Teachers’ Harmful Behaviors Toward Students: Understanding the Role of Judgment and Observation

Too often, students are harmed by teachers’ behaviors, with significant negative consequences for their academic and health outcomes. To understand the factors contributing to teachers’ engagement in harmful behaviors toward students, this study surveyed a national sample of U.S. K-12 teachers (n = 422) to evaluate the appropriateness of 26 teacher behaviors and report how often they observed and engaged in them. Exploratory factor analysis of judgments identified three harmful behavior types (never acceptable, scarcely acceptable, and rarely acceptable), a policy-based type, and a supportive type. Results of path analyses suggest two plausible indirect pathways for teacher engagement in behaviors: judgment is related to engagement through observation, or alternately, observation is related to engagement through judgment. Our findings suggest the importance of attending to teacher judgments in schoolwide efforts to address teacher harm.