Data Analysis
Zones of Regulation Student Questionnaire:
The Zones of Regulation Student Questionnaire was my favorite method of data collection because I was able to understand how students perceived themselves and observe as their opinions of themselves changed.
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In these graphs, the ideal responses are the green and blue bars for "Yes, definitely! 100%!" and "Most of the time", respectively. The grey and pink bars are the areas of concern as students rated themselves as "A little bit/kind of" and "No way!" to the statement prompts. The yellow responses were typically used when students felt uncertain of themselves of the question, so they simply resorted to "Sometimes". The statement prompts in this evaluation were intended to measure how students' felt about their ability to interact with their peers, problem-solve, and participate in class-wide and school-wide expectations.
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While administering the baseline, I was not immediately sure that this would be an insightful tool. I felt that students were overestimating their abilities and were not always being honest with themselves or me. I decided that this tool would be used to monitor students' self-worth and value, as opposed to monitoring the actual implementation of the skills they were learning.
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Even though students were not consistently implementing the skills we were learning in social group, my students' self-confidence grew substantially over the course of this study, which was an incredible result that I had not initially anticipated! During the small group instruction times, there were some "growing pains" as students learned to become more self-aware of their mistakes and reactions, so I was concerned that students' confidence was actually going to decrease. I was so thrilled and relieved to see that students' actually felt better about themselves as a result of this newfound self-awareness. On average, twelve of my fifteen students answered "Yes, definitely! 100%" or "Most of the time" in response to these self-statements.
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The pink and grey responses in the post-assessment results were primarily from my students with autism, who were still adjusting to the style and structures of our small group. They were very uncomfortable with being interviewed one-on-one. As a result, the pink and grey responses in the post-assessment may not be an accurate representation of how these students actually feel about themselves. These colors may actually represent students' negative feelings toward being interviewed, instead.
Zones of Regulation Teacher Questionnaire:
The Zones of Regulation Teacher Questionnaire was perfectly complementary to the student questionnaire. This questionnaire gave me the opportunity to evaluate students on the same skills and capabilities that they had to consider when answering their interview statements.
I was apprehensive that my students would not demonstrate the growth that I knew they were capable of, but again, I was very impressed with their results. Like the student questionnaire, the green and blue were the ideal responses, the pink and grey were concerning, and the yellow was where my moderate students fell.
I was initially overwhelmed by the amount of pink and grey in my baseline evaluation. On average, four of my fifteen students fell within the pink and grey range. Twenty seven percent of students being in the concerning range can be detrimental for all students, including those that are capable of self-regulating in adverse situations. The most concerning response for me was that I had 13 students who were either incapable or only partly capable of utilizing effective strategies or seeking help when feeling uncomfortable emotions. The lack of self-awareness, inability to express complex emotions, and lack of understanding of how one's actions impacted others' thoughts and feelings was also noteworthy.
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I was thrilled to see in the post-evaluation that there were four areas that students fell exclusively within the green and blue range. All fifteen students met the ideal range for expressing basic emotions, reacting appropriately to others' emotions, expressing pleasure from effectively participating in school activities, and successfully participating in classroom activities 80% of the time.
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Self-Regulation Assessment Summary:
The Self-Regulation Assessment was very extensive, so I broke the assessment down by category into three different graphs: Basic Foundational Skills, Emergent Understanding, and Functional Confidence. This assessment provided me with an opportunity to analyze the same skills as the Zones of Regulation Teacher Questionnaire with more depth.
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This assessment only had four response options, so the green bars are ideal, the blue bars are approaching functional, the gray bars represent limited skills, and the pink bars represent significant deficits.
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The Basic Foundational Skills included communicating wants and needs, recognizing simple emotions in others, and ability to remain flexible with schedule changes. In my pre-assessment, an average of 8 students landed within the concerning range for all questions. In my post-assessment, all 15 students were within the emerging and functionally independent range in four areas: recognizing simple emotions in others, participating in calming activities, accepting minor changes in schedules, and accepting endings and transitions.
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The Emergent Understanding skills included classifying the size of problems, communicating lack of understanding, and initiating or requesting support in regulation. In my pre-assessment, an average of 11 students were within the concerning range for all questions. In my post-assessment, all 15 students were in the emerging and functionally independent range in three areas: accepting unexpected changes in plans, communicating anger, frustration, or disapproval appropriately, and accepting assistance from adults to aid in regulation.
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The Functional Confidence skills included self-advocating in adverse situations, adjusting behavior based on nonverbal and environmental cues, and self-advocating needs, wants and desires. In my pre-assessment, an average of 9 students were within the concerning range for all questions. In my post assessment, 11 or more of my students were within the emerging or functionally independent range in five areas: proactively clearing hurdles to maintain regulation, regulating voice and body to match the environment, ability to tolerate new demands, and ability to generate solutions to positively solve problems.