Effect of a Program of Therapeutic Discipline on the Attitude, Attendance, and Insight of Truant Adolescents

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Abstract
This investigation’s purpose was to answer the following question: In an in-school suspension setting, does a program of therapeutic discipline that involves counseling, bibliotherapy, writing therapy, and contingency contracting result in more positive attitudes toward school attendance, improved attendance, and greater insight into attendance problems among adolescent truants who participate in the program than among adolescent truants who participate in a traditional program of non-therapeutic discipline? When a one-way analysis of variance was used to analyze differences for attitudes and insights and analysis of covariance was used to analyze behavioral differences among 148 subjects in the two programs, it was found that therapeutic discipline students (a) held less positive attitudes toward school attendance, (b) had better records of attendance in classes and fewer truant absences, and (c) demonstrated greater insight into attendance problems than did non-therapeutic discipline students.