| Despite a general consensus that students with disabilities should learn skills of independence and self-determination, schools have been criticized for not adequately preparing these students to actively participate in their education. In an effort to place a greater emphasis on this type of preparation, many educators have focused on increasing student involvement in the Individualized Education Program (IEP) meeting. Research has shown that students with disabilities can learn to increase their participation in IEP meetings and, as a result, they experience some positive outcomes such as increased awareness of process, enhanced feelings of empowerment, and higher self-efficacy scores. However, the current literature also suggests that increased IEP meeting involvement may not be sufficient for improving specific academic and/or behavioral outcomes for students. One possible way of targeting academic/behavioral performance, while encouraging more active student involvement in education planning and progress monitoring, is through the use of self-management strategies such as self-monitoring. There is further evidence to suggest that involving students in goal selection and having them self-monitor their goal attainment may indeed lead to improved academic and behavioral outcomes. Despite the relatively large self-monitoring literature, no studies were found that attempted to involve students in their IEP planning and monitoring by having students self-monitor their IEP goals. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to address this gap in the literature by evaluating how involving students in selecting and self-monitoring goals taken from their IEPs impacted their academic/behavioral performance, goal attainment, and perceptions of self-determination. Results were mixed, demonstrating an idiosyncratic relationship for the self-monitoring of goals and academic and behavioral outcomes. All participants experienced some improvement in their target behaviors as evidenced by increasing trends. However, experimental control was limited and only one functional relationship was demonstrated. In addition, intervention effects were highly effective for only three of the eight target behaviors. Results were also mixed for improvement in goal attainment. Perceptions of self-determination did increase post-intervention. Implications for future research and practice are discussed. |
