| The purpose of this study was to address the problem of poor student achievement and high discipline referrals in a rural middle school in the southeastern United States. The theoretical foundations for this study were Bandura's social cognitive theory of self-efficacy and Glasser's choice theory. Research questions involved understanding the relationship between self-regulation skills, academic performance and discipline referrals. A quasi-experimental control group design was employed with a nonrandom, nonequivalent sample of teachers and 7th and 8th grade students. One group of teachers received professional development training and implemented self-regulation strategies instruction into the regular curriculum. The control group implemented the regular curriculum. Student achievement scores for the reading and language arts sections of a state standardized test before and after self-regulation instruction were analyzed using a repeated measures analysis of variance. Results indicated that the experimental group's reading and language arts scores were statistically higher, and there were noticeably fewer discipline referrals in the experimental group following self-regulation instruction. The conclusion is that there is a link between learning self-regulation skills and improved academic and behavioral performance. Implications for positive social change include recognizing the importance of self-regulation instruction that might provide students with opportunities to improve academic skills and basic life skills of self-control, goal setting, and motivation. |
