Students' perception of control at school and problem behavior and attitudes

Abstract

As part of a series of studies exploring perceived control at school, comparisons were made of students attending regular and special education programs. As expected, in contrast to regular education students, those in public school special education programs perceived themselves as having less control at school and reported lower levels of happiness. Special education students in a laboratory program emphasizing the enhancement of perceived control were found to have higher perceptions of control at school and more positive attitudes toward schooling than either of the public school samples. Significant positive relationships were found between perceived control at school and most of the indices of attitude, affect, and behavior for the regular education sample; these relationships were considerably weaker for the special education samples. Implications for further research and intervention practices are discussed.