Self-Management Interventions for At-Risk and Low-Income Students: A Systematic Review

Poverty continues to pose a threat to children’s development of behavioral regulation skills, which can impact students’ academic readiness and achievement. Self-management has been studied throughout the literature to teach student independence and self-regulation skills, both of which are critical for learning in the classroom. To date, there has been no systematic review of self-management strategies for low-income students in general education settings. Thus, the purpose of this review was to examine the efficacy of self-management strategies with this population. A systematic review of the literature identified 10 studies that implemented self-management strategies with low-income students. Across the 10 studies, interventions varied in design features and recording modality. Common self-management strategies to increase student academic performance or on-task behavior included self-monitoring, graphing, error correction, and self-evaluation. Results support the use of several variations of self-management with low-income students in general education settings. This review highlights essential features when designing self-management strategies to promote academic achievement and regulation of classroom behaviors.