Jeanne Poduska’s research while affiliated with American Institutes for Research and other places

Moving evidence-based practices for classroom behavior management into real-world settings is a high priority for education and public health. This paper describes the development and use of a model of training and support for the Good Behavior Game (GBG), one of the few preventive interventions shown to have positive outcomes for elementary school children lasting through to young adulthood, ages 19-21, including reductions in the use of drugs and alcohol, school-based mental health services, and suicide ideation and attempts. We first describe the conceptual framework guiding the development of the model of training and support. Data on implementation of the model, from an ongoing trial of GBG being conducted in partnership with the Houston Independent School District, are then presented. We end with a discussion of the lessons learned and the implications for the next stage of research and practice.

Introduction: This presentation describes the pre-pilot implementation of the Good Behavior Game (GBG) in four cities in Brazil: Florianopolis, Tubarao, Sao Bernardo de Campo and Sao Paulo. There is a total of 40 teachers in 7 schools involved in the pre-pilot. This is the first time that GBG has been implemented in Brazil and the goal was to test the feasibility and acceptability of the game and its components in a Brazilian context. In partnership and collaboration with the UNODC and the Brazilian Ministries of Health and Education, AIR led the training of 6 local coaches who subsequently trained and mentored 40 teachers for the pre-pilot. Methods: The GBG training model promotes a scaffolding of learning and expertise that includes both group based training and individualized on-going year round support for teachers implementing the game. Furthermore, GBG coaches are also supported by AIR trainers as they deepen their knowledge of GBG content and help teachers become self-directed implementers of the game. We will describe the model of training and support used and the adaptations that were made for the Brazilian context. We will also present some of the key challenges that emerged and lessons learned. Results: We will describe the results from the pre-pilot in terms of the feasibility and acceptability of the GBG in Brazil. We will provide a brief summary from a selection of our stakeholders, coaches, teachers and students about their experience with the game and its components. Conclusions: The implications for this collaboration and partnership are far reaching and if successful, has enormous possibilities. Brazil has identified an immediate and pressing need to improve outcomes through prevention for children and young people and this work could potentially help to build an infrastructure that could be sustained over time. We will summarize and discuss the lessons learned and next steps in terms of implementation, adaptations, training and support.

Introduction: This study is a four-year IES Goal 3 project that was designed to understand the level of professional development (PD) required for teachers to implement and sustain the Good Behavior Game (GBG), a universal preventive intervention. GBG is a classroom-based behavior management strategy aimed at reducing aggressive/disruptive behavior and socializing children into the role of student. GBG, delivered in first and second grades, has been shown to reduce rates of substance abuse and other deleterious outcomes into young adulthood, especially for students that were rated as aggressive or disruptive at entry into first grade by their teachers. Methods: Two models of PD are being compared with each other and with a control condition, in a randomized field trial. GBG Basic, which provides group-based pre-implementation training to teachers supplemented by a group-based booster session, and GBG w Coach, which has the same activities under GBG Basic plus a coach who works directly in the classroom with the teacher. The first year implementation cohort includes 18 schools, 71 classrooms, and 1343 students with active parent consent. The analysis is conducted separately for males and females and the independent variables include the treatment condition and a measure of classroom language status. The dependent student-level variables include measures of off-task and disruptive/aggressive behavior based on classroom observations conducted by independent observers. HLM approach for binary outcomes that acknowledges correlated standard errors was used to analyze the data. An added complexity is that 36 of the classrooms are bilingual and the interventions effect may vary by classrooms’ language status which affects the statistical power of the study. Results: Our descriptive analysis shows that the disruptive/aggressive behavior decreases 3.9% between fall and spring in the Standard classrooms, 14.1% in the GBG Basic classrooms and 12.9 % in the GBG w Coach classrooms. The off-task behavior in the afternoon decreased 2.4% in the Standard classrooms, 12.4% in the GBG Basic classrooms and 6.6% in the GBG w Coach classrooms. Our preliminary HLM results are promising showing borderline significance (p-values between 0.05 and 0.1) for reduction of off-task behavior in the afternoon in both GBG Basic and GBG w Coach conditions compared to the standard condition. Conclusions: The preliminary results based on simple HLM analysis are promising. Our next step is to estimate the potential intervention effects by using a model that fully utilizes the minute-by-minute structure of the data (an IRT approach). We will also analyze the data using growth modeling approach that utilizes all three data collection points (fall, winter, and spring).

African Americans and Hispanics in the United States have much higher rates of HIV than non-minorities. There is now strong evidence that a range of behavioral interventions are efficacious in reducing sexual risk behavior in these populations. Although a handful of these programs are just beginning to be disseminated widely, we still have not implemented effective programs to a level that would reduce the population incidence of HIV for minorities. We proposed that innovative approaches involving computational technologies be explored for their use in both developing new interventions and in supporting wide-scale implementation of effective behavioral interventions. Mobile technologies have a place in both of these activities. First, mobile technologies can be used in sensing contexts and interacting to the unique preferences and needs of individuals at times where intervention to reduce risk would be most impactful. Second, mobile technologies can be used to improve the delivery of interventions by facilitators and their agencies. Systems science methods including social network analysis, agent-based models, computational linguistics, intelligent data analysis, and systems and software engineering all have strategic roles that can bring about advances in HIV prevention in minority communities. Using an existing mobile technology for depression and 3 effective HIV prevention programs, we illustrated how 8 areas in the intervention/implementation process can use innovative computational approaches to advance intervention adoption, fidelity, and sustainability.

Introduction: Aggressive and disruptive behaviors, as early as first grade, are confirmed antecedents for social and behavioral problems later in life. The Good Behavior Game, a classroom-based behavior management strategy is one of the few preventive interventions that have been found to have positive short, mid, and long-term impacts including reductions in alcohol and drug abuse/dependence. When determining program effectiveness, it is essential to measure child behaviors accurately. In this paper we describe two measures used to capture child behaviors and examine how the measures correlate at the child and classroom levels: 1) the Teacher Observation of Classroom Adaptation-Revised (TOCA-R), which measures teachers’ ratings of children adaptation to task demands of being a student and 2) an observation protocol that captures student and teacher behaviors as well as classroom level measures of classroom management. Method: The TOCA-R interviews and classroom observations were conducted in 54 first-grade classrooms during school year 2010-11. The total student sample includes 1,027 children (girls: 48.81%; Hispanics: 75.00%) . Teachers were interviewed twice a year (fall and spring) and classrooms were observed six times a year (twice in fall, winter and spring). The teacher interviews lasted about two hours. Teachers rated each child on 57 behavioral indicators; constructs include aggressive, disruptive behavior, prosocial behavior, emotional regulation, and academic readiness. Each classroom was observed by two observers, each observed half the students (maximum 15). Each minute, instances of off-task, disruptive, verbal or physical aggression, or socially isolated behavior were recorded. The child exhibiting the behavior was noted. Results: We used the direct observations to cross-validate the TOCA-R instrument. According to preliminary analyses students who exhibit aggressive or disruptive behavior during observations are more likely to be rated as disruptive or aggressive by their teachers. In addition, girls have better behavioral outcomes than boys, and children classified as Hispanic also tend to have better behavioral outcomes, whether measured by TOCA-R or direct observations. Discussion: Implications for research and practice will be discussed including the tension in the field between teacher reports and observations collected by independent raters. The TOCA-R, which can also be reliably administered as a survey is more cost efficient and less burdensome to administer than observations, relies on teacher self-report. The TOCA-R has been used as an outcome measure in research trials for decades. In its survey form it could be used as part of a broader measurement system to identify students’ needs and responses to interventions.

Aggressive and disruptive behaviors, as early as first grade, are confirmed antecedents for social and behavioral problems later in life (Kellam et al., 2008). The Good Behavior Game (GBG), a classroom-based behavior management strategy (Barrish et al., 1969) is one of the few preventive interventions that are found to reduce early disruptive and aggressive behaviors. Accurately measuring child behavior is essential in determining the effectiveness of preventive interventions. Previous trials testing the effectiveness of GBG alone or in combination with other components (Ialongo et al., 1999) used a focal child approach, in which each child in a class was observed for a short, discrete time interval. At a given time point, only one child was observed; during an entire observation, each child was observed for 2-6 minutes depending on the size of the classroom and the length of the observation. This approach may fail to produce an adequate description of child behaviors since only the behavior of the focal child is recorded at any particular time point. To more accurately capture behaviors, we developed a new classroom observation approach that uses time sampling where all children are continuously observed minute by minute. In this paper we report on preliminary results obtained with data collected using the new observation protocol. 1,027 children (girls: 48.8%; Hispanics: 75.0%) from 54 first-grade classrooms were observed 6 times during the year. With a few exceptions, each classroom was observed three times in the morning and three times in the afternoon. Length of observations varied but most observations were 60 minutes or longer. Every classroom was observed by two observers, each observing half the students (maximum 15). Each minute, instances of off-task, disruptive, verbal or physically aggressive behaviors and the child exhibiting the behavior were recorded. Preliminary examination of the instrument suggests a high level of inter-rater agreement. Preliminary analyses suggest that about half of all children (morning: 57.1% of boys and 44.0% of girls; afternoon: 60.4% of boys and 43.1% of girls) were observed to be off-task at least once. Almost a third of boys were observed to have disruptive behaviors. Boys were more likely to exhibit off-task and disruptive behaviors than girls. Boys tended to exhibit more off-task and disruptive behaviors in the afternoon than earlier during the school day. In addition, children of Hispanic background were observed with less frequent off-task behaviors than non-Hispanic children while no difference in terms of disruptive behaviors was found. We will also examine whether the length of observations affected the recorded occurrence of child behaviors. Implications for use will be discussed.

Introduction: Prevention research has primarily focused on the development of mobile based applications (apps) for end users with less focus on app development for those whocarry-out evidence based interventions. The use of mobile based apps in the delivery of evidence based interventionscan have an impact on the scalability of an intervention, as well as the fidelity, monitoring, and overall quality of implementation. We present a proof of concept of a mobile base app to carry out and monitor fidelity of the Good Behavior Game. The Good Behavior Game is a 1st and 2nd grade teacher classroom management program that has demonstrated impact on long-term drug abuse, sexual risk behavior, delinquency, and suicidal behavior by socializing children to the student role and reducing aggressive, disruptive behaviors. Methods/Results: The GBG app was produced through a partnership between android developers and Ce-PIM, organized around the American Institutes for Research GBG manual. The GBG app replicates and simplifies a number of steps in this manual. First, it allocates children into balanced teams and recording results of each game played. Second, the app records audio from teachers when a violation is reported or for duration of the entire game. The third component is the database system that collects this information and makes it available to coaches as well machine learning algorithms to feedback fidelity and monitoring information to teachers and schools. Results: We will report how coaches and teachers experience the GBG app in GBG trainings, use in classrooms, and in coach led fidelity and monitoring.

African Americans and Hispanics in the United States have much higher rates of HIV than non-minorities. There is now strong evidence that a range of behavioral interventions are efficacious in reducing sexual risk behavior in these populations. Although a handful of these programs are just beginning to be disseminated widely, we still have not implemented effective programs to a level that would reduce the population incidence of HIV for minorities. We proposed that innovative approaches involving computational technologies be explored for their use in both developing new interventions and in supporting wide-scale implementation of effective behavioral interventions. Mobile technologies have a place in both of these activities. First, mobile technologies can be used in sensing contexts and interacting to the unique preferences and needs of individuals at times where intervention to reduce risk would be most impactful. Second, mobile technologies can be used to improve the delivery of interventions by facilitators and their agencies. Systems science methods including social network analysis, agent-based models, computational linguistics , intelligent data analysis, and systems and software engineering all have strategic roles that can bring about advances in HIV prevention in minority communities. Using an existing mobile technology for depression and 3 effective HIV prevention programs, we illustrated how 8 areas in the intervention/implementation process can use innovative computational approaches to advance intervention adoption, fidelity, and sustainability.

The Good Behavior Game (GBG), a method of teacher classroom behavior management, was tested in first- and second-grade classrooms in 19 Baltimore City Public Schools beginning in the 1985-1986 school year. The intervention was directed at the classroom as a whole to socialize children to the student role and reduce aggressive, disruptive behaviors, confirmed antecedents of a profile of externalizing problem outcomes. This article reports on the GBG impact on the courses and interrelationships among aggressive, disruptive behavior through middle school, risky sexual behaviors, and drug abuse and dependence disorders through ages 19-21. In five poor to lower-middle class, mainly African American urban areas, classrooms within matched schools were assigned randomly to either the GBG intervention or the control condition. Balanced assignment of children to classrooms was made, and teachers were randomly assigned to intervention or control. Analyses involved multilevel growth mixture modeling. By young adulthood, significant GBG impact was found in terms of reduced high-risk sexual behaviors and drug abuse and dependence disorders among males who in first grade and through middle school were more aggressive, disruptive. A replication with the next cohort of first-grade children with the same teachers occurred during the following school year, but with minimal teacher mentoring and monitoring. Findings were not significant but generally in the predicted direction. A universal classroom-based prevention intervention in first- and second-grade classrooms can reduce drug abuse and dependence disorders and risky sexual behaviors.