IRIS Educational Media has completed the IES-funded Student Self-Management System. The grant had three objectives:
1. Develop content for a new curriculum with research.
2. Produce the program
3. Test the program for promise of effectiveness.
IRIS Ed produced We Have Choices (WHC) as a result. This program is designed to increase self-management skills in elementary school students, especially those with behavior challenges. We gathered evidence of the feasibility and usability of WHC in upper elementary classrooms. We developed a teacher-training component that can be used in a train-the-trainer model. Finally, we collected pilot data describing WHC’s impact on students’ behavioral and academic performance, and on teachers’ satisfaction, self-efficacy, knowledge, and attitudes about the intervention.
We Have Choices is a versatile program that is easy for kids to follow and teachers to implement. Teachers can use a multi-tiered approach to coach any students that need extra practice.
Development of the WHC program involved a test-develop-test process. We carried out developmental sprints of components in conjunction with focus groups, small informal studies, and discussions with students, teachers, and administrators. We also conducted several formal tests of feasibility and social validity, measurement psychometrics, and student and teacher outcomes (pilot study) during the development of the program, which we describe below.
Teachers continue to identify students exhibiting inappropriate behavior as one of the greatest challenges to effective teaching. Inappropriate student behavior becomes even more challenging as children advance through the grades and teachers’ instructional focus shifts from social skills to academics. Upper elementary school teachers face the challenge to teach social skills and teach students to become self-managers in preparation for middle and high school where teachers will expect their students to have self-management skills.
Publications describing findings on WHC pilot test and psychometrics of the uESBA are being prepared and will shortly be submitted to peer-reviewed scholarly journals.
To read the full report, please click here.