Are self-management interventions effective to improve student behaviors?

Marta Pellegrini, University of Cagliari (Italy)

One commonly employed approach for managing difficult and disruptive conduct in school environments is through the implementation of self-management interventions. It refers to a set of techniques that students are taught to use in order to assess and monitor their own behaviors.

A recent Campbell Systematic review looked at the impact of self-management interventions delivered at school to improve K-12 student behavior in the classroom. The review included experimental studies that either assigned groups or single students to the intervention or the control group, yielding 75 single-case studies and 4 group studies.

The average effect size for single-case studies was +0.69, with higher effects for students in special education and for African American students. The average effect size for group studies was +0.63, but the effect could be influenced by the small number of studies.