School-Based Interventions for Aggressive and Disruptive Behavior

Background

Research about the effectiveness of school-based psychosocial prevention programs for reducing aggressive and disruptive behavior was synthesized using meta-analysis. This work updated previous work by the authors and further investigated which program and student characteristics were associated with the most positive outcomes.

Methods

Two hundred forty-nine experimental and quasi-experimental studies of school-based programs with outcomes representing aggressive and/or disruptive behavior were obtained. Effect sizes and study characteristics were coded from these studies and analyzed.

Results

Positive overall intervention effects were found on aggressive and disruptive behavior and other relevant outcomes. The most common and most effective approaches were universal programs and targeted programs for selected/indicated children. The mean effect sizes for these types of programs represent a decrease in aggressive/disruptive behavior that is likely to be of practical significance to schools. Multicomponent comprehensive programs did not show significant effects and those for special schools or classrooms were marginal. Different treatment modalities (e.g., behavioral, cognitive, social skills) produced largely similar effects. Effects were larger for better-implemented programs and those involving students at higher risk for aggressive behavior.

Conclusions

Schools seeking prevention programs may choose from a range of effective programs with some confidence that whatever they pick will be effective. Without the researcher involvement that characterizes the great majority of programs in this meta-analysis, schools might be well-advised to give priority to those that will be easiest to implement well in their settings.

Introduction

Schools are an important location for interventions to prevent or reduce aggressive behavior. They are a setting in which much interpersonal aggression among children occurs and the only setting with almost universal access to children. There are many prevention strategies from which school administrators might choose, including surveillance (e.g., metal detectors, security guards); deterrence (e.g., disciplinary rules, zero tolerance policies); and psychosocial programs. Over 75% of schools in one national sample reported using one or more of these prevention strategies to deal with behavior problems.¹ Other reports similarly indicate that more than three fourths of schools offer mental health, social service, and prevention service options for students and their families.² Among psychosocial prevention strategies, there is a broad array of programs available that can be implemented in schools. These include packaged curricula and home-grown programs for use schoolwide and others that target selected children already showing behavior problems or deemed to be at risk for such problems. Each addresses some range of social and emotional factors assumed to cause aggressive behavior or to be instrumental in controlling it (e.g., social skills or emotional self-regulation) and uses one of several broad intervention approaches, with cognitively oriented programs, behavioral programs, social skills training, and counseling/therapy among the most common.

In 2003, we published a meta-analysis on the effects of school-based psychosocial interventions for reducing aggressive and disruptive behavior aimed at identifying the characteristics of the most effective programs.³ That meta-analysis included 172 experimental and quasi-experimental studies of intervention programs, most of which were conducted as research or demonstration projects with considerable researcher involvement in program implementation. Although not necessarily representative of routine practice in schools, these programs showed marked potential for reducing aggressive and disruptive behavior, especially for students whose baseline levels were already high. Different intervention approaches appeared equally effective, but significantly larger reductions in aggressive and disruptive behavior were produced by those programs with better implementation, that is, more complete delivery of the intended intervention to the intended recipients.

Since the publication of that review, many new evaluation studies of school-based interventions have become available. The call for schools to implement evidence-based programs has intensified as well. Various resources are available to help schools identify programs with proven effectiveness. Among these resources are the Blueprints for Violence Prevention, the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning, and the National Registry of Evidence-Based Programs and Practices administered by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. There is, however, little indication that the evidence-based programs promoted to schools through such sources have been widely adopted or that, when adopted, they are implemented with fidelity.

Although lists of evidence-based programs can provide useful guidance to schools about interventions likely to be effective in their settings, they are limited by their orientation to distinct program models and the relatively few studies typically available for each such program. A meta-analysis, by contrast, can encompass virtually all credible studies of such interventions and yield evidence about generic intervention approaches as well as distinct program models. Perhaps most important, it can illuminate the features that characterize the most effective programs and the kinds of students who benefit most. Because many schools already have prevention programs in place, a meta-analysis that identifies characteristics of successful prevention programs can inform schools about ways they might improve those programs or better direct them to the students for whom they are likely to be most effective. Thus, the purpose of the meta-analysis reported here is to update our previous work by adding recent research and further investigate which program and student characteristics are associated with the most effective treatments.