Self-determination skills instruction for students with disabilities increases self-determination on some measures but not others¶

Claim · All claims
Evidence · 2 studies · 1 causal r2, 1 quant-synthesis r? · q3
Currency · newest study 2018 · checked against its sources 2026-10-20 (automated, 2 of 2 entries) · not reviewed by a person

Teaching students with disabilities the component skills of self-determination — choice-making, decision-making, problem solving, goal setting, self-management and self-advocacy — increases their self-determination. The claim concerns special-education self-determination instruction, not instruction about self-determination theory's basic psychological needs.

Subclaims¶

q3 i? A meta-analysis of school-based interventions to promote self-determination and its component skills (choice-making, decision-making, problem solving, goal setting, self-management, self-advocacy) in students with disabilities found effects across grade levels, disability labels and settings, though methodological rigor and reporting were often limited. → Burke et al. 2018

q3 i? In a randomized placebo-controlled trial (N = 371 high-school students with learning disabilities or intellectual disability), students who received multi-year instruction to promote self-determination (all through the Self-Determined Learning Model of Instruction, plus teacher-chosen programmes such as Whose Future Is It Anyway?, the ChoiceMaker/Self-Directed IEP materials and Next S.T.E.P. for subsets of students) showed significantly greater growth on one of two self-determination measures than controls; growth on the second measure did not differ by group. → Wehmeyer et al. 2013

Evidence¶

Burke et al. 2018¶

Burke, K. M., Raley, S. K., Shogren, K. A., Hagiwara, M., Mumbardó-Adam, C., Uyanik, H., & Behrens, S. (2018). A Meta-Analysis of Interventions to Promote Self-Determination for Students With Disabilities. Remedial and Special Education, 41(3), 176–188. doi:10.1177/0741932518802274

q3 · meta-analysis of intervention studies (rigor not systematically reported) · i? · no standardized effect size (d/g/r/OR) given in what was read · n=not stated in abstract (studies across grade levels and disability labels) · quant-synthesis · r?

A meta-analysis synthesizing the school-based intervention literature on self-determination and its component skills (choice-making, decision-making, problem solving, goal setting and attainment, planning, self-management, self-advocacy, self-awareness, self-knowledge) for students with disabilities. The authors coded intervention type, population, outcomes and methodological rigor across the included studies. They report that interventions "can be effective for students across grade levels, disability labels, and settings," while also flagging a need for more inclusive-setting research and stronger methodological rigor in the field. Only the abstract was read; it reports a qualitative/directional summary of results rather than a pooled quantitative effect size, so no i code can be assigned from it.

Wehmeyer et al. 2013¶

Wehmeyer, M. L., Palmer, S. B., Shogren, K., Williams-Diehm, K., & Soukup, J. H. (2013). Establishing a Causal Relationship Between Intervention to Promote Self-Determination and Enhanced Student Self-Determination. The Journal of Special Education, 46(4), 195–210. doi:10.1177/0022466910392377

q3 · randomized placebo-controlled trial (campus-level random assignment) · i? · significant group-by-time effects reported as F-tests, not as a standardized effect size · n=371 students (50 high school campuses; categorical special-education areas of intellectual disability or learning disability) · causal · r2

A three-year randomized trial in which 371 high school students receiving special education services (intellectual disability or learning disability) were randomly assigned by campus to an intervention group or a control group. Intervention-campus teachers chose from a menu of self-determination interventions: every intervention student received the Self-Determined Learning Model of Instruction, and subsets also received Whose Future Is It Anyway? (43%), the ChoiceMaker materials with the Self-Directed IEP (21%), Next S.T.E.P. (7%), the Self-Advocacy Strategy (5%) or Steps to Self-Determination (4%). Using multilevel latent growth curve modeling of two self-report self-determination scales (the AIR Self-Determination Scale and The Arc's Self-Determination Scale), the authors found a significant intervention-group effect and a significant intervention-by-time interaction on the AIR Self-Determination Scale, F(1, 365) = 8.62, p < .005, and F(1, 446) = 6.70, p = .01 respectively, with the intervention group showing steeper growth. On the second measure (The Arc's Self-Determination Scale), however, the intervention-group effect and the group-by-time interaction were both nonsignificant, F(1, 368) = 1.05, p = .31, and F(1, 448) = 0.21, p = .65 — all students improved over time regardless of group. When disability and gender were added as covariates, the AIR-S result was unaffected, but growth on The Arc's Self-Determination Scale differed by disability/gender/intervention combination in a more complex, only marginally significant pattern, F(2, 442) = 2.96, p = .05, driven mainly by steeper gains for students with intellectual disability in the intervention condition.

Studies bearing on this claim¶

Does teaching students with intellectual or other disabilities to set goals, make decisions and lead their own planning raise their self-determination and participation? This table gathers the studies behind this claim and the 2 narrower claims that bear on it: 5 distinct studies (4 causal, 1 quant-synthesis), q1–q3, 1 of 5 with an effect size coded. One row per study, codes as each entry records them; no effect is averaged and no verdict is drawn. Built by scripts/synthesize_claim.py from eval/synthesis/; a row that looks wrong is fixed on the claim it comes from.

Discussion¶

What the recorded evidence shows. A meta-analysis of school-based self-determination interventions reports them effective across grade levels, disability labels and settings, but was read as an abstract without a pooled effect size, and the authors flag limited methodological rigor in the field. The strongest single study, a three-year campus-randomized trial with 371 high-school students, found greater growth on one self-determination scale (the AIR) and no group difference on the other (The Arc's scale). So the evidence supports the claim for self-determination as measured on some instruments, not uniformly.

What it does not show. Neither source measures post-school outcomes such as employment or postsecondary enrolment; the evidence recorded here concerns self-determination itself. The effects of one specific model, the Self-Determined Learning Model of Instruction, are recorded on its own claim page, and student-led IEP participation on the Self-Directed IEP page.

Boundary conditions to establish. Whether effects generalize from the setting where skills are taught to new people and environments, how long they last after instruction ends, and whether they hold in inclusive general-education settings, where the meta-analysis notes research is thin.

Related Claims¶

• Self-regulated learning improves achievement — the general claim this finding bears on, with the studies behind it

• The Self-Determined Learning Model of Instruction improves self-determination. — one specific self-determination instructional model

• The Self-Directed IEP increases student participation. — one of the curricula used in the trial recorded above
• Autonomy supports intrinsic motivation. — the motivational construct of the same name, distinct from this skills-instruction claim
• Mnemonic Instruction Improves Recall For Students With Disabilities — related
• Self Monitoring Improves On Task Behavior — related
• Autonomy-supportive teaching contrasts with controlling teaching, and controlled students do poorly compared to autonomous students — related
• Differentiating special education funding by disability, disability category, or student need can lead to improved outcomes for students with disabilities, and IEP-progress metrics offer a new adequacy-study measure — related
• Outcomes of students with disabilities improve when they receive specially designed instruction responsive to assessment data — related
• Effect size heterogeneity in self-management interventions may be explained by grade level, disability status, and general versus special education setting — a narrower finding that bears on this claim
• Middle school students with intellectual disabilities taught problem-solving or study planning skills showed significantly more capacity on the targeted skill than students in the alternating control group — a narrower finding that bears on this claim
• All students in the self-determination skill intervention achieved their goals at better than average levels — a narrower finding that bears on this claim
• Baseline data from a multistate longitudinal self-determination intervention project were analyzed with structural equation modeling — related
• Individualized advocacy support and engagement curricula each have direct tests from multiple studies, giving stronger evidence than the other recommendations — related
• Self-determination theory grew incrementally by adding mini-theories as evidence accumulated — related