Interspersing additional, brief items to influence the choice behavior of students with behavioral and emotional disabilities to complete grammar assignment

Students with emotional and behavioral disabilities often exhibit inappropriate behaviors, and many also experience problems related to academic skill development and achievement. Academic skill deficits and inappropriate behaviors may be related. Students who experience academic difficulties may be more likely than their peers to engage in inappropriate behaviors to escape or avoid academic demands. Furthermore, students who engage in inappropriate behaviors are choosing not to engage in academic activities, which may serve to create or exacerbate academic achievement or skill deficits. The current study attempts to extend research suggesting that interspersing relatively brief items throughout an assignment, therefore increasing item completion rate, may increase the probability of students choosing to work on that assignment without compromising the accuracy and educational significance of the assignment.;Thirty-two students identified as having emotional disturbance were each exposed to two grammar assignments. A control assignment contained a number of paragraphs that students were required to copy and punctuate. An experimental assignment was designed to be equivalent, but also contained additional, brief paragraphs interspersed throughout the assignment. Students worked on each assignment for 15 minutes and then ranked the assignments with regard to time, effort, and difficulty. Additionally, students were asked to choose either a control or interspersal assignment to complete for homework.;Results indicate that student item completion rate was higher during the experimental assignments, and significantly more students chose to complete the experimental assignment for homework. No significant differences emerged between control and interspersal assignments for student rankings of time, effort, and difficulty. Additionally, student accuracy in punctuating sentences did not differ significantly across the two assignments.;These findings suggest that when brief items are interspersed throughout a grammar assignment, students with emotional and behavioral disabilities may be more likely to choose to work on this assignment. Subsequently, student preference for an assignment may lead students to choose to engage in assigned academic activities increasing the probability that they will experience learning. Results of the current study lend support for interspersing relatively brief items throughout the assignments of students with emotional and behavioral disabilities to address both behavioral and academic difficulties.