POWER UP: A Persuasive Writing Strategy for Secondary Students with Emotional and Behavioral Disorders

Abstract

In the area of written expression, students with emotional and behavioral disorders (EBD) typically perform one to two grades below their same age, non-disabled peers. Unfortunately, there is a lack of research on writing interventions to improve these outcomes. The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of a persuasive writing strategy called POWER UP to improve the quality of persuasive essays for secondary students with EBD. The results suggest that a mnemonic strategy based on the Self-Regulated Strategy Development Model (SRSD) can improve the quality of persuasive writing essays for secondary students with EBD.

Effects of Writing Interventions on the Level and Trend of Total Words Written: A Meta-Analysis

“…Following quality recommendations (WWC, 2020), all studies except for two (Lavik, 2014;Lewandowski, 2011) met standards-with or without reservations-for minimum number of data points per phase and minimum number of phases. In most studies, 24 studies (57%), data collection was interrupted (i.e., no data were collected) during intervention, and baseline performance was compared with a postintervention phase (Ahn, 2017;Asaro-Saddler, 2014;Asaro-Saddler & Bak, 2012;Asaro-Saddler & Saddler, 2010;Bishop et al, 2015;Cerar, 2012;Dunn, 2012Dunn, , 2015Dunn & Miller, 2016;Evmenova et al, 2016;Garwood et al, 2019;Good, 2019;Hashey, 2015;Hoover et al, 2012;Hough et al, 2012;MacArthur & Philippakos, 2010;McKeown et al, 2015;Mong Cramer & Mason, 2014;Mourgkasi & Mavropoulou, 2018;Nordness et al, 2019;Ray et al, 2019;Saddler, 2006;Shen & Troia, 2018;Werunga, 2018). All studies except for one (Bauernschmidt, 1991) reported treatment fidelity.…”

“…Two studies reported IOA for other writing fluency metrics (Dunn, 2012;Lavik, 2014), and the remaining 14 studies used computer software (e.g., Microsoft Word) to determine TWW (Asaro-Saddler, 2014;Asaro-Saddler & Bak, 2012;Asaro-Saddler & Saddler, 2010;Dunn & Miller, 2016;Hashey, 2015;MacArthur & Philippakos, 2010;Mason et al, 2010Mason et al, , 2013Mong Cramer & Mason, 2014;Nordness et al, 2019;Ray et al, 2019;Regan et al, 2005;Shen & Troia, 2018;Southall, 2011).…”

“…There were a total of 27 acquisition studies (64%). Most acquisition studies featured a SRSD strategy to teach planning, writing, and revising an essay or narrative (Asaro- Saddler, 2014;Asaro-Saddler & Bak, 2012;Asaro-Sad-dler & Saddler, 2010;Caroll, 2018;Hashey, 2015;Levy, 2018;Lewandowski, 2011;MacArthur & Philippakos, 2010;Mourgkasi & Mavropoulou, 2018;Nordness et al, 2019;Ray et al, 2019;Saddler, 2006;Southall, 2011;Werunga, 2018). Several SRSD studies included multiple strategies for planning and/ or revising (McKeown et al, 2015;Shen & Troia, 2018), or SRSD was supplemented with visual supports, such as student-drawn pictures for planning (Dunn, 2012(Dunn, , 2015Dunn & Miller, 2016) and production of video selfmodels (Miller & Little, 2018).…”

“…Writing tasks with an extended time limit (i.e., >10 min) were administered in the majority of studies: They were administered in 24 studies (57%) with an average time limit of 26.2 min (SD = 10.9) and a range of 12 to 50 min (Ahn, 2017;Asaro-Saddler, 2014;Asaro-Saddler & Bak, 2012;Asaro-Saddler & Saddler, 2010;Bishop et al, 2015;Caroll, 2018;Dunn, 2012Dunn, , 2015Dunn & Miller, 2016;Evmenova et al, 2016;Gonzalez-Ledo et al, 2015;Good, 2019;Hashey, 2015;Hough et al, 2012;MacArthur & Philippakos, 2010;McKeown et al, 2015;Mourgkasi & Mavropoulou, 2018;Nordness et al, 2019;Ray et al, 2019;Regan et al, 2005;Saddler, 2006;Shen & Troia, 2018;Unzueta & Barbetta, 2012;Werunga, 2018).…”

“…Handwritten responses were most common, in 35 studies (83%), but students typed their responses in seven studies, or 17% of total studies (Ahn, 2017;Dunn & Miller, 2016;Evmenova et al, 2016;Good, 2019;Hashey, 2015;Nordness et al, 2019;Unzueta & Barbetta, 2012). In 18 studies (43%), handwritten student responses were later typed by researchers to ease data analysis and adjust for potential presentation effects (e.g., handwriting legibility) associated with scoring (Asaro- Saddler, 2014;Asaro-Saddler & Bak, 2012;Asaro-Saddler & Saddler, 2010;Caroll, 2018;Cerar, 2012;Mong Cramer & Mason, 2014;Hoover et al, 2012;Hough et al, 2012;MacArthur & Philippakos, 2010;Mason et al, 2010Mason et al, , 2013McKeown et al, 2015;Ray et al, 2019;Regan et al, 2005;Saddler, 2006;Shen & Troia, 2018;Southall, 2011;Werunga, 2018).…”