Increasing Agency and Academic Engagement Via Student Test-Driving and Choice

Abstract Disruptive student behavior has negative implications for students’ overall academic success and therefore must be addressed. Students are often the recipients of covert behavioral interventions, rather than being included as intentional co-collaborators. Despite this, student involvement and choice have been found to increase students’ appropriate behaviors and their engagement in interventions. The purpose of the current study was to empower students with emotional and behavioral disorders by meaningfully including them in their intervention process, have them test-drive behavioral interventions, and provide them with agency via choice. A single-case experimental design was used to determine whether there was a functional relationship between the evidence-based interventions and student behavioral outcomes. The study used an alternating treatment phase that allowed students to test-drive three interventions (i.e., Check-In/Check-Out, response cost, and token economy) and was followed by a withdrawal design after the students’ chosen intervention was implemented. Results indicated that students’ behavioral outcomes benefitted from each of the interventions and that students and teachers valued the test-driving and choice processes. Implications, limitations, and directions for future research exploring student test-driving and choice are discussed.