Self-management by teachers: Improving instructional decision making.

Abstract

Teacher self-evaluation and self-recording were introduced in a multiple-baseline-acrosssubjects design to improve estimation of trend on graphs of student performance and to make more successful decisions regarding changes in instruction. Improvement in assessment of trend was evident for two teachers, and improvement in using trend to make decisions to change instruction occurred for all three teachers. The self-monitoring package immediately increased teachers' implementation of the procedures designed to improve service quality. Teachers maintained their use of the procedures after one session of training in selfmonitoring. The potential of self-management to improve and maintain teacher behavior is discussed.Increased pressure is being placed on educational systems to demonstrate the impact of their services. Instituting and maintaining procedures that improve instructional decisions and that can be monitored effectively and efficiently pose a series of problems for the school psychologist or counselor who provides behavioral consultation. The first problem is how to institute new procedures in a service setting. Researchers have changed and maintained teacher behavior in applied settings through the use of oral and/or written directions and feedback given by a supervisor (Cooper, Thomson, &

Teacher Use of Student Performance Data to Make Instructional Decisions: Practices in Programs for Students with Moderate to Profound Disabilities

“…Twenty-six of the 31 teachers in the replication study said they needed less planning time when they used the rules, and 29 teachers planned to continue using the rules. Browder, Liberty, Heller, and D'Huyvettes (1986) adapted the Haring et al (1980) rules for use with nonrate, task analytic data. They found that teacher accuracy improved, and rule-based decisions resulted in substantially more progress than nonrule-based decisions.…”

“…Some researchers recom mend the use of rate data (Billingsley & Liberty, 1982), some recommend accuracy data (Browder et al, 1986), and others advocate analysis of error patterns (Horner, Bellamy, & Colvin, 1984) as the basis for instructional decisions. Data analysis practices also differ in terms of the judgment aids employed to view graphs during decision making.…”

An in Vivo Evaluation of the Use of Data-Based Rules to Guide Instructional Decisions

“…Second, when teachers use a standard method of graphing data (a typical component of data-based decision making), the time required for data review can be reduced (Lindsley, 1971;White, 1986). Third, and most important, follow ing data-based rules to make instructional decisions can enhance student progress (Browder, Liberty, Heller, & D'Huyvetters, 1986;Haring, Liberty, & White, 1981).…”

“…In a comprehensive review of decision rule systems, Liberty (1989) found 23 examples in the liter ature, 15 of which were related to instructional changes. Most of these 15 resources were the work of Haring, Liberty, and White (Haring, Liberty, & White, 1975, 1976, 1979a, 1979b, 1981, 1982 or stemmed from their work (Browder et al, 1986;Deno & Mirkin, 1977;McGreevy, 1983;Neel, Billingsley, & Lambert, 1983). Two exceptions that did not build on the work of Haring and colleagues were the guidelines for data-based deci sions proposed in the late 1970s by Fredericks et al (1979) and Tawney, Knapp, O'Reilly, and Pratt (1979).…”

“…Also, Marston (1988) recently found that predictions of student progress may be more accurate with equal interval rather than semilog graphs. Browder et al (1986) demonstrated an effective ap plication of these rules to equal interval graphs and then incorporated the rules in the graduate training and university-affiliated model program practices at Lehigh University (see Table 1). After 2 years of implementa tion with school-aged children and 1 year with adults, a program evaluation was conducted to determine how well the teachers were using the rules and the effective ness of the rules.…”