Student teachers’ learning about effective classroom management: efficacy and transfer of a video-based intervention aimed at promoting situation-specific skills and self-efficacy

Abstract Interventions in initial teacher education are designed to promote teachers’ key professional competences. However, there is currently a need to scale up such interventions to ensure that as many pre-service teachers as possible can benefit from them. This study examines a newly developed video-based intervention with respect to its efficacy in imparting situation-specific classroom management skills and teachers’ self-efficacy in relation to the demands of classroom management. In addition to testing the intervention’s efficacy, the study also examined whether trained lecturers implemented the intervention effectively. A quasi-experimental pre-post design was used to compare the learning effects of student teachers ( n = 139) who were taught by the intervention’s developers who were experts in classroom management, with those taught by lecturers who were trained in classroom management. The two intervention groups’ learning effects were contrasted with those of an untreated control group. The findings reveal that the newly developed video-based intervention promoted situation-specific classroom management skills regardless of whether the intervention was delivered by the developers themselves or by trained lecturers. No differences were observed between the intervention and control groups with respect to student teachers’ self-efficacy in relation to classroom management demands. The implications for scaling up interventions in initial teacher education are discussed.