TPC Journal V7, Issue 1-FULL ISSUE

42 The Professional Counselor | Volume 7, Issue 1 While this study and the Lemberger et al. (2015) study both delivered the SSS classroom format, these studies differed in the instruments they used to measure students’ metacognitive functioning (the SESSS and Jr. MAI vs. the BRIEF). Differences in results may be related to differences in instrumentation or to differences in the delivery context (naturalistic vs. controlled). Limitations A limitation of this study is the use of a one-group pre-post design rather than a quasi-experimental design with a control group. Study researchers were constrained by the practical realities of the school environment, such that it was not feasible to implement SSS in such a way as to result in a comparison group. In addition, researchers were unable to locate similar schools that were willing to have students participate in a comparison group. Since it is not always feasible to employ a control group design, a one-group pre-post design may be used to attempt to replicate the findings of stronger research studies and can point to findings that need to be investigated later using stronger evaluation designs (D. T. Campbell & Stanley, 1963; Shadish, Cook & Campbell, 2001). The present evaluation, in fact, furthers the understanding of the effects of SSS and highlights directions for future research. The failure to collect data in some schools resulted in losses of both the Jr. MAI and the SESSS data. Corresponding complete pretest and posttest surveys were obtained from only 57% and 59% of participating students, respectively. While the lack of strong control over data collection can be thought of as an inherent problem in natural setting evaluations, care should be taken in future studies to strengthen data collection processes, as it is difficult to speculate on the impact of the loss of data in this study. Loss of data in smaller studies could be extremely harmful to the validity of the study. In the present study, there was no reason to believe that the loss of data was related to students’ reactivity to the intervention; however, it is possible that this loss impacted the results, and additional studies are needed to address this issue. Implications for Future Research It is important to understand the extent and nature of SSS’s impact on students’ metacognitive functioning, whether SSS’s well-established impact on academic performance (Brigman & Campbell, 2003; Brigman, Webb, & Campbell, 2007; C. Campbell & Brigman, 2005; Lemberger et al., 2015; Webb et al., 2005) is mediated by changes in students’ metacognitive functioning or other variables, and whether the impact on academic performance is related to general improvements in all students or an improvement in the functions of specific groups of students. Larger-scale intervention studies are needed to understand relationships between SSS proximal changes in students’ abilities and functioning (e.g., metacognitive functioning, emotional self-regulation, engagement, self-efficacy and motivation) and distal changes in students’ academic performance. It is important to understand which proximal changes in students are mediating their distal improvements in academic performance. It could be that SSS’s effects on academic performance are mediated by one or several of these variables. It also could be that SSS’s effects on academic performance are mediated by relatively broad variables (e.g., self- efficacy) that would be expected to be evident in virtually all students or that are relatively specific (e.g., reductions in debilitating test anxiety) and would be expected to be evident in only some students. Understanding the mediator(s) of SSS’s effects on academic performance would be useful in identifying the most appropriate target groups for this intervention. As such, future studies are needed to explore whether SSS is most appropriate as a Tier 1 intervention for all students or as a Tier 2 intervention for some groups of “at-risk” students. Given that the results of the present study suggested that SSS helped students who struggled with self-regulation of arousal, it is especially important to examine the effectiveness of SSS as a Tier 2 intervention, specifically for students who demonstrate difficulties with emotional self-regulation. Finally, further research is needed to determine