Components of Self-Management: Goal Setting

Components of Self-Management
1: Goal Setting

In many educational settings, teachers, speech therapists, ABA therapists, and other educators choose and set goals for their students. Students may also be active participants in the goals setting process, which may increase student academic performance. In a 2006 research study conducted by Gureasko-Moore, DuPaul, and White, students were asked to record the problems that they were having with classroom preparation behaviors (such as coming to class on time with the necessary materials). The students made a checklist of solutions to these problems and decided how many they would complete the first week. Improvements were made over the 4 weeks of the study.

When teaching goal-setting to students, there are several points to keep in mind:

•Goals should be specific.
•Goals should be challenging, but achievable.
•The attainment of goals, at least in the early stages of learning, should be immediate, rather than far-off.
•Teachers should provide feedback about success of goal achievement.
•Students may need specific instruction on how to set goals that may include modeling of teacher and peer examples and/or Social StoriesTM (http://www.thegraycenter.org/social-stories ).

Bottom line: when students are active participants in setting goals for themselves, it may increase the likelihood that they achieve their goals. It also may increase their independence in setting goals for themselves, a skill that they can continue to use after they leave the classroom.