Self-monitoring Conditions Research Articles

Increasing Compliance in Students With Intellectual Disabilities Using Functional Behavioral Assessment and Self-Monitoring

Noncompliance in three elementary age students with intellectual disabilities was assessed using functional behavioral assessments. Escape was identified as the primary function of the behavior in all three students, and access to tangible items was identified in one of the students as a secondary function. Teacher-monitoring and self-monitoring interventions were implemented within a multiple baseline design across three students to increase compliance. Results demonstrated that the intervention was effective and that all three students increased compliance during teacher-monitoring and self-monitoring conditions. These results are discussed in terms of recent research on function-based self-monitoring interventions.

The Effects of Self-Monitoring on Teachers’ Use of Specific Praise

Teachers typically enter the field with limited training in classroom management, and research demonstrates that training alone does not result in improved practice. Typically, researchers have relied on time-intensive training packages that include performance feedback to improve teachers’ use of classroom management practices; however, initial evidence suggests that self-management may be an effective and efficient alternative. In this study, the authors directly compared the effects of three different self-monitoring conditions (tally, count, and rate) and no self-monitoring on five middle school teachers’ rate of specific praise using an alternating treatments design. The authors also included baseline and follow-up phases to descriptively explore the effects of self-monitoring across time. Results indicate that noting each instance of specific praise by either tallying or using a counter resulted in optimal performance, and teachers preferred using a counter. Additional study results, limitations, and implications are discussed.

A comparison of remediation techniques on the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test in schizophrenia

A wealth of evidence has revealed that deficits on a commonly used measure of executive-function, the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST), can be improved through a variety of methods of instruction in patients with schizophrenia. Relatively little is known however, which of these remediation methods produce strongest and most durable effects and whether these effects generalize to other, untrained executive-function measures. Two of the most commonly studied methods for remediation on the WCST, step-by-step didactic instruction on the task and utilization of self-monitoring strategies, have both been shown to improve WCST performance, yet have never been directly compared. Thirty-four participants with schizophrenia were randomly assigned to one of three experimental conditions: Condition A consisted of didactic training which incorporated a detailed account of changing sorting principles throughout the test; Condition B consisted of a self-monitoring strategy that required that participants verbalize their strategies out loud after each card sort; Condition C was a non-trained control group that received the same outcome assessments as the two training groups at identical time intervals without intervening training. Patients were assessed with the WCST and two other executive-function tests immediately prior to training, immediately after training and at a 1-month follow-up. Results revealed: (1) participants assigned to the didactic and self-monitoring conditions made significant gains on the WCST relative to a no-intervention control condition; (2) the effects of self-monitoring, but not didactic training, were evident at a one-month follow-up; and (3) only participants assigned to the self-monitoring condition showed generalization to a second, non-trained measure of executive-function. The significance of these results for implementation of strategies for comprehensive and sustained programs of remediation are discussed.

Effects of Self-Monitoring on the On-Task Behavior and Written Language Performance of Elementary Students with Learning Disabilities

The present study was conducted to determine the effects of self-monitoring and a changing criterion with public posting phase on student on-task behavior and written language performance. Four elementary school boys participated and were enrolled in an urban-based, elementary-level resource room for students with learning disabilities. Self-monitoring procedures for on-task behavior included the students listening to a tone recorded at 60-s intervals and responding to the question, “Am I on-task?” Written language performance involved the students writing for a 10-min. session and counting and graphing the number of words written. During baseline conditions, student on-task behavior and written language performance were collected. During the self-monitoring conditions, the students monitored their on-task behavior and written language performance simultaneously. In the changing criterion with public posting condition, the students received their goal for the day's session prior to writing, wrote, and recorded whether they met their goal. While the results show a functional relationship between self-monitoring and on-task behavior, the data for the relationship between self-monitoring and written language performance were less compelling. A greater increase occurred when the changing criterion with public posting condition was introduced. Results suggest that self-monitoring changed on-task behavior; however, further research needs to be conducted to determine the conditions that would produce comparable effects for written language performance. Several implications for students and teachers and parent training were discussed.

The Psychological Effects of Counting Fetal Movements

By identifying a change in fetal activity state, fetal movement counting may help to reduce the possibility of stillbirth. Concern has arisen that such a focus on fetal activity may cause undue maternal anxiety. A prospective, controlled trial was conducted to determine whether fetal movement counting induced anxiety or other deleterious psychological effects in low-risk primigravidas. A sample of 613 healthy pregnant women was randomly assigned at 28 weeks' gestation to fetal movement counting, sleep recording, or a nonrecording control group. State and trait of anxiety, belief in sources of personal control, and attitudes toward pregnancy and infant were assessed at 28 and 37 weeks' gestation. Participation rates were high (91.4%) across all groups. Most women (90%) assigned to count fetal movements did so on a daily basis (95% of days). No significant changes in psychological status occurred in the three groups as a result of self-monitoring conditions. Independent of group assignment, all women showed a slight increase in transient state and decrease in trait of anxiety from 28 to 37 weeks. Internal locus of control and positive attitudes toward the infant increased slightly, and feelings of well-being decreased slightly for all women. It was concluded that women are willing to record fetal activity, and that fetal movement counting does not cause deleterious psychological effects in low-risk pregnant women.

Differential effects of self-monitoring attention, accuracy, and productivity.

Effects of self-monitoring on-task behavior, academic productivity, and academic accuracy were assessed with 6 elementary-school students with learning disabilities in their general education classroom using a mathematics task. Following baseline, the three self-monitoring conditions were introduced using a multiple schedule design during independent practice sessions. Although all three interventions yielded improvements in either arithmetic productivity, accuracy, or on-task behavior, self-monitoring academic productivity or accuracy was generally superior. Differential results were obtained across age groups: fourth graders' mathematics performance improved most when self-monitoring productivity, whereas sixth graders' performance improved most when self-monitoring accuracy.

A school-based treatment of chronic headaches in adolescents.

In a controlled group outcome study the efficacy of a self-help relaxation approach was compared with problem discussion and self-monitoring conditions. The subjects, 36 high school students, 16–18 years of age, suffering from tension and combined tension and migraine headaches, were treated during a 5-week period in their regular school settings. The results suggest that the self-help relaxation treatment improved all dimensions of the students' headache activity. The self-help relaxation training seems to be a promising, low-cost procedure in the treatment of chronic headaches in adolescents, worth considering in terms of practical utility and the minimal professinal assistance required.

Training children's self-control: A field experiment in self-monitoring and goal-setting in the classroom

A field experiment investigated the effects of training in self-monitoring and goal-setting skills on classroom study behavior and academic achievement among elementary school students in an individualized mathematics program. In the Self-Monitoring Conditions, students were shown a simple system for observing and maintaining daily records of their own study behavior during their math classes; orthogonally, in the Goal-Setting Conditions, students were shown a simple method of setting and recording daily performance goals during their math classes. Exposure to self-monitoring procedures produced significant increases in both appropriate study behavior and in actual achievement in the mathematics program, while exposure to goal-setting procedures had no effect on either study behavior or academic achievement. Nor, contrary to expectation, did exposure to the goal-setting instructions enhance the effectiveness of the self-monitoring system. The implications of these results in terms of implicit and explicit models of self-reinforcement processes were discussed.

Commitment and Voluntary Energy Conservation

Homeowners were interviewed and expected to be either personally identified (public commitment) or not identified (private commitment) as having agreed to attempt energy conservation. The response measure of energy usage was provided by utility-meter readings for the month following the interview. Homeowners under public commitment showed a lower rate of increase in the use levels for both natural gas (Experiment I) and electricity (Experiment II) than under private commitment or in the control (no interview condition). Results from a set of self-monitoring conditions suggested that conservation may be related to increased attention to energy use levels.