Effectiveness of the Self-Regulation Empowerment Program With Urban High School Students

Impacting the academic performance of high school students in core academic content areas is important because of the high-stakes nature of secondary school course grades relative to their vocational and post-secondary pursuits. Getting students to become more active, strategic participants in their learning by teaching them empirically supported learning strategies as well as specific forethought and reflective thinking skills is an important pathway to academic success. The importance of self-regulation processes also has been established in recent survey research with teachers and school psychologists showing that students who are referred for academic problems often have self-regulatory skill and motivation deficits. Intervention programs like the Self-Regulation Empowerment Program (SREP) can be conceptualized and implemented within the context of school-based service delivery frameworks. Tier I interventions typically occur at a classroom level and thus are designed to provide all students with the potential benefits of an intervention. With regards to classroom-wide self-regulation interventions, there are many empirically supported techniques that teachers can readily infuse into the daily routine of a school day, such as requiring all students to set performance goals, engage in progress monitoring, and utilize self-reflective processes. Students who do not respond (i.e., continue to exhibit poor test performance) to this general level of intervention support would be eligible to receive more intensive, Tier II pull-out programs, such as SREP.