This article sets the context for the development of research quality indicators and guidelines for evidence of effective practices provided by different methodologies. The current conceptualization of scientific research in education and the complexity of conducting research in special education settings underlie the development of quality indicators. Programs of research in special education may be viewed as occurring in stages: moving from initial descriptive research, to experimental causal research, to finally research that examines the processes that might affect widescale adoption and use of a practice. At each stage, different research questions are relevant, and different research methodologies to address the research questions are needed.

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Writing development involves changes that occur in children’s strategic behavior, knowledge, and motivation. The authors examined the effectiveness of self-regulated strategy development (SRSD), a strategy instructional model designed to promote development in each of these areas. Instruction focused on planning and writing stories and persuasive essays. The addition of a peer support component to SRSD instruction aimed at facilitating maintenance and generalization effects was also examined. SRSD had a positive impact on the writing performance and knowledge of struggling second-grade writers attending urban schools serving a high percentage of low-income families. In comparison with children in the Writers’ Workshop condition, SRSD-instructed students were more knowledgeable about writing and evidenced stronger performance in the two instructed genres (story and persuasive writing) as well as two uninstructed genres (personal narrative and informative writing). Moreover, the peer support component augmented SRSD instruction by enhancing specific aspects of students’ performance in both the instructed and uninstructed genres.

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The contribution of handwriting to learning to write was examined in an experimental training study involving beginning writers with and without an identified disability. First-grade children experiencing handwriting and writing difficulties participated in 27 fifteen-min sessions designed to improve the accuracy and fluency of their handwriting. In comparison to their peers in a contact control condition receiving instruction in phonological awareness, students in the handwriting condition made greater gains in handwriting as well as compositional fluency immediately following instruction and 6 months later, The effects of instruction were similar for students with and without an identified disability. These findings indicate that handwriting is causally related to writing and that explicit and supplemental handwriting instruction is an important element in preventing writing difficulties in the primary grades.Horace Greeley, the founder of the New Yorker, often wrote notes and letters that were difficult to decipher. After writing a letter indicating that he would be unavailable to make a solicited presentation, he received a reply, noting that it took some time to translate his response, but that his requested date, terms, and honorarium were acceptable (Hendrickson, 1994).Unfortunately, misinterpretations are not the only consequence of handwriting difficulties. For children, there are at least three additional unwanted results. First, poor penmanship may influence perceptions about a child's competence as a writer. When teachers or other adults are asked to evaluate two or more versions of a paper differing only in handwriting quality, neatly written papers are assigned higher marks for writing quality than papers of poorer legibiUty (e.g.

The viability of self-instructional strategy training among learning disabled (LD) students exhibiting composition deficiencies was investigated. Furthermore, the theoretically proposed incremental effects of explicit self-regulation procedures were examined in terms of writing performance measures at posttest, maintenance, and generalization, and in terms of Ss self-efficacy. Ss were 22 LD and 11 normally achieving students in the 5th and 6th grades. Results indicated that self-instructional strategy training produced meaningful and lasting effects on Ss' composition skills and a significantly heightened sense of self-efficacy. Explicit self-regulation procedures did not significantly augment strategy-instruction effects for either writing performance or selfefficacy. Composition performance after instruction among LD Ss did not differ significantly in terms of story grammar elements from that of a contrast group of normally achieving, competent writers. However, normally achieving students' compositions were longer and received significantly higher quality ratings.In 1980, Hobbs, Moguin, Tyroher, and Lahey commented that relatively few cognitive-behavioral studies had focused on academic skills. Since that time cognitive strategy instruction in academic areas has become a major focus of educational research with the mildly to moderately handicapped and other inefficient learners (cf. Meichenbaum, 1983;Pressley & Levin, 1986). Cognitive-behavioral theorists have proposed that effective strategy instruction involves three major components: strategies, knowledge about the use and significance of those strategies (metastrategy information), and selfregulation of strategic performance (cf. Brown, Campione, & Day, 1981;Harris & Graham, 1985).Multicomponent strategy instruction interventions based on this theoretical view have proved efficacious in improving performance-and frequently in obtaining generalization and maintenance-among young children and problem learners (Harris, 1986a;Reeve & Brown, 1985). Pressley and Levin (1986) indicated that such interventions have frequently resulted in performance among handicapped learners equivalent to that obtained by their nonhandicapped peers. Previous self-instructional strategy-training studies have incorporated strategy instruction (using a self-instructional format), metastrategy knowledge, and explicit self-regulation. This ap-

This study extends previous research on components of effective strategy instruction operationalized in an approach referred to as self-regulated strategy development (SRSD). Comparisons were made among learning-disabled students in 4 conditions (SRSD, SRSD without goal setting and self-monitoring, direct teaching, and practice control) at posttest, generalization, and 2 maintenance probes. Normally achieving (NA) peers constituted a social validation condition. Full SRSD resulted in significantly greater schematic structure scores at generalization as compared with the other instructional conditions. At posttest, both SRSD conditions resulted in significantly greater schematic structure scores as compared with the practice control condition. Comparisons with NA peers indicated that all instructional conditions had a meaningful effect. No differences among conditions were found for self-efficacy.This study is based on Richard J. Sawyer's doctoral dissertation, codirected by Steve Graham and Karen R. Harris. The dissertation received the 1991 Dissertation Award from the Division of Learning Disabilities, Council for Exceptional Children, and the 1991 Award for Outstanding Research in Learning Disabilities from the Council for Learning Disabilities.