Date of Award

8-22-2025

Date Published

September 2025

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Psychology

Advisor(s)

Tanya Eckert

Keywords

intervention adherence;participant adherence;self-graphing;systematic review;treatment integrity;writing

Subject Categories

Psychology | Social and Behavioral Sciences

Abstract

Writing is a highly versatile tool that can be used to achieve various goals and serves as an effective means for learning (Bangert-Drowns et al., 2004; Graham, 2007). One widely adopted intervention to enhance student writing is self-graphing, which enables students to compare their current performance with previous efforts, thereby potentially increasing their motivation to improve subsequent performances (Harris et al., 1994; Hirsch et al., 2013; Sheehey et al., 2016; Wells et al., 2017). Self-graphing interventions require students to engage in self-directed self-assessments, which presents opportunities for noncompliance or errors. This necessitates the examination of participant adherence, or the likelihood of the participant to adhere to the intervention as intended. The current systematic review synthesizes the existing literature on self-graphing interventions in the writing domain among school-age students and provides a thorough examination of participant adherence in this context. Twenty experimental studies were reviewed to explore key aspects of participant adherence (e.g., reporting, measuring, timing, independence, associated research design, interaction with intervention outcomes). The findings of this systematic review suggest that very few studies have measured participant adherence, and even fewer report adherence outcomes. This study highlights a gap in the literature regarding the current conceptualization of treatment fidelity, underscoring the need for further examination of participant adherence and its role in intervention outcomes.

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Open Access

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