Worldwide, students’ aggressive behaviour in schools remains a topic of concern. Incidents of aggression significantly affect the learning environment, including students’ and teachers’ well-being. Therefore, teachers must effectively manage these incidents. How teachers understand the nature of classroom management (CM) strategies or make adequate management decisions appears dependent on their tprofessional development. The concept of aggression has been studied in various disciplines, such as psychology, education, health, and criminology ^[1][2][3][22,23,24]. It is, however, a complex construct challenging to define ^[4][25]. Furthermore, the common usage of the term ‘aggression’ may not always align with its scientific interpretation ^[5][26]. In the present research, researcherstudy, we adopt the social-psychological perspective as articulated by Allen and Anderson, in which aggression, carried out by one or more persons, is characterised as observable and intentional behaviour aimed at causing harm to another individual who is motivated to avoid that harm ^[6][27,28]. This perspective provides a framework for understanding and analysing aggressive behaviours within educational settings and allows distinguishing ‘aggression’ from broader phenomena such as antisocial behaviour ^[7][29] or specific subsets of aggression such as violence ^[8][30] or bullying ^[9][31].

Various classifications are available regarding aggression. ReIn this searchers tudy, we focus on verbal aggression—characterised by using words to attack others (e.g., insulting, swearing, name calling, threatening; ^[10][32])—as this type of aggression is the most prevalent in school settings ^[11][12][33,34]. The choice to highlight only verbal aggression builds on several reasons. Typically, aggression incidents follow a cyclical process, conceptualised as the ‘assault cycle’ (see ^[13][35]), consisting of five interrelated phases: trigger, escalation, crisis, recovery, and post-crisis depression. Intervening as early as possible, preferably during the trigger or the escalation phase, is recommended to avoid further escalation ^[14][36]. During these phases, rational argumentation-based intervention is still possible. In the subsequent crisis phase, arousal increases, and emotions get the upper hand, which makes rational and constructive control of the situation less likely ^[15][37]. Verbal aggression peaks during the escalation phase, highlighting the importance of verbal aggression management strategies ^[16][38]. However, selecting and applying such strategies necessitate mastering well-developed competences. Since VAB might be a precursor of physical aggression ^[11][33], early intervention also reduces the likelihood of physical consequences.

Another reason to focus on VAB is its impact on adolescents. Adolescence, encompassing the period between 11 and 19 years old, is a sensitive period. It is marked not only by biological changes but also by the development, i.e., improvement or deterioration, of social skills and cognitive control ^[17][18][39,40]. The transition to adulthood, and consequently, these developments, unfolds gradually, leading to further categorisation into early (11–13 years), middle (14–17 years), and late adolescence (17–19 years; ^[19][41]). Although exhibiting both verbal and physical aggression ^[20][42], adolescents tend to express more verbal threats and abuse as they mature ^[21][43]. Such VAB is triggered by different factors. In addition to biological, sociological, economic, and psychiatric factors, research highlights situational elements, such as sudden changes in the environment, invoking the display of aggressive behaviour ^[1][22]. Moreover, social status and peer acceptance are pivotal, especially during middle adolescence, making these young people sensitive to social pressure and peer opinions ^[17][39]. This explains why the display of aggressive behaviour might result in positive peer status and popularity ^[22][23][44,45]. Aggression can, therefore, be seen as social conduct influenced by adolescents’ social context ^[24][25][46,47]. Models help map this intricate synergy. For instance, social-ecological models focus on the interplay of individual characteristics and contextual systems ^[26][48], whereas cognitive-ecological models stress the cognitive processing of experiences resulting from this interplay ^[1][22]. Emphasis on those social and cognitive underpinnings must be considered in determining adequate CM strategies.

Models explaining the origins and triggers of aggression have helped to develop a range of prevention strategies to be adopted in educational environments (e.g., ^[27][28][49,50]). However, schoolwide prevention or intervention programmes appear to have a minor impact on reducing adolescents’ aggression ^[29][30][51,52]. Nonetheless, Wilson and colleagues’ meta-analysis of school-based bullying interventions revealed that high-intensity one-on-one interventions administered by teachers were the most effective ^[31][53]. Although focusing on bullying, these findings align with more recent research suggesting that teachers influence their students’ use of aggression ^[32][33][17,54]. Teachers interact directly with students during teaching activities and seem critical in impacting students’ social context in schools ^[34][5]. In addition, teachers are accountable for developing and maintaining a safe learning environment to ensure student learning ^[35][36][6,55]. Appropriate CM decisions enable them to maximise instructional time and minimise the likelihood of disruptive behaviour ^[37][12]. Next to preventive strategies, however, effective CM also requires reactive strategies ^[38][11]. As stressed above, unaddressed aggressive behaviour disrupts relationships among students and between students and the teacher, thus affecting the classroom atmosphere ^[39] [56]. Furthermore, it might result in negative consequences for teachers (e.g., stress, burn-out) and students (e.g., academic failure, feelings of unsafety; ^[40][4,8]). This reinforces the importance of timely and effective intervention when aggression occurs ^[41][57].

Few concrete tools for dealing with VAB are discussed in educational research. A recent literature review on verbal aggression in schools pointed out that interventions focusing on reducing VAB, or empirical studies mapping self-reported reaction strategies to VAB are scarce to non-existent ^[12][34]. However, substantial research into aggression in other socio-economic areas resulted in mechanisms guiding practice ^[42][58]. In healthcare or law enforcement settings, for example, de-escalation is the recommended first-line strategy for tackling VAB during the escalation phase ^[43][44][59,60]. De-escalation, a psychosocial intervention, entails verbal and non-verbal communication strategies to negate, prevent, or manage a (potentially) aggression situation ^[45][46][47][61,62,63]. Furthermore, de-escalation helps minimise an incident within ten minutes but is less suitable as a long-term solution ^[48][64].

Aggression is a cross-sectional phenomenon, suggesting de-escalation strategies can also be applied in a range of disciplines within the public sector (which also includes education) where aggression occurs frequently ^[49][50][65,66]. Existing de-escalation strategies are generally broadly defined and seem to vary across disciplines. As a result, no standardised protocol exists ^[15][44][37,60]. Nonetheless, some general features related to aggression management may be deduced. This enables translation and adaptation to the educational field while considering domain-specific features ^[3][24]. Such strategies can assist teachers in responding to VAB as active teacher responses remain scarce ^[51][67]. Many teachers believe ignoring VAB is an effective tactic ^[33][54], and responding appropriately seems challenging ^[52][68]. In addition, CM-related reactions are mostly intuitive, resulting from personal experiences, professional development workshops, interpretations from field observations, etc. ^[53][54][69,70]. It is, therefore, not surprising that novice teachers indicate they feel incompetent in implementing them ^[55][56][9,71]. Though these strategies are on the agenda of teacher education curricula, these programs often do not provide preservice teachers with sufficient preparation for effective CM ^[57][10]. This is partly explained by the complex nature of (aggression management) competence development ^[58][72].

Interacting with an individual displaying aggressive behaviour during an incident is challenging ^[59][73], and being confronted with aggressive behaviour can evoke a sense of surprise and being overwhelmed ^[60][74]. Thinking about and practising ways to react before encountering aggression are prerequisites to successfully handling the behaviour ^[59][73]. In addition, repeated practice related to real-life situations is also a precondition for acquiring such complex competence ^[61][75]. To explain this development process, rwesearchers build the model of Blömeke and colleagues, viewing competences as evolving along a continuum ^[62][76]. When dealing with an aggression situation, teachers build on their cognitive (i.e., knowledge and skills) and affective-motivational (i.e., values and beliefs) dispositions. These dispositions result from earlier experiences and influence teachers’ thoughts and reactions ^[63][77]. This processing of experiences is often described as the formation of cognitive event schemas ^[64][78].

Schemas are mental structures resulting from the organisation and elaboration of information as perceived in the environment. These processes connect ideas and concepts about, e.g., behaviour and help develop meaning ^[65][79]. Applied to social interactions, cognitive schemas represent experienced and expected events and actions, helping to comprehend and respond to novel situations. Moreover, schemas can be interconnected, resulting in internal scripts defining a procedural sequence of reactions (i.e., ‘if-then’ events; ^[1][22]). These scripts serve as guides ^[66] [80] to deploy situation-specific skills, also called PID-skills (i.e., perception of classroom events, interpretation of that perception, and decision-making; ^[67][81]). These PID-skills are central to the competence continuum, connecting dispositions to observable behaviour.

Applied to aggression management competences, rwesearchers argue that novice teachers’ dispositions are insufficiently developed to deal with students’ aggressive behaviour. This assumption is based on the discussion held in the introductory section of this researchpaper, where it was highlighted that TEPs do not focus on theoretical frameworks regarding responsive strategies concerning aggression and the lack of authentic, real-life practice opportunities. In addition, novice teachers have difficulties in noticing (i.e., selectively attending to information in classroom situations) and reasoning about (i.e., interpreting noticed information based on existing knowledge) events ^[68][82,83]. This noticing and knowledge-based reasoning, conceptualised as professional vision ^[69][84], improves when teachers are sufficiently exposed to authentic classroom situations that help develop relevant competences ^[70][83]. As suggested by Carmien and colleagues, it seems feasible to provide teachers with external scripts designed by professionals and researchers to compensate for their lack of internal scripts ^[71][85]. These external scripts offer teachers tools for reading and interpreting classroom happenings ^[72][86]. In other words, external scripts enrich the knowledge base of novice teachers, contributing to an increased professional vision and, thus, active engagement in competence development.

Dealing with VAB encompasses a tension between general and situation-specific responses. Each situation involving aggression is unique and influenced by personal and situational factors ^[8][73][30,87]. These factors might provoke VAB or increase the chance of an aggressive reaction. Triggered by different elements, such as biological features, social environments, or previous experiences, they pose a challenge in devising a cohesive approach. The external script must, therefore, be applicable across situations but also consider situation specificity. This assumption aligns with a social-cognitive approach whereby cognitions are seen as providing stable behavioural patterns across a range of settings but are frequently accompanied by situational peculiarity ^[8][30]. In this approach, how people interpret and respond to incidents in the environment is contingent on particular situational (social) elements within that environment as well as on knowledge (cognitive) components they have acquired and integrated into their habitual responses. In addition, these processes are impacted by and affect emotions ^[8][30].

4. Verbal Aggression Management Competence Model

ealing with VAB encompasses a tension between general and situation-specific responses. Each situation involving aggression is unique and influenced by personal and situational factors [30,87]. These authorfactors might provoke VAB or increase the chance of an aggressive reaction. Triggered by different elements, such as biological features, social environments, or previous experiences, they pose a challenge in devising a cohesive approach. The authors therefore developed a coherent and grounded ‘Verbal Aggression Management Competence’ model based on literature covering several domains and validation interviews with educational experts, as shown in Figure 1s. The final model consists of steps that can be taken during and immediately after an incident of VAB and teacher attitudes during such incidents. These attitudes influence day-to-day educational practices but play a specific role in addressing students’ VAB.

Figure 1. The V-AMC model resulting from RQ1 and RQ2. Elements in italics are formulated more explicitly, elements in [square brackets] are omitted in the final model, and elements in bold are added to the final model after the validation step.

The steps of the V-AMC model were developed with social-cognitive problem-solving models in mind, containing a three-phased classification: the initial phase (containing step 1), the de-escalation phase (containing steps 2 to 4), and the follow-up phase (containing steps 5 to 7). Besides steps, the V-AMC model also addresses teachers’ attitudes. Considered transversal, these attitudes act on each step of the competence model. This researchtudy contributes a structured framework to empower novice teachers, offering tools to address verbal aggressive behaviour within the classroom environment. Furthermore, it highlights the potential of incorporating this model into teacher education programs, facilitating the competence development of future teachers, and fostering conducive learning environments.