A comparison of active student response and on-task instruction on the acquisition and maintenance of health facts by fourth grade special education students Article

Sterling, RM, Barbetta, PM, Heward, WL et al. (1997). A comparison of active student response and on-task instruction on the acquisition and maintenance of health facts by fourth grade special education students . 7(2), 151-165. 10.1023/A:1022836907599

cited authors

  • Sterling, RM; Barbetta, PM; Heward, WL; Heron, TE

authors

abstract

  • An alternating treatments design was used to compare the effects of active student response (ASR) and on-task (OT) instruction on the acquisition and maintenance of health facts during small-group lessons. Five students with learning difficulties (4 students identified as developmentally handicapped and 1 student identified as learning disabled) participated in daily instruction on weekly sets of 20 unknown health facts (10 facts assigned to the ASR condition and 10 to the OT condition). During ASR instruction, the teacher modeled the correct response to a health question that was presented visually on a health fact card, and the students immediately repeated the correct response in unison three times. During OT instruction, students attended visually to the health fact card as the teacher modeled the correct response. All 5 students made more correct responses on end-of-day tests on health facts taught with ASR instruction than they did on health facts taught with OT instruction. ASR instruction also produced consistently superior results on maintenance tests administered 2 weeks after instruction. © 1997 Human Sciences Press, Inc.

publication date

  • January 1, 1997

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

start page

  • 151

end page

  • 165

volume

  • 7

issue

  • 2