1) The document discusses three studies that examined how well teachers can identify and help children from alcoholic or abusive homes. The studies found that teachers generally scored lower on identification tests but improved after workshops. 2) A second study of experienced teachers also found lower initial scores but improvements after training. However, experienced teachers were less likely to report issues than student teachers. 3) The conclusion is that teachers are undereducated on helping these children but that workshops are an effective way to provide training and improve teacher identification and intervention abilities.

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Alexis Kroeger
Journal Article Review
1) Abstract:
The abstract blankly states in the first sentence that, “Schools are called upon to solve
many of society’s problems”. The problems this article directly talks about is children
growing up in alcoholic or abusive homes. The article states that teachers lack proper
training for these situations. Research was conducted on this issue in order to determine
whether teachers who take classes to learn more about this issue become better teachers.
Better teachers as in they learn how to teach these children or learn to support them in a
better manner. They used different kinds of teachers to conduct this study, and they
generally discovered that across the board all teachers could better from taking
workshops.
2) Literature Review:
This article begins by telling the reader an abundance of facts about alcoholic families.
For instance; one in five children in your classroom come from an alcoholic family. Facts
like this were generated from previous studies, but none of these studies directly talk
about the role teachers have in this situation. Studies show that children that have
alcoholic parents or suffer abuse can have a wide variety of reactions at school. Because
not one child shows the same symptoms and you are almost guaranteed to have a student
of this nature in your classroom, it is very important for teachers to be well trained in
identifying them. This is the main reasons this research article was started. The following
fact supports the reason for this article perfectly.
“In a study conducted by the American Association for Protecting Children
(1988) findings indicated that 57% of the abused and neglected cases reported in 1986

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involved school-aged children. However, only 16.3% of the reports for these cases
originated from school personnel.”
The reason this fact supports this study is simply that all these issues were displayed in
the classroom but the majority was ignored by the teacher. Teachers need to intervene on
more than just 16.3% of the cases.
3) Methods:
The methods associated with this research consist of three separate studies. All three
studies use different types of elementary teachers making it a great study to represent the
whole population of teachers. Each study is a quantitative study based on a test that the
teachers had to fill out.
1. This first study looked at fifty-one student teachers that came from all variety of
colleges (private, state, or public). Twenty-nine of the student teachers had never
been in a classroom before, and twenty-two have had experience in some shape of
form in a classroom setting. All fifty-one student teachers were given a “Pre-service
Teacher Survey”. The survey targeted how well the teachers could identify and
intervene with these children.
2. The second study looked at seventeen graduate students. All of the seventeen teachers
had previous experience in classrooms. There PTS test was given to them after the
second week of their student teaching field experience. Following the test, a
workshop was established to train the teachers in identifying the children and
methods of intervening. After two months of this workshop, a second PTS test was
given to the same seventeen graduate students. Of course, the hypothesis of this study
was for the teacher to increase their scores after the two months.

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3. In the third and final study, seventy experienced teachers were put to the test. The
teachers were from low socio-economic or rural school districts. Forty-four of them
also completed the post-survey portion of study 2. All of these teachers were given
“The Inservice Teacher Survey” which is similar to the PTS but some of the
demographic questions may differ.
4) Results:
The results of each study were different.
1. For study one, the findings showed that 69% of the student teachers had suspicions of
their students, and 57% used behavior indicators to develop these suspicions. The
study showed that the student teachers were more willing to report physical or sexual
abuse rather than the children of alcoholic parents. The high majority would go to the
principal for assistance whereas almost never would they go to the parents
themselves.
2. The results from the first test showed that the graduate students scored lower than the
students from study 1 but were rather similar in respect to ideas. However, after the
two months of the workshop, all scores increased except in psychological dimensions
for neglect. Although post-training improved the scores, students still have a constant
battle in regards to legal responsibilities in reporting some cases.
3. Shockingly, pre-survey scores of experienced teachers scored lower than the other
two studies. But again, like the second study, the post-training survey scores
increased. Something that is noteworthy, however, is that experienced teachers are

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less likely to bring it to the attention of a school personnel than both of the other
studies participants.
5) Conclusion/Discussion:
The author reviewed with the readers some of the faults in the study before stating the
findings. For example, one implication would be that the survey was only examining the
intent of the teacher, this does not exactly mean that it reflects their real behavior.
Another problem would be that motivation is key as well. Some of the participants may
not have been highly motivated to take the survey since the post-survey was taken at the
end of an academic year. Although these problems exist, there were still
recommendations found to better teacher’s identification and intervening methods. The
major finding discovered throughout this research process is that teachers are under
educated on the ways they can negatively and positively affect a child experiencing
neglect, abuse and or being raised by alcoholic parents. The solution to this problem is
that taking workshops will be highly beneficial to both school personnel and teachers so
they can be better educated and more confident in making a bold decision.