Unfortunately, all too often the classroom atmosphere can become too negative. Consider, for example, the following scenarios that are barriers to a positive learning environment.  Sometimes student misbehavior is so frequent that teachers find themselves verbally reprimanding students many times per day. Several unpleasant conditions might occur as a result of this pattern. Sometimes there is a negative impact on the teacher. By the end of the day, the teacher is often mentally, emotionally and physically drained by all of the negative interactions with the students. Negative interactions seem to dominate the teacher’s memory of the day. This condition can result in increased stress, health problems and a negative attitude toward teaching.

A similar condition results from the student’s perspective. They can view school as an unpleasant place characterized by negative interactions. They can also develop a negative attitude toward the teacher because, in their view, the teacher “never” has anything nice to say to them.  In general, there is a negative unpleasant atmosphere that characterizes the whole learning environment, and makes it unattractive to both teacher and student.

One way that the teacher can make the classroom atmosphere more positive and more pleasant is to focus on his or her reinforcement ratio. Reinforcement ratio is the number of positive teacher comments to the number of negative, or corrective, teacher comments.  Examples of positive teacher comments include comments such as “good work,” “that is right,” “I like the way you are sitting quietly,” or “I can’t believe how hard you are working.”  By contrast, examples of negative teacher comments include comments such as “stop that,” “sit down,” “be quiet,” or “I told you not to do that again.”  Neutral teacher comments are not counted in the reinforcement ratio.  Neutral teacher comments include comments such as “turn to page 6,” “read the next sentence,” “let’s get out our math books,” or “let’s line up for lunch.”

Research indicates that classes in which the teacher has a strongly positive reinforcement ratio often have fewer behavior problems.  One simple way for teachers to calculate their own reinforcement ratio is to turn on a tape recorder in the class for one hour. Later the teacher can play the tape, evaluating each statement that she or he made as to whether the statement was positive, negative or corrective, or neutral. Neutral statements should not be included in calculations.

For every positive teacher statement, the teacher makes a mark above a horizontal line on a piece of paper. For every negative or corrective teacher comment, the teacher makes a mark below the line on the same piece of paper.  The ratio of positive comments (as indicated by the tally marks above the line) to negative comments (as indicated by the tally marks below the line) is the teacher’s reinforcement ratio.

If the teacher’s reinforcement ratio is strongly positive, then the classroom atmosphere is probably positive and pleasant.  If the ratio is about even or negative, then the teacher might consider how pleased she or he is with the atmosphere in the classroom.  The teacher might experiment by making a concerted effort to say more positive comments in the classroom, and observe the impact it has on student behavior. Many teachers have found that increasing their reinforcement ratio results in decreased student misbehavior, as well as making the classroom atmosphere more pleasant.
 
It is  recommended that teachers strive for a reinforcement ratio from 3:1 to 5:1; however, the teacher can experiment with the ratio to determine what level of positive statements seems to get the best results. Some educators recommend that disruptive students should get more positive comments for their appropriate behavior than students who do not tend to be disruptive. Nevertheless, it is strongly advised that all students in the class receive positive comments and that the class as a whole receive positive statements.

It should be noted that even teachers with excellent behavior management skills will have to make some negative or corrective comments because no group of students exhibits appropriate behavior all of the time.  Nevertheless, the number of positive statements will probably be much greater than the number of negative or corrective statements.