Publication Date

Summer 2015

Advisor(s) - Committee Chair

Aaron Hughey (Director), Joelle Davis Carter, and Brian Van Brunt

Degree Program

Educational Leadership Doctoral Program

Comments

In response to tragic events such as the shootings at Virginia Tech University (April 16, 2007) and Northern Illinois University (February 14, 2008), colleges and universities have been requested to address behaviors that have been observed in their campus communities. Many times the behaviors may have been seen as disruptive, dangerous, or disturbing. Though these behaviors are not considered a threat to the community, university administrators have formalized Behavioral Intervention Teams (BITs) to address the behaviors in a preventive manner. As the teams have formalized, they consist of various formats and structures to address the needs of their campus population. The purpose of this study was to describe the content and structure of Behavioral Intervention Teams (BITs) and to search for variations across the mission and demographic characteristics of different colleges and universities. The quantitative research design was developed to gather general and descriptive information about BITs. The use of broad and general questions yielded common trends from existing BITs across the country. The survey instrument was adapted from the 2012 NaBITA (The National Behavioral Intervention Team Association) Team Survey. Frequency tables and simple correlation analyses were conducted to analyze the results of the study. The common trends ranged from team name, team leadership, team composition, budget, recordkeeping, marketing, creation of website, existence of logo, and annual caseload. Future research should focus on the use of the common trends to develop core competencies for teams to assess the effectiveness of their work.

Degree Type

Doctor of Education

Disciplines

Curriculum and Social Inquiry | Education | Student Counseling and Personnel Services

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