Program Announcement: Social and Behavioral Context for Academic Learning CFDA 84.305A

Program Officer:
Dr. Emily Doolittle
Emily.Doolittle@ed.gov
(202) 219-1201

Purpose

Through its Social and Behavioral Context for Academic Learning (Social/Behavioral) research program, the Institute supports research on interventions designed to improve social skills and behaviors that support academic and other important school-related outcomes (e.g. attendance, high school graduation rates) in typically developing students from kindergarten through high school. Under this research grant program, the Institute will fund research to (1) explore malleable factors¹ (e.g., children's skills, classroom management practices, professional development programs) that are associated with better social skills and behaviors that support academic learning, as well as mediators and moderators of the relations between these factors and student outcomes, for the purpose of identifying potential targets of intervention; (2) develop innovative programs and practices for improving social skills and behaviors that support academic learning; (3) evaluate fully developed programs and practices for improving social skills and behaviors that support academic learning through efficacy or replication trials; (4) evaluate the impact of programs and practices for improving social skills and behaviors that support academic learning that are implemented at scale; and (5) develop and validate measures of teacher classroom management practices and child social skills and behaviors that support learning in school.

The long-term outcome of this program will be an array of tools and strategies (e.g. assessment tools and behavioral interventions) that have been documented to be effective for improving or assessing social skills and behaviors that support academic and other important school-related outcomes of students from kindergarten through high school.

Background

Despite great interest and effort among educators, researchers, and parents, the behavior problems of children and adolescents in schools continue to be a major source of public concern. A substantial body of literature has shown that disruptive classroom behavior, conduct problems, aggression, delinquency, and substance use are associated with poor academic achievement, as well as a lack of school connectedness and involvement (e.g., Najaka, Gottfredson, and Wilson 2001). The National Center for Education Statistics (2001) reported that students between the ages of 12 and 18 are victim to some 2.5 million crimes of violence or theft at school each year. On the positive side, social competencies have been linked with higher levels of achievement and school adjustment (e.g., Carlson et al. 1999; Malecki and Elliot 2002; Wentzel 1993).

School interventions aimed at reducing negative behaviors (e.g. disruptions to classroom instruction, anti-social behaviors, bullying, suspensions, absenteeism) and increasing academic competencies (e.g. academic achievement) have proliferated in the past 20 years. To date, many of the classroom or school-based strategies and techniques used by teachers and other school personnel have not been subject to rigorous evidence-based research. Although schools commonly use support services, intervention curricula, and discipline management strategies to prevent problem behavior and to promote social skills that support learning in academic contexts, evidence of effectiveness is limited (e.g., Gottfredson and Gottfredson 2001). There have been evaluations of promising elementary school-based programs, in particular programs based on social, cognitive, developmental, and ecological theory; however, many evaluations have suffered from a lack of rigorous methodology, design, and analysis (e.g., small sample sizes and low statistical power, severe attrition, lack of randomization to condition, and inappropriate level of analysis). For example, the What Works Clearinghouse reviewed the research on school-based interventions designed to improve character education. Ninety-three evaluation studies of character education interventions covering 41 character education interventions were identified, but only one-fifth of the studies (18 studies of 13 programs) met the What Works Clearinghouse standards of evidence with or without reservations². Moreover, the What Works Clearinghouse identified an additional 14 interventions for which no evaluation studies were found. Similarly, when the What Works Clearinghouse reviewed interventions intended to reduce dropout rates, 84 studies of 22 programs were identified, but only one-third met the What Works Clearinghouse standards of evidence with or without reservations³. Through the Social/Behavioral research program, the Institute intends to address this problem by supporting research to develop or evaluate classroom or school interventions designed to improve the academic learning context by promoting positive student behaviors or reducing negative student behaviors that are correlated with academic outcomes.

Teachers and parents report a need for better classroom management practices (e.g., Evertson and Weinstein 2006). Beginning teachers in their early teaching years consistently rank classroom management as their most pressing concern, and it continues to be a major cause of job dissatisfaction and teacher burnout. Classroom management consistently ranks as the first or second most serious educational problem in the eyes of the general public. Through the Social/Behavioral research program, the Institute endeavors to address this problem by supporting research on the development and evaluation of teacher professional development programs to improve classroom management skills.

Across its education research programs, the Institute supports research to explore the relations between malleable factors (i.e., things that can be changed, such as student competencies and education practices) and education outcomes in order to identify potential targets of interventions. This is translational research intended to inform the development of innovative programs, practices, or products to improve student outcomes. Under the Social/Behavioral research program, malleable factors may be those social skills and behaviors (e.g., self-regulation) that support student learning and would be correlated with education outcomes (e.g., grades, test scores, graduation rates). In addition, malleable factors appropriate for the Social/Behavioral research program include classroom management strategies, as well as programs and practices for improving those social skills and behaviors that support student learning. For example, researchers could propose to conduct detailed, quantifiable observations of classroom management practices (e.g., types of strategies, frequency, duration, under what circumstances), and then use these data to predict subsequent student social, behavioral and academic outcomes. The purpose of the study would be to identify what type or combination of classroom management practice is associated with better student behaviors and academic achievement. Researchers who can identify strong correlates of student outcomes could use this information as the basis for developing an intervention.

Under the Social/Behavioral research program, the Institute seeks to encourage rigorous research on interventions that are implemented in schools for the purpose of improving the social and behavioral context of academic learning. Examples of interventions appropriate for development or evaluation under the Social/Behavioral research program include (a) curricula designed to improve students' social and behavioral skills for succeeding in school, (b) classroom behavior management programs, (c) teacher professional development programs intended to improve teachers' behavior management practices in the classroom, and (d) curricula designed to reduce student anti-social behavior (e.g. aggression, delinquency, bullying) in the classroom or school.

The Institute recognizes that applicants to the Social/Behavioral research program typically propose models that involve multiple steps. For example, an applicant might choose to evaluate a program intended to improve teachers' classroom management skills. A simple illustration of a model of change for this program is:

Intervention	Mediator	Mediator	Mediator	Student Academic Outcome
Teacher training on classroom management strategies	Change teachers' classroom practices	Reduce student disruptive behaviors	Increase instruction time Improve students' engagement Reduce suspensions	Increase grades Increase test scores Increase graduation rates

In this model, improved student academic outcomes are the most distal outcome that the intervention seeks to improve. The Institute requires applicants to obtain measures of student academic outcomes (e.g., grades, test scores). In strong applications, researchers would also propose to measure the mediators between the intervention (teacher training on classroom management strategies) and the academic outcomes (e.g., teachers' classroom practices, students' disruptive behaviors, increased instruction time).

The Institute invites proposals to support the development and validation of new assessments or validation of existing measures of children's social skills and behaviors that support learning in school and assessments of teacher classroom management practices from kindergarten through high school. Measures of classroom management practices could be used to assess the effectiveness of teacher practices and should be validated against both student behavioral outcomes and academic outcomes in order to support the hypothesized pathway from improved classroom management practices to improved academic achievement that is mediated by improved student behaviors.

References

Carlson, E. A., Sroufe, L. A., Collins, W. A., Jimerson, S., Weinfield, N., Hennighausen, K., Egeland, B., Hyson, D. M., Anderson, F., & Meyer, S. E. (1999). Early environmental support and elementary school adjustment as predictors of school adjustment in middle adolescence. Journal of Adolescent Research, 14, 72–94.

Evertson, C.M. & Weinstein, C.S. (2006). Classroom management as a field of inquiry. In C.M. Evertson & C.S. Weinstein. (Eds.), Handbook of Classroom Management: Research, Practice, and Contemporary Issues. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Gottfredson, G. D., & Gottfredson, D. C. (2001). What schools do to prevent problem behavior and promote safe environments. Journal of Educational and Psychological Consultation, 12, 313–344.

Malecki, C. K., & Elliot, S. N. (2002). Children's social behaviors as predictors of academic achievement: A longitudinal analysis. School Psychology Quarterly, 17, 1–23.

Najaka, S. S., Gottfredson, D. C., & Wilson, D. B. (2001). A meta-analytic inquiry into the relationship between selected risk factors and problem behavior. Prevention Science, 2, 257–271.

National Center for Education Statistics (2001). Indicators of school crime and safety. Washington, DC: Office of Educational Research and Improvement, U.S. Department of Education; Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice.

Wentzel, K. R., (1993). Does being good make the grade? Social behavior and academic competence in middle school. Journal of Educational Psychology, 85, 357–364.