Adolescent Behaviors Clinical Trial
Official title:
Improving School Engagement Among Early Adolescents: Evaluation of a Team-based Social Network Intervention
School engagement is associated with children's long-term health and success. Students who
are engaged in school have better academic outcomes and lower rates of risky health
behaviors. The investigators partnered with Alliance College-Ready Middle Academy 12
(Alliance 12), a charter school in Los Angeles, to develop the "gradebook game", an
intervention that aims to improve academic achievement, peer support, and school engagement.
The game involves frequent feedback on students' school performance, team-based competition
aligned with the school mission, and peer mentorship by team captains. For the 2016-2017
academic year, the investigators will assist Alliance 12 in implementing the gradebook game
in two of its five 6th grade homerooms. The investigators plan to evaluate whether the game,
as hypothesized, is effective in increasing school engagement, including academic performance
and positive behavior.
In order to conduct this evaluation, the investigators plan to enroll 6th grade students by
obtaining parental consent and student assent at the beginning of the school year. Students
will be enrolled for the entire 2016-2017 academic year. All study procedures except for
parental recruitment will occur during the school day. Participation in the study involves
completing 2 student surveys and permitting the collection and analysis of student data from
the online gradebook and behavior system. The investigators plan to use an interrupted time
series design that will analyze student gradebook and behavior data at multiple time points
before and after the game starts. The surveys will be completed at the beginning and end of
the study period. Surveys will include measures of self-reported school engagement, age,
gender, race/ethnicity, primary language at home, social and emotional well-being, social
status, and peer support. Surveys will be administered via iPad.
If the pilot study demonstrates that the gradebook game is effective in promoting school
engagement and academic achievement, it is anticipated that it could be widely adopted and
more rigorously evaluated in a larger study. Because the gradebook game is a low-resource
intervention, it could easily and sustainably be replicated, providing a much-needed tool for
schools with low engagement.
School engagement is critical to students' long-term success and appears to be strongly
influenced by peer relationships. School engagement results from the interaction of the
individual with the school context and is a multi-dimensional concept involving behavioral,
emotional, and cognitive components. These include attendance, conduct, effort,
participation, emotions towards school, identification with school, interest, and
psychological investment in learning. Children who are engaged in school have higher levels
of academic achievement and increased likelihood of occupational success as adults, even
beyond that predicted by achievement. Children who are successful in school are also
healthier adults, which is due in part to health risk behaviors that begin in adolescence.
School engagement appears to protect against substance use and delinquency. Factors that have
been associated with low levels of engagement (or disengagement) include trauma, stress,
discrimination, and bullying, whereas supportive relationships with parents, peers, and
teachers promote school engagement. Because school engagement is modifiable, it is an obvious
target for school-based intervention.
Prior studies have documented interventions that improve school engagement, but effect sizes
are generally small and they are resource-intensive and therefore difficult to implement
widely. As far as the investigators know, none have used a social network or team-based
behavioral economics approach. A partnership between UCLA and Alliance College-Ready Middle
Academy #12 (Alliance 12), a charter middle school in Los Angeles led to the development of
the novel Gradebook Game. This intervention aims to induce supportive social pressure aligned
with a school's mission in order to promote school engagement and achievement. Sixth grade
students are organized into teams by Advisory period and mentored by 8th grade team captains.
Throughout the regular school day, students are assigned points for effort, achievement, and
citizenship (as captured by the online gradebook and behavior tracker), which then get
repackaged into weekly team scorecards for the Game. Teams compete against each other for
total points in bi-weekly match-ups, and wins are rewarded with incentives tailored to the
school's needs. This intervention is unique in bringing a team-based behavioral economics
approach to impact school engagement. It is grounded in principles from two successful
interventions: the Good Behavior Game and Peer Connection. The Gradebook Game Intervention
has been piloted for feasibility in one Advisory group of 6th grade students at Alliance 12
during the Spring of 2016. If effective, it could feasibly be implemented widely and has the
potential to transform social norms and school culture, providing a much-needed tool among
schools with low student engagement.
The investigators plan to study the effectiveness of the Gradebook Game in promoting school
engagement and achievement. This study would likely be the first to evaluate an intervention
that utilizes team competition to generate social pressure and peer support around behaviors
that promote success in school. This study has the potential to inform whether the Gradebook
Game intervention should be adopted by other schools struggling with low student engagement;
and depending on the results, it could lead to a larger, more rigorous study that would
evaluate whether the Gradebook Game is effective in promoting school engagement and
achievement among a diverse study population, which could be beneficial to schools and
families across the nation.
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| Status | Clinical Trial | Phase | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Completed |
NCT02129153 -
Linking Families Together Study- A Randomized Trial to Raise Parental Monitoring
|
N/A |