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Teaching self‐management strategies to upper‐elementary students: Evidence of promise from the We Have Choices program
Author(s) -
Smolkowski Keith,
Marquez Brion,
Marquez Jessie,
Vincent Claudia,
Pennefather Jordan,
Walker Hill,
Strycker Lisa A.
Publication year - 2023
Publication title -
psychology in the schools
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.738
H-Index - 75
eISSN - 1520-6807
pISSN - 0033-3085
DOI - 10.1002/pits.22710
Subject(s) - prosocial behavior , psychology , psychological intervention , intervention (counseling) , behavior management , class (philosophy) , classroom management , mathematics education , self management , contingency management , medical education , social psychology , developmental psychology , medicine , artificial intelligence , psychiatry , machine learning , computer science
Student behavior problems in general‐education classrooms present a major barrier to effective teaching. Behavior challenges, such as disruptions, noncompliance, and peer conflicts, reduce instructional time, whereas prosocial behaviors, such as paying attention, being ready to work, asking for help, participating in class, and completing homework, improve academic performance. Most interventions developed to address student behavior problems were not designed for general‐education students in typical classrooms. The purpose of this paper is to present preliminary results from a novel intervention developed to enhance behavioral self‐management skills among all upper‐elementary students in general‐education classrooms. We Have Choices , a universal intervention, was designed to increase students' capacity to make appropriate behavioral choices and decrease teachers' responsibility by transferring behavior management to students. An initial randomized controlled trial with 86 fourth‐ to sixth‐grade teachers and 2055 students suggested that We Have Choices was associated with improvements in student‐reported use of self‐management strategies, teacher‐reported student prosocial behavior, and teacher‐reported self‐efficacy in behavior management and instruction. Teachers gave the program high scores for social validity, suggesting a good fit for their classrooms.