Academic Interventions

Abstract

Academic interventions aim to positively impact the behaviors and attitudes of students deemed to be at-risk in the school environment. "At-risk" status for school-age children is defined as "the risk of education failure, as indicated by poor grades, truancy, disruptive behavior, pregnancy, or similar factors associated with temporary or permanent withdrawal from school" (Kleiner, Porch, & Farris, 2002, p. 3). The array of potential causes for students' at-risk academic status almost necessitates that, in the public school context at least, a variety of school personnel be involved in creating and implementing academic interventions. Regular and special education teachers, school counselors, school psychologists, and others such as reading specialists and speech therapists may all play a role. Students and their families are involved in the process as well.

Overview

Academic interventions aim to positively impact the behaviors and attitudes of students deemed to be at-risk in the school environment. "At-risk" status for school-age children is defined as "the risk of education failure, as indicated by poor grades, truancy, disruptive behavior, pregnancy, or similar factors associated with temporary or permanent withdrawal from school" (Kleiner, Porch, & Farris, 2002, p. 3).

Causes of At-Risk Status. Daly, Witt, Martens, and Dool note that some students are academically at-risk or already failing because of one or more of the following:

• A lack of motivation
• Inadequate amount of time devoted to required tasks
• Receiving limited help from others
• Being unfamiliar with the material
• Encountering difficult tasks

It may also be the case that students encountering academic challenges at school may have one or more disabilities of learning, emotional or physical health, or intellectual functioning.

Wells also identified a variety of situations which put youth at risk including school related factors (conflict between school/home culture, poor counseling, irrelevant curriculum), student related factors (bad attitude, pregnancy, drugs), community related factors (lack of community support or services, crime), and family related factors (dysfunctional home life, absent parents, language barrier).

The array of potential causes for students' at-risk academic status almost necessitates that, in the public school context, a variety of school personnel be involved in creating and implementing academic interventions. Regular and special education teachers, school counselors, school psychologists, and others such as reading specialists and speech therapists may all play a role. Students and their families are involved in the process as well.

Types of Interventions. It is helpful to think about academic interventions as belonging to at least one of the following categories:

• Antecedent-based
• Consequent-based
• Peer-mediated
• Adult-mediated
• Child-mediated, or self-regulatory, interventions

An intervention may also be a combination of one or more of the above types.

In antecedent-based interventions, actions are taken before an outcome is measured. Consequent-based interventions entail taking some action when a specific behavior is observed. Peer-mediated interventions involve students' peers acting in supportive ways or monitoring other students' behaviors. Adult-mediated interventions have parents, teachers, and/or other adults acting as supports or behavior monitors to students. Self-regulatory, or self-management, interventions consist of students monitoring their feelings and behaviors to achieve goals. They are also known as child-mediated interventions.

Applications

Peer-Mediated Academic Interventions. Some well-known peer-mediated academic interventions include cooperative learning, peer modeling, social skills training, and peer tutoring. Cooperative learning brings students of diverse abilities together to work on a project. Each student oversees one aspect of the project but must cooperate with one another to achieve the larger goal. Peer modeling entails providing training to a student in a particular area and asking that student to model the related behaviors in the presence of peers who need to develop those skills. The teacher calls attention to the peer model and explains the appropriate behaviors being modeled for the other peer. Peer tutoring includes reciprocal tutoring between peers, can involve students of different ages such that an older student tutors a younger student, or can be a classroom endeavor where all students in a class pair up so that everyone is a part of a class wide student tutoring team (CSTT).

In their review of studies of peer-assisted learning (PAL) interventions, Rohrbeck, Ginsburg-Block, Fantuzzo, & Miller found that in PAL interventions with elementary school students, children worked with peers in pairs or in small groups at similar rates of frequency. Most studies involved students tutoring peers of the same age but with different ability levels, (cross-ability). According to Rohrbeck et al., PAL interventions were most effective with students in first through third grades than with students in higher elementary grades. Further, studies in the early 2020s found that peer-mediated interventions were highly successful for students with autism spectrum disorder in enhancing learning and social outcomes.

Adult-Mediated Interventions. Adult-mediated interventions regularly incorporate antecedent-based and consequent-based interventions. Teacher-mediated interventions such as providing one-on-one or small group academic tutoring to students or modifying the classroom environment in some way (e.g., moving a student's seat) are examples of antecedent-based intervention. Teachers take proactive action to promote certain behaviors.

Another example of an antecedent-based intervention mediated by teachers in the classroom involves an attempt to promote literacy acquisition with younger children. Good, Simmons, and Smith describe the facets of a successful early intervention focused on phonological awareness, an integral aspect of reading skill, for students in first through third grade. Along with instruction on phonemes, the intervention incorporated scaffolding, where each successive task was presented in order of increasing difficulty once the previous task was successfully accomplished, and modeling of skills for students. Students practiced skills until they had added them to their repertoire. Further instruction built upon the acquired skills by connecting phonological awareness to letters and then sounds. Reading skills were bolstered before students could fall behind and then have more difficulty catching up to more advanced peers.

As for consequent-based interventions mediated by adults, many examples are found in the research, including:

• Token economies in which teachers reinforce students based on the behavior they display.
• Home-school collaboration illustrates another consequent-based academic intervention that is adult-mediated. Cox reviewed studies that investigated the effectiveness of parents and school personnel working together to benefit students. The outcomes studied most often were academic performance and school behavior. Participants in the studies reviewed ranged in age from four to sixteen and were mostly lower income, African American students. In one of the most effective home-school interventions, parents acted as partners to school personnel by reinforcing the same target behaviors at home that school personnel reinforced at school.
• School-to-Home notes serve to notify parents of students' daily behavior and schoolwork. School-to-home notes facilitated communication between school personnel and parents. Students reported an increase in the amount of time they spent reading and parents became more involved at school due to their feeling more comfortable in the school setting.

Teachers may also use a functional behavior analysis to create effective classroom interventions for addressing poor academic performance by students. Daly et al. suggest teachers conduct a curriculum-based assessment of various academic skills to determine the level at which students are currently performing. Once that baseline is obtained, hypotheses for why some students are not performing well (for example, not devoting enough time to the task) would be tested by implementing an intervention, such as providing the student with more time to practice the task. Another assessment would indicate whether the intervention has been successful or needs to be further adapted.

Child-Mediated, or Self-Management Interventions. According to Mooney, Ryan, Uhing, Reid, & Epstein, the most frequently used self-management interventions are self-monitoring, self-evaluation, self-instruction, goal-setting, and strategy instruction.

• Self-monitoring requires student awareness of the occurrence of a specific behavior and subsequent recording of that behavior.
• As part of self-evaluation a student examines their target behavior in relation to a previously set standard and is subsequently reinforced (or not) for that behavior.
• Self-instruction involves the student teaching themselves using self-statements.
• Goal-setting finds the student aiming for an objective that helps frame and encourage the academic behavior(s) to be used.
• Finally, strategy instruction entails teaching students how to reach academic goals on their own by specifying the necessary techniques.

Combination Interventions. An example of an intervention that is both adult- and peer-mediated is small-group counseling. Steen and Kaffenberger describe how school counselors used a series of small groups comprised of elementary school-age children to enhance behaviors related to academic success. Groups met between eight to ten times and focused on topics such as students' perceptions of themselves academically and skills related to academic achievement. Examples of activities in which students participated during the small group intervention were bibliotherapy and role-playing. Learning behavior was assessed prior to and after the small group intervention. Both teachers and students reported that learning behaviors increased after student participation in the small group intervention.

When attempts to use any number of the interventions described above have not been successful and students remain academically at-risk or failing, a referral is often made for evaluation for special education services.

Issues

Special Education. In 1975, what is now known as the Individual with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) became law. As a result of IDEA, all children, despite disability, were to receive a free and appropriate public-school education. Integral aspects of special education are the development and implementation of an Individualized Education Plan (or IEP) and delivery of services to students in the least restrictive environment. IEPs are important documents that must detail current academic functioning, short- and long-range (i.e., yearly) goals, services to be delivered, expectations for how much time will be spent in regular education, and methods for measuring progress.

For students with disabilities, the least restrictive environment is the setting in which these students receive appropriate services while spending as much time as possible in the regular education classroom. Depending on the nature and severity of a student's disability, the regular education classroom may not be the appropriate setting for a student to receive special education services. In those instances, students may be pulled out of the general education class and placed in a resource room or special education classroom.

Across the settings where students received special education services in the 2021-2022 school year, the following disabilities were most prevalent—specific learning disabilities (LD), speech or language impairments, other health impairment, autism spectrum disorder, developmental delay, intellectual disabilities, emotional disturbance (ED) or emotional and behavioral disorders (EBD), and hearing impairment.

A specific learning disability, "is a disorder in one or more of the basic psychological processes involved in understanding or using spoken or written language that may manifest itself in an imperfect ability to listen, think, speak, read, write, spell, or do mathematical calculations " (National Center for Education Statistics, 2023). Emotional disturbance significantly and negatively impacts student academic functioning due to the presence of at least one of these disorders—impaired learning and interpersonal interactions, distressed mood, somatic and anxious symptoms, and unusual behavior or feelings.

Determining Learning Disability. An issue relevant to academic interventions for students in public schools is the determination of a specific learning disability (LD). Debate exists as to how to define LD due to removal of language in reference to a "severe discrepancy" between ability and achievement as of the 2004 version of IDEA. According to the discrepancy model, a LD arises when academic achievement is significantly lower than intellectual ability as measured by IQ and achievement tests.

An alternate method of determining LD is Response to Intervention (RTI). RTI is a multi-step process where teachers notice when a student within the regular classroom is encountering academic challenges. The student takes part in an intervention that targets the areas in which they are at-risk. If the student continues to struggle at this level of intervention, an even more involved intervention may be implemented. Continued struggles by the students at this point would indicate a learning disability.

Further Insights

Effective Academic Interventions for Students with Disabilities. What are the different academic interventions used with students with disabilities? And how effective are they? Several reviews offer insight into these questions.

Students with ADHD. Trout et al. reviewed studies of non-medical interventions for school-age students with ADHD. These interventions took place most often in general education classrooms with mostly male students between the ages of seven to fourteen. The vast majority focused on improving reading skills with over half also targeting math skills. Consequent-based and peer-mediated interventions had the most positive effect on academic achievement for students with ADHD. Antecedent-based interventions, such as tutoring, comprised the largest group of interventions and were quite effective when focused on academic outcomes. The large effects that self-regulatory interventions showed with students were more relevant to non-school based settings.

Students with Emotional and Behavioral Disorders. Ryan et al. reviewed peer-mediated interventions for students with EBD with an emphasis on those that promote academic achievement. Students were mostly male adolescents though some were elementary school age children. Approximately 70 percent of the peer-mediated interventions in public schools were found to have taken place in self-contained classrooms, or classrooms comprised only of students with EBD. The remaining 30 percent of peer-mediated interventions took place in regular education classrooms. Improvement was observed in several academic content areas, as evidenced by large effect sizes, for children and adolescents with EBD that participated in peer-mediated interventions.

In their review of studies where self-management interventions for academic behaviors were used with EBD students Mooney et al. found that goal setting was implemented least often and self-monitoring and self-instruction practiced most frequently. Additionally, self-management interventions had sizable effects on academic outcomes such as math and reading for EBD students. Students ranged in grade from kindergarten through twelfth grade with more males than females in the study populations. Again, it is important to note that almost three-quarters of the studies reviewed were set in public schools but within these settings none were conducted in general education classrooms.

Students with Emotional Disturbance. In a comparison of child-mediated (or self-management), peer-mediated, teacher-mediated, or combination interventions on academic outcomes for students with emotional disturbance (ED), Mooney et al. found that over the almost thirty years of studies reviewed teacher-mediated interventions, such as token economies, were used most often. Most of the students participating in the studies were male and between the ages of twelve to eighteen. Almost 70 percent of the interventions targeted reading and math skills. The setting for the interventions was often the special education classroom and rarely in the general education classroom.

For a small, but growing, group of students, academic intervention in public schools may involve placement (temporary or long-term) in public alternative schools.

Public Alternative Schools. Public alternative schools have become more commonly used options for students who are at-risk for or already failing in public schools. Kleiner, Porch and Farris (2002) surveyed approximately 1,500 public school districts comprising a nationally representative sample and found that almost 40 percent of districts had alternative schools or programs for at-risk students. Districts characterized as being urban, large in size, located in the Southeast, and with higher proportions of poor or racial and ethnic minority students were more likely to have alternative schools for at-risk students. Kleiner et al. found that slightly over one percent of public school students attended alternative public schools. Regarding the population of students with disabilities in alternative schools, only 12 percent of students in alternative schools were special education students. Alternative schools were available to students across grade level. Between 10–20 percent of districts had alternative schools at the elementary school level. From 46–67 percent of districts had alternative schools for middle school students. Alternative schools for high school students were present in 88–92 percent of public school districts.

In 2020, 36,377 alternative schools were available in the US. Of these, 31,503 were public and accommodated around 200 students each. These schools allow students more freedom to make good choices and offer a group-based approach to address education and behavioral issues.

When students are placed in alternative schools the goal is to intervene so that students will be able to work toward landmarks of educational attainment, such as the high school diploma, in a way they were unable to do in the regular public school setting. Accordingly, over 90 percent of the districts with alternative schools provided a regular high school diploma curriculum to students in alternative schools. Additional services delivered to alternative school students by approximately 80 percent of districts were:

• Academic counseling (87 percent)
• Smaller class sizes (85 percent)
• Remedial instruction (84 percent)
• Self-paced instruction (83 percent)
• Career counseling (79 percent)
• Crisis/behavior interventions (79 percent)

Researchers have continued to study which services are most beneficial in the setting of alternative schools, especially as the number of alternative schools has continued to increase in the country. As was pointed out in a 2016 literature review of the topic, a team from the National Center for Education Statistics had reported in 2010 that 64 percent of school districts had at least one alternative school administered by the district. The authors also pointed out that increased attention was brought to the subject of accountability regarding students attending alternative schools following the passage of the 2015 Every Student Succeeds Act.

Intervention for Gifted Students. Often, students who are thought to benefit the most from academic interventions, such as students in alternative schools or students with learning or other disabilities, are students who evidence lower levels of academic achievement or are not meeting academic expectations. High ability students, such as gifted students, can benefit from academic interventions as well and for several reasons. First, general education classrooms might not provide gifted students with the type of curriculum or services that they need to reach their potential. Academic intervention for the gifted such as pull-out programs, where students receive enrichment outside of their regular classroom for part of the day, and acceleration, or grade-skipping, may help in this regard. Second, gifted students can have "multiple exceptionalities" (Pfeiffer, 2001, p. 177) such that high intellectual ability may exist alongside disabilities that impact their learning. Disabilities may mask a gifted student's full potential. Conversely, gifted students' ability may mask the presence of a disability. More research is needed exploring the relationship between giftedness, disability, and academic interventions.

Conclusion

Academic interventions for students at-risk or already failing can be carried out by a variety of interested parties in the school setting—student, students' peers, and/or teachers, parents, or other adults. Many self-management, peer-mediated, and adult-mediated interventions, and combinations of each, exist to be used in the promotion of academic achievement for youth across the age and ability spectrum. Self-monitoring activities, peer tutoring, and home-school collaborations are just a few examples of academic interventions that can be implemented in public schools as a way to reach students academically at-risk.

More studies must be conducted that focus on academic interventions with EBD students. This statement can be generalized beyond the EBD student population to include all students with (or without) disabilities found to be academically at-risk or already failing. Much of the research on school-based interventions addresses problem behavior in the classroom or school setting. Given that the purpose of schooling is to educate students, more needs to be known about interventions that are directed at the improvement of academic behaviors and outcomes.

Terms & Concepts

Adult-Mediated Intervention: Adult-mediated intervention is an intervention organized by adults, such as parents and teachers, aimed at influencing an outcome such as the academic behavior and skills of students. It includes home-school collaborations.

Antecedent-Based Intervention: Antecedent-based intervention is an intervention that changes some aspect of the student's environment prior to assessment of an outcome such as the academic behavior and skills of students. It includes classroom modifications.

Consequent-Based Intervention: Consequent-based intervention is an intervention that changes some aspect of the student's environment after an outcome related to the academic behavior and skills of students has been observed. It includes token economies.

Emotional Disturbance: Emotional disturbance is a disability where academic functioning is significantly and negatively impacted due to the presence of at least one of these disorders: impaired learning and interpersonal interactions, distressed mood, somatic and anxious symptoms, and unusual behavior or feelings. It may also be referred to as emotional and behavioral disorders (EBD).

Peer-Mediated Intervention: Peer-mediated intervention is an intervention using other students, or peers, to influence an outcome such as the academic behavior and skills of students. It includes peer tutoring and cooperative learning.

Self-Management Intervention: Self-management intervention is an intervention where the student acquires and uses specific skills or behaviors to achieve an outcome. It includes self-monitoring.

Special Education: Special education includes the provision of a variety of services in public schools so that all students, despite disability, receive a free and appropriate education.

Specific Learning Disability: A specific learning disability (LD) is a disorder of psychological processes that impacts comprehension or application of language and manifests in deficits in reading, writing, speaking, math, and other areas.

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Suggested Reading

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