Making Choices

Guide to Effective Programs
for Children and Youth

MAKING CHOICES

OVERVIEW

Making Choices is a school-based, social skills training program designed to foster problem solving and pro-social behavior in children and interrupt developmental trajectories leading from early aggressive behavior and peer rejection to more serious behavioral problems. The program targets two risk factors in the development of conduct problems—childhood deficits in social information processing skills and social rejection by pro-social peer groups. The Making Choices program was found to have a positive impact on post-test scores of social contact and cognitive concentration. Further, children who received the intervention also demonstrated significantly lower overt aggression. Interaction effects indicated that children who scored lower in the pretest (identified as high risk) demonstrated significant post-test gains in social contact, social competence, cognitive concentration, and peer acceptance, as well as significant decreases in overt aggression.

DESCRIPTION OF PROGRAM

Target population: Children in early elementary to early middle school.

The Making Choices is a problem-solving training curriculum that consists of 31 lessons that focus on teaching children to build friendships, work productively in groups, and respond positively to new social situations. The instruction includes group activities and discussion, games, stories, and role playing. The curriculum is designed for use in classroom or small group settings, and sessions are typically facilitated by teachers, school counselors, psychologists, or social workers.

Making Choices comes with a teaching manual that guides instructors through each lesson and activity and includes a focus on how aggressive children may be deficient in the skills needed for each step. The manual also contains copy-ready materials for each activity.

EVALUATION(S) OF PROGRAM

Smokowski, P.R., Fraser, M.W., Day, S.H., Galinsky, M.J., & Bacallao, M.L. (2004). School-Based Skills Training to Prevent Aggressive Behavior and Peer Rejection in Childhood: Evaluating the Making Choices Program. Journal of Primary Prevention, 25(2), 233-251.

Evaluated population: This efficacy study was conducted with four third grade classrooms (N=101) in a mid-sized elementary school in a rural county of a state in the Southeastern United States. Roughly one-quarter of the students at the school qualified for a free and reduced lunch and approximately one-third of the students were considered racial and ethnic minorities. The mean age of the children in the study was 8.5 years. 54 percent of the sample was female; 46 percent was male. 68 percent of the sample was European American; 22 percent was African American; 5 percent was Latino; and 3 percent was Native American or Asian.

Approach: The four third grade classrooms were randomly assigned (2 each) to the intervention or the control. 51 students in two classrooms received the Making Choices program as part of their Health curriculum. The lessons were taught by a Masters-level social work student, who was hired and trained for the research project. Students received 45 minutes lessons each week from September to May. The 50 students in the two control classrooms received the standard health curriculum without the Making Choices program.

Teachers evaluated all children in their classrooms at the beginning and end of the year using the Carolina Child Checklist—Teacher Form (CCC-TF). The CCC-TF is a 42-item instrument that measures the risk and protective factors related to aggressive behavior in children ages 6-12. This instrument includes the scales used in this study: social contact (the extent of interaction and play with others); cognitive concentration (ability to concentrate, stay on task and complete assignments); social competence (ability to interact, understand others’ feelings, and express needs and feeling appropriately); aggression (behavior such as fighting or breaking things); and peer acceptance (how much a child is liked by his or her classmates). The CCC-TF was done prior to and after the intervention.

Results: At post-test, the Making Choices intervention had positive impacts on social contact, cognitive concentration, and overt aggression, net of the pre-test scores. There were no significant impacts in the full sample for social competence or peer acceptance. Subgroup analysis (using interaction effects) revealed that high-risk children (those who scored lower on the pre-intervention CCC-TF) demonstrated significant post-test gains in all domains: social contact, social competence, cognitive concentration, overt aggression, and peer acceptance. Although random assignment was done with classrooms and the analysis was done for students, a caveat is that the study lacked sufficient statistical power for multi-level models.

SOURCES FOR MORE INFORMATION

Link to program curriculum: http://ssw.unc.edu/jif/makingchoices/about-whatmc.htm

References:

KEYWORDS: Children; Elementary school; Middle school; Manual is available; Co-educational; Skills Training; School-based; Aggression/Bullying; Other Behavioral Problems; Conduct, Disruptive Disorders; Social skills/life skills

Program information last updated 7/15/11.