Test-Taking Strategy Instruction for Adolescents with Learning Disabilities

The purpose of this investigation was to design and evaluate the effects of teaching a comprehensive test-taking strategy to adolescents with learning disabilities. The strategy, which comprised a carefully sequenced set of cognitive and overt behaviors designed for the test-taking task, was taught to six secondary students using a seven-stage instructional methodology including description, modeling, verbal rehearsal, initial practice, advanced practice, posttesting, and generalization. We employed a multiple-probe across-subjects design to assess the students’ acquisition of the strategy. Increases in the students’ use of the strategy corresponded to their participation in instruction. Follow-up probes indicated that the students maintained their use of the strategy for up to 11 weeks after we terminated instruction. Permanent-product evidence indicated that all six students applied the strategy while taking tests in selected mainstream classes, and their test grades in those classes were higher after test-taking strategy instruction than before the instruction. This study demonstrates that students with learning disabilities can learn to apply a comprehensive test-taking strategy in a generative way to contrived tests and mainstream class tests.