Effect of Instruction with the Self-Determined Learning Model of Instruction on Students with Disabilities: A Meta-Analysis

The Self-Determined Learning Model of Instruction (SDLMI) has been identified as an evidence-based practice to support educators to teach students with disabilities to engage in self-regulated learning leading to enhanced self-determination, attainment of academic and functional goals, and enhanced access to the general education curriculum. This article reports the results of a meta-analysis of the efficacy of applying the SDLMI as an intervention to enhance access to the general education curriculum or transition-related outcomes. Fifteen single-subject research studies examining the efficacy of the SDLMI as an intervention for students with disabilities were synthesized and the impact was analyzed across intervention and participants’ characteristics using the percentage of non-overlapping data (PND) metric. The results of this analysis add to the evidence for the efficacy of implementing the SDLMI as an intervention to promote academic and functional goal attainment for students with disabilities. Implications and directions for future research are discussed. Promoting self-determination has received attention from practitioners and researchers in special education and related disciplines as a means to enhance access to the general education curriculum for students with disabilities as well as to promote more positive transitionrelated outcomes for these youth (Agran et al., 2005; Lee, Wehmeyer, Palmer, Soukup, & Little, 2008; Palmer, Wehmeyer, Gipson, & Agran, 2004; Ward & Kohler, 1996; Wehmeyer, 2007; Wehmeyer, Field, Doren, Jones, & Mason, 2004). Although there have been significant progress in recognition of the importance of self-determination to more positive outcomes for students with disabilities among practitioners, there remains a need to translate knowledge-to-practice about methods, materials, and strategies educators can use to promote the self-determination of students disabilities (Agran, Snow, & Swaner, 1999; Lee, 2009a; Wehmeyer, Agran, & Hughes, 2000). Much of the research on teacher knowledge about and awareness of self-determination has been in the U.S., but research in Korea, where efforts to promote self-determination have been given considerable attention (Bae & Wehmeyer, 2003; S. H. Lee & Wehmeyer, 2004, 2007; Y. Lee & Wehmeyer, 2008; Seo et al., 2012) suggests a similar situation. Lee (2009b) investigated perceptions of and issues pertaining to the selfdetermination of students with disabilities and on instructional practices related to self-determination through in-depth interviews with 17 special education teachers and 10 parents of students with disabilities. The results supported an ongoing need to provide teachers and parents with opportunities to learn about the concept of self-determination and how to promote the self-determination of students with disabilities. That promoting self-determination is important to students with disabilities is now a matter of evidence and not just speculation. Wehmeyer and colleagues (Shogren, Wehmeyer, Palmer, Rifenbark, & Little, 2015; Wehmeyer, Palmer, Shogren, Williams-Diehm, & Soukup, 2013) This work was supported by the National Research Foundation of Korea Grant funded by the Korean Government (NRF-2012S1A5A8023175). Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Suk-Hyang Lee, College of Education and Global Top5 Research Program, Ewha Womans University, 52, Ewhayeodae-gil, Seodaemun-gu, Seoul, 120–750, KOREA. E-mail: [email protected] Education and Training in Autism and Developmental Disabilities, 2015, 50(2), 237–247 © Division on Autism and Developmental Disabilities SDLMI for Students with Disabilities / 237 conducted a randomized trial control group study of the effect of interventions to promote self-determination on the self-determination of high school students receiving special education services under the categorical areas of intellectual disability and learning disabilities. Students in the treatment group (n 235) received instruction using a variety of instructional methods to promote self-determination and student involvement in educational planning meetings over three years---which will be detailed in a subsequent section---while students in the control group (n 132) received no such intervention. The self-determination of each student was measured using two norm referenced measures of self-determination across three measurement intervals (At Baseline, After 2 Years of Intervention, After 3 Years of Intervention). Using latent growth curve analysis, Wehmeyer and colleagues (2013) determined that students with cognitive disabilities who participated in interventions to promote self-determination over a three-year period showed significantly more positive patterns of growth in their self-determination scores than did students not exposed to interventions to promote self-determination. Subsequently, in a follow-up study of the treatment and control group students from Wehmeyer et al. (2013), Shogren et al. (2015) investigated adult outcomes one and two years after leaving school. The study measured employment, community access, financial independence, independent living, and life satisfaction outcomes. Results indicated that self-determination status at the end of high school predicted significantly more positive employment, career goal, and community access outcomes. Students who were self-determined were significantly higher in all of these areas. These two studies provided causal evidence that promoting selfdetermination results in enhanced self-determination, and that enhanced self-determination results in more positive adult outcomes, including employment and community inclusion, and emphasize the need to get information about evidence-based practices into the hands of teachers. One evidence-based intervention shown to improve student self-determination, access to the general education curriculum, and academic and transition goal attainment is the Self-Determined Learning Model of Instruction (SDLMI; Mithaug, Wehmeyer, Agran, Martin, & Palmer, 1998; Wehmeyer, Palmer, Agran, Mithaug, & Martin, 2000). The SDLMI is a model of instruction designed to enable teachers to support students to engage in self-regulated and self-directed learning. The SDLMI involves the use of self-regulated problem solving leading to the establishment of self-set goals, action plans to achieve those goals, and self-monitoring and self-evaluation activities to enable students to adjust plans and goals to attain the goal. The model was developed based on the component elements of self-determined behavior, the process of self-regulated problem solving, and research on student-directed learning (Wehmeyer et al., 2000). It is appropriate for use with students with and without disabilities across a wide range of content areas, and enables teachers to engage students in the totality of their educational program by increasing opportunities to self-direct learning and, in the process, to enhance student self-determination. Implementation of the model consists of a three-phase instructional process: Set a goal (Phase 1), Take action (Phase 2), and Adjust goal or plan (Phase 3). Each instructional phase presents a problem to be solved by the student (What is my goal? What is my plan? Have I achieved my goal?). The student solves each problem by posing and answering a series of four Student Questions per phase that students learn, modify to make their own, and apply to reach self-set goals. Each student question is linked to a set of Teacher Objectives that, in essence, describe the outcomes desired by having the student answer the question. Each instructional phase includes a list of Educational Supports that teachers can implement to enable students to self-direct learning. In each instructional phase, the student is the primary agent for choices, decisions, and actions, even when eventual actions are teacher-directed. More than a dozen quasi-experimental or single-subject design studies have shown the potential efficacy of the SDLMI to promote self-determination and goal attainment (Wehmeyer, Abery, Mithaug, & Stancliffe, 2003). Two recent studies establish the SDLMI as an evidence-based practice. Wehmeyer et al. (2012) conducted a switching replication, randomized trial control group study on the impact of intervention with the SDLMI on student self-determination. Data on self-determination using multiple measures was collected 238 / Education and Training in Autism and Developmental Disabilities-June 2015 with 312 high school students with cognitive disabilities in both a control and treatment group. Wehmeyer and colleagues examined the relationship between the SDLMI and self-determination using structural equation modeling. After determining strong measurement invariance for each latent construct, these researchers found significant differences in latent means across measurement occasions and differential effects attributable to the SDLMI. This was true across disability category, though there was variance across disability populations. In other words, instruction using the SDLMI resulted in enhanced self-determination. Next, Shogren, Palmer, Wehmeyer, Williams-Diehm, and Little (2012) reported findings from a cluster or group randomized trial control group study examining the impact of the SDLMI on student academic and transition goal attainment and access to the general education curriculum for students with intellectual disability and learning disabilities. Students in the treatment group had significantly higher levels of goal attainment and access to the general education curriculum than their peers in the control group. As noted previously, studies using SDLMI as an intervention have been conducted not only in the U.S and but also Korea and have reported positive effects of SDLMI for students with disabilities (Agran, Wehmeyer, Cavin, & Palmer, 2010; Benitez, Lattimore, & Wehmeyer, 2005; Jung & Lee, 2012; Kim & Paik, 2011; Kim & Park, 2012; Lee, 2008; Mazzotti, Test, & Wood, 2012; McGlashing-Johnson, Agran, Sitlington, Cavin, & Wehmeyer, 2003; Park & Kang, 2011; Shogren et al., 2012; Wehmeyer et al., 2012). To contribute to the knowledge base with regard to the efficacy of the SDLMI, and to provide greater confidence for educators to implement this instructional model, the present study sought to examine the efficacy of the SDLMI from single-case design studies conducted across two countries, the U.S. and Korea, using meta analytic techniques.