Volume_7_Issue_1_Digest

5 TPC Digest The Impact of Student Success Skills on Students’ Metacognitive Functioning in a Naturalistic School Setting Brett Zyromski, Melissa Mariani, Boyoung Kim, Sangmin Lee, John Carey 5 | TPC Digest Read full article and references: Zyromski, B., Mariani, M., Kim, B., Lee, S., & Carey, J. (2017). The impact of Student Success Skills on students’ metacognitive functioning in a naturalistic school setting. The Professional Counselor , 7, 33–44. doi : 10.15241/bz.7.1.33 T he Student Success Skills (SSS) is a scripted, manualized school counseling curriculum that has a designated sequencing, format and language provided to ensure fidelity of treatment. However, practitioners in schools often go off script or change up recommended delivery of lessons, which may lead to less favorable outcomes. SSS has had a strong evidence-base established over the past 20 years through multiple outcomes studies. It is a school counselor-delivered, social-emotional learning intervention that is designed to support students by teaching them three integral skill sets: (a) cognitive and metacognitive skills (e.g., goal setting, progress monitoring and memory skills); (b) social skills (e.g., interpersonal skills, social problem solving, listening and teamwork skills); and (c) self-regulation skills (e.g., managing attention, motivation and anger). The purpose of this study was to evaluate the impact of the SSS school counseling curriculum delivered in a naturalistic setting on students’ metacognitive functioning. In this case, the authors use the term naturalistic setting to describe a typical school environment, one which lacks the additional supports (e.g., hiring national trainers) that would be present in a more controlled research study. The primary evaluation question was: When implemented in a naturalistic setting , does SSS impact students’ metacognitive functioning, as determined by (1) knowledge and regulation of cognition and (2) use of skills related to self-direction of learning, support of classmates’ learning and self-regulation of arousal? The secondary question was: Does the magnitude of any changes in metacognitive functioning depend on the degree to which SSS was implemented with fidelity? The results of the present study indicated that SSS, even when implemented in a naturalistic school setting (as opposed to a highly controlled setting), can have a positive impact on students’ abilities to regulate their emotional arousal. The magnitude of the overall impact of SSS on students’ ability to regulate arousal appears to be relatively small. Readers should note though that this effect size was computed based on students in the general population, not students experiencing difficulties with emotional self-regulation. It is likely that SSS would have had a larger estimated effect size if the target group of participants were those who had emotional self-regulation difficulties. However, the SSS curriculum positively impacted student outcomes even when the program was not followed as designed. Though practitioners are encouraged to follow the manual and schedule as recommended, the results are encouraging in that impacts can still be found even if practitioners modify the design. Brett Zyromski is an Assistant Professor at The Ohio State University. Melissa Mariani is an Assistant Professor at Florida Atlantic University. Boyoung Kim is a Research Professor at Korea University. Sangmin Lee is an Associate Professor at Korea University. John Carey is a Professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. This project was supported by an Elementary and Secondary School Counseling Demonstration Grant project from the Department of Education, no. S215E13422. Correspondence can be addressed to Brett Zyromski, Department of Educational Studies, Counselor Education, PAES Building, 305 W. 17th Ave., Columbus, OH, zyromski.1@osu.edu.