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Guide
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The Good Behavior Game
OVERVIEW
The Good Behavior Game (GBG) intervention is intended to help reduce aggressive behavior in students in early grades (first and second) with the hope of positively affecting future behavior. The program is one piece of a two-part intervention administered in first and second grades. The GBG uses behavior modification strategies to diminish aggressive behavior and poor conduct in the classroom. In a school and classroom level random-assignment evaluation of the program, researchers found that that the GBG had significant (and increasing) impacts only on male students whose first grade levels of aggression were high (above the median). The intervention group showed a decrease in level of aggression during transition times and through sixth grade, while the aggression level of the control group plateaued at third grade. Follow-up data indicates that boys in the Good Behavior Game treatment group at grades one and two were less likely to engage in smoking when they were early adolescents.
The Good Behavior Game is an intervention designed to reduce behavior problems and other maladaptive behaviors in first and second grade students with the hope that their behavior is malleable enough that the intervention will improve their behavior as they move into the next stage of life (i.e., middle school).
The GBG is a classroom-based, teacher-lead behavior management strategy, which rewards teams of children for good behavior. Any team could win a given game if at the end of the designated game period they had not exceeded the permitted amount of maladaptive behavior. In the early stages of the game, the designated “game time” was announced to students, the length was fixed, and rewards were given out immediately following the game. Later, the teacher would not announce the game time and rewards were distributed at the end of the day.
In addition to diminishing current and future maladaptive and aggressive behavior among aggressive first and second graders, the intervention was intended to help protect students who do not demonstrate these problems early from developing these behaviors in later childhood and early adolescence.
Kellam, S.G. Rebok, G.W., Ialongo, N. & Mayer, L. S. (1994). The course and malleability of aggressive behavior from early first grade into middle school: Results of a development epidemiologically-based preventive trial. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry. 35(2), 259-281.
Evaluated population: 693 first graders in 41 classrooms from 19 schools in five diverse urban Baltimore public schools. The sample was 49 percent male and 65 percent African American.
Approach: Within each of the five urban areas, one school was assigned to receive the GBG intervention and another to receive an achievement-focused intervention called Mastery Learning (ML), which was used in this study as an active control for the GBG classrooms. Schools were matched based on characteristics such as the school’s achievement level, socio-economic status of families, and ethnicity of students. The rest of the schools within each urban area were then assigned to be external controls with no experimental intervention. Within each school assigned to either experimental intervention, half the classrooms were randomly assigned to receive the intervention and half were used as an internal, school-specific, control.
Students’ level of aggression was assessed through a Social Adaptation Status (SAS) measure, which consists of a semi-structured interview with the child’s teacher. The teacher was asked to rate students on main social tasks and aggressive behavior. All students were assessed at baseline with this measure. Future assessments were conducted on representative samples of the experimental group twice a year through sixth grade. A second conduct disorder measure, the Diagnostic Interview Schedule for Children (DISC), was used in the sixth-grade follow-up with subjects who reported three or more conduct disorder behaviors in a screener.
Researchers hypothesized that students who exhibited aggressive behavior and conduct problems in first grade and participated in the Good Behavior Game would show decreased aggressive behaviors in subsequent years (between first and sixth grades). Further, it was hypothesized that students who exhibited fewer aggressive and problem-conduct behaviors in first grade would be less likely to develop them in subsequent grades.
Results: Researchers found no main impacts overall on sixth grade aggressive behavior (in males or females) for the GBG when compared with the internal, external, and active Mastery Learning controls. They did, however, find significant and increasing impacts of the GBG on male students with higher levels of aggressive behavior on the SAS measure as reported in first grade. Among these aggressive males, both the experimental and control groups’ evolution of aggressive behavior remained the same until third grade. After third grade, the level of aggressive behavior among control group males plateaued at the third grade level while GBG males showed a continual drop in aggressive behavior in the following grades through to the transition into middle school. The drop in aggression was not seen in females or in GBG males who started below the median level of aggressive behavior at first grade assessment.
The authors noted that the population from this report can be considered representative of the elementary public school children in the eastern part of Baltimore, who remained in their same school for two years and remained in a Baltimore public school for six years.
Dolan, L. J., Kellam, S. G., Brown, C. H., Werthamer-Larsson, L., Rebok, G. W., Mayer, L. S., Laudolff, J., & Turkkan, J. S. (1993). The short-term impact of two classroom-based preventive interventions on aggressive and shy behaviors and poor achievement. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 14, 317-345.
Evaluation Population: 864 students from 19 schools in Baltimore.
Approach: This study examined the impact of preventative interventions on aggressive and shy behavior in children. Classrooms in the intervention schools were randomly assigned to GBG or Mastery Learning (ML) intervention. In addition, entering first graders were randomly assigned to classes. The Mastery Learning intervention is a system of enrichment of the reading curriculum including goal setting, communication of high expectations, small instructional units, formative testing, and immediate feedback. Classrooms randomly assigned to receive no intervention were present in both intervention schools and in other schools, and acted as a control group. Students’ behavior was assessed through teacher reports, peer assessments, and standardized tests.
Results: Compared to the external school control, but not the internal school control, GBG produced a significant decrease in boys’ teacher-reported aggressive behavior. Compared with the internal control, but not the external control, GBG produced a significant decrease in girls’ teacher-reported aggressive behavior. Boys’ aggressive behavior decreased as a result of GBG, but there was no impact for girls. For all students, GBG showed a larger decrease in aggressive teacher ratings among those who began the year with more aggressive ratings from teachers.
GBG resulted in a decrease in teacher-rated shy behavior for both boys and girls. The ML groups were associated with increased reading achievement scores for low-achieving male students and high-achieving female students, but not for high-achievement males or low-achievement females. Overall, GBG seemed to decrease aggressive behavior, while ML was associated with increased reading achievement. An internal validity issue in this study was that the teacher provided the intervention and ratings and was aware of specific outcome targets. The peer ratings may also have been skewed because of their teacher’s expectation of better behavior.
Kellam, S. G. & Anthony, J. C. (1998). Targeting early antecedents to prevent tobacco smoking: Findings from an epidemiologically based randomized field trial. American Journal of Public Health, 88, 1490-1495.
Evaluated Population: 1604 first grade children from five urban areas of Baltimore. Students were recruited in two consecutive cohorts in 1985 and 1986 (Wave 1 N = 818, Wave 2 N = 786). 808 students were male and 796 were female.
Approach: Three to four elementary schools were selected in each of 5 selected urban areas of Baltimore. The schools were randomly assigned to the Good Behavior Game treatment, the Mastery Learning comparison treatment, or the control group which received the school’s normal curriculum. In each intervention school, one classroom was randomly assigned to the treatment condition and one served as a within-school control classroom. Children were interviewed for 40-70 minutes each spring for 6 years following the implementation of treatment to assess tobacco and drug use.
Results: Boys in the GBG program were less likely to smoke tobacco after the age of ten than boys in the control group. Girls in the Good Behavior Game program, however, were equally likely to smoke compared with those in the control group. There were no differences between the Good Behavior program and the comparison Mastery Learning program in terms of tobacco use. The Mastery Learning program boys had slightly lower levels of tobacco use compared with controls, but these differences did not reach significant levels. Interestingly, girls assigned to the Mastery Learning program had slightly higher levels of tobacco use compared with both the control and Good Behavior Game groups but these findings also did not reach significant levels.
Link to program curriculum: http://www.hazelden.org/OA_HTML/ibeCCtpItmDspRte.jsp?item=657
Dolan, L. J., Kellam, S. G., Brown, C. H., Werthamer-Larsson, L., Rebok, G. W., Mayer, L. S., Laudolff, J., & Turkkan, J. S. (1993). The short-term impact of two classroom-based preventive interventions on aggressive and shy behaviors and poor achievement. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 14, 317-345.
Kellam, S. G. & Anthony, J. C. (1998). Targeting early antecedents to prevent tobacco smoking: Findings from an epidemiologically based randomized field trial. American Journal of Public Health, 88, 1490-1495.
Kellam, S. G., Rebok, G. W., Ialongo, N. & Mayer, L. S. (1994). The course and malleability of aggressive behavior from early first grade into middle school: Results of a development epidemiologically-based preventive trial. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry. 35(2), 259-281.
Program categorized in this guide according to the following:
Evaluated participant ages: 6-7 / Program age ranges in the Guide: mid-childhood
Program components: school-based
Measured outcomes: social and emotional health and development; behavioral problems, physical health
Program information last updated 4/26/07
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© Child Trends 2003 |