Developing a school-based program to support students to plan and organize their schoolwork: A qualitative study involving professionals and adolescents

Many students in secondary education struggle with planning their schoolwork. These challenges can lead to both short- and long-term consequences such as lower grades, limited educational opportunities, and reduced socioeconomic outcomes. Despite these risks, the Netherlands lacks evidence-based school-based programs to improve planning skills. To develop such a program, we conducted two focus groups with school professionals and semi-structured interviews with adolescents with planning problems. The data were coded and analyzed following a thematic analysis, combining a deductive and inductive approach. School professionals emphasized the need for both preventive in-class support for all students in secondary education and an individual program to support students with planning difficulties, with a feasible maximum of six sessions for each. Both school professionals and adolescents emphasized the importance for tailoring support to students’ preferences and needs. Adolescents' diverse preferences, such as the timing, ideal setting and provider of the program, highlighted the need for flexible, tailored interventions to meet their needs effectively. Based on our results, a two-phase program aligned with Dutch secondary education and tailored to the needs of its end users will be developed.