Connectedness and Self‐Regulation as Constructs of the Student Success Skills Program in Inner‐City African American Elementary School Students

Abstract

The authors evaluated a small-group counseling intervention, Student Success Skills, provided to 53 inner-city, 4thand 5th-grade African American students. Compared with the control group, students who received the treatment reported significant changes in metacognitive skill and feelings of connectedness to school. Furthermore, treatmentgroup students received higher posttest change scores on certain executive functioning subscale items, as reported by their classroom teachers. Implications for counseling practice are presented.

Effects of the Student Success Skills Program on Executive Functioning Skills, Feelings of Connectedness, and Academic Achievement in a Predominantly Hispanic, Low‐Income Middle School District

“…Correspondingly, we found significant treatment effects on five of the eight executive functioning scales (i.e., Shift, Emotional Control, Plan/Organize, Organization of Materials, and Task Completion) and on one of the five feelings of connectedness scales (i.e., Classmate Support). These treatment effects also exceed the findings from a past SSS study that considered identical constructs using the small‐group‐counseling component of the SSS program (see Lemberger & Clemens, ).…”

“…In a study of the effects of the SSS small‐group‐counseling component on inner‐city African American elementary school students, Lemberger and Clemens () also adopted self‐regulation and feelings of connectedness as their outcomes. Using a teacher‐report version of the BRIEF (as opposed to a student self‐report), they found significant effects for only the Working Memory, Plan, and Organization of Materials scales.…”

Effective Teachers

“…The onus is on teachers to resist the temptation to use the excuses that blame family of origin, socioeconomic factors, or academic readiness for the lack of student performance. King Miller (2013) offered research on the academic success and progress of African American students that resulted in the following: (a) African American students need to feel valued and have their ethnicity and culture validated (Harris & Marsh, 2010;Ladson-Billings, 1995a;Lynn, Bacon, Totten, Bridges, & Jennings, 2010), (b) teachers need to have high expectations for student success (Cholewa, Amatea, West-Olatunji, & Wright, 2012;Lynn et al, 2010;Tucker, Dixon, & Griddine, 2010;Wiggan, 2007), and (c) African American students need to experience connections with their teachers, their classrooms, and their school (Lemberger & Clemens, 2012;Li & Hasan, 2010;Wiggan, 2007).…”

Classroom Management and Student Achievement: A Study on Five Elementary Classrooms

“…Expectations and pursuit of different groups such as students, families and educators in terms of achievement have resulted in various studies by researchers focusing on the factors that explain student achievement. Several studies that focus on student achievement address topics such as the effects of teacher or familial expectations on student achievement (Phillipson and Phillipson, 2012;Segedin, 2012), relationship between achievement and the period allocated to learning (Özer and Anıl, 2011;Savaş and Gürel, 2014) and effects of feelings such as belonging to school and being accepted at school on achievement (Lemberger and Clemens, 2012;Kosir and Tement, 2013). However, when it comes to student achievement, the emphasis is on teachers since teacher qualification is a more important factor compared to other school factors in increasing student achievement (Akiba, Le Tendre and Scribner, 2007) and since the proof has been presented about the strong relationship between teacher generated classroom climate and teaching methods, which may be classified as classroom methods, and student achievement by various researchers (Wang, Haertel and Walberg, 1994;Wright, Horn and Sanders, 1997).…”