible.

3. Examine the barrier, not just the behaviour

When a strategy is not being used consistently, ask why. Is it too complicated? Does it take too long? Is the expectation unclear? Does the teacher doubt it will work? Is stress making consistent follow-through difficult?

Those are not excuses. They are implementation variables.

4. Treat feedback as support, not inspection

The study’s consultation models relied on observation and feedback. That works best when feedback helps a teacher solve a problem rather than simply documenting whether the teacher complied with a checklist.

5. Match support to the teacher

Not every teacher needs the same kind of coaching. Some need a new strategy. Some need practice. Some need data showing that the strategy is working. Others need help adapting it so that it is realistic in their classroom.

What School Leaders Should Notice

The findings also carry a message for administrators, instructional coaches, and school-based support teams.

If professional development stops at “Here are the evidence-based practices,” schools may be leaving out the hardest part: implementation.

Teachers often need opportunities to try a strategy, receive feedback, troubleshoot problems, adjust the approach, and try again. The enhanced consultation in this study deliberately addressed teacher beliefs, stress, confidence, and practical barriers alongside technical classroom-management knowledge.

That is a more realistic model of professional learning.

It also helps explain why classroom management can improve even for experienced teachers. Management is not a fixed personality trait. It is a collection of practices that can be observed, refined, and supported.

For teachers looking specifically at routines and procedures, my summary of Harry Wong’s classroom-management approach explores another side of the same issue: preventing problems by making expectations and procedures predictable before misbehaviour occurs.

Important Limitations

This study should not be read as proof that one coaching model will solve every classroom-management problem.

The participants were elementary teachers, so the findings may not transfer perfectly to middle or high school. The enhanced condition also contained several components at once—motivational interviewing, cognitive-behavioural techniques, goal setting, reflective tools, and barrier-focused problem solving—so the study cannot tell us which individual component produced the added benefit.

It is also important that both groups improved. The research does not show that standard behavioral consultation was ineffective. Quite the opposite: both approaches produced stronger teacher practices and fewer student rule violations. The enhanced model appears to offer additional value for certain teachers and certain implementation barriers.

The Bigger Classroom-Management Lesson

What I like about this research is that it moves the classroom-management conversation away from the idea that struggling teachers simply need more techniques.

Sometimes teachers do need a better strategy. But sometimes they need help making an effective strategy feasible.

That difference matters.

Effective classroom management is built from clear expectations, strong routines, precise feedback, positive reinforcement, consistent responses, and productive teacher-student relationships. But those practices only influence students if they are actually used.

The 2026 study by Owens and colleagues suggests that coaching is most powerful when it pays attention to both sides of that equation: the evidence-based practice and the person who has to implement it.

For schools thinking about classroom management professional development this year, that may be the most important takeaway. Do not just ask teachers whether they know the strategy. Ask what is making the strategy difficult to use—and help solve that problem too.

Research reviewed: Owens, J. S., Evans, S. W., Allan, N. P., Dillon, C., Himawan, L., Medina, D., Shea, M., & Vitucci, D. (2026). The effects of two consultation conditions on teacher classroom management practices and student rule violations. Journal of School Psychology, 117, 101585.

Featured photo by Quilia via Unsplash.