Abstract
This paper postulates that psychology can make an important contribution at an individual level to help children with school failure problems in a context where too little applied research has been conducted on the instructional needs of these children. Some data are analyzed, revealing that, despite some progress, school failure is still a main educational problem in many countries. In this study, Behavioral Skills Training (BST) was applied in Portugal to train children with school failure difficulties. BST is a method based on Applied Behavior Analysis, a teaching package consisting of a combination of behavioral techniques: instructions, modeling, rehearsal, and feedback. Two empirical studies are presented. Their main purpose was to develop behavioral diagnostic and training techniques to teach lacking skills. School success was defined in terms of a set of skills proposed by teachers and school failure as a lack of one or more of these skills. The main instrument was a package of training programs to be applied in three areas: basic behavior (precurrents), academic behavior, or social behavior. The second instrument is a package of check-lists, aimed to determine the level of performance of the child in an area. This check-list was applied before (pre-test) and after (post-test) training. In the first study, 16, 7- to 8-year old children were trained. They were attending the second or third grades and having academic difficulties of different origins. The effects of the training programs are evaluated in terms of percentage of attained objectives, comparing a pre- and a post-test. The results showed an increase in correct responses after training in all cases. To provide a sounder demonstration of the efficacy of the training programs, a second study was carried out using a quasi-experimental design. A multiple baseline design was applied to three 10- to 11-year-old children, referred by teachers because of learning difficulties in the fourth grade. Results showed few performance changes without training. Increases in behavior following BST were evident in all cases, indicating that training generated improvement in all three children. In both studies, comparable results occurred across students, demonstrating replication of the effects of the training programs.
Highlights
There are several definitions of school failure. Fernandez Enguita et al (2010, p. 18) propose one, which is adequate to our purposes:. . . school failure is the situation of the student who, in trying to achieve the minimum objectives set forth by the institution, (. . . ) fails to do so and withdraws after having been categorized as a failure. . .in this article a pragmatic working definition has been chosen: children with school failure are those referred by the teachers because they have repeated grades at least once or because they are currently at risk of having to repeat a grade.School failure is a main educational problem in Portugal
The data show the positive and negative aspects of the training programs. It seems that all training programs led to increased correct responses in all children, in a relatively short time (8–20 h of training)
This is to say that the multiple baseline analysis indicated that changes from baseline levels occurred only when training was directed to a specific child
Summary
There are several definitions of school failure. Fernandez Enguita et al (2010, p. 18) propose one, which is adequate to our purposes:. . . school failure is the situation of the student who, in trying to achieve the minimum objectives set forth by the institution, (. . . ) fails to do so and withdraws after having been categorized as a failure. . .in this article a pragmatic working definition has been chosen: children with school failure are those referred by the teachers because they have repeated grades at least once or because they are currently at risk of having to repeat a grade.School failure is a main educational problem in Portugal. There are several definitions of school failure. ) fails to do so and withdraws after having been categorized as a failure. In this article a pragmatic working definition has been chosen: children with school failure are those referred by the teachers because they have repeated grades at least once or because they are currently at risk of having to repeat a grade. School failure is a main educational problem in Portugal. 39) show that Portugal has one of the highest rates of early school leaving (as measured by the number of individuals 18–24 years of age that did not finish school and do not attend school for each 100 individuals of the same age). In spite of improvements since 2005, early school leaving is still a main problem in Portugal. Fourteen 14% of people between 18 and 24 years who have not finished have, quit attending
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