Positive Action (PA)
Positive Action, at its core, teaches the philosophy that you feel good about yourself when you do positive actions and there is always a positive way to do everything. It is illustrated by the the Thoughts-Actions-Feelings about self Circle where positive thoughts lead to positive actions, which in turn lead to positive feelings about oneself. It also teaches the positive actions for physical, intellectual, social and emotional areas—the whole self. It is a Pre-K-12 school-based program that aims to promote good behavior while disrupting problem behaviors, improves academics, and develops social-emotional and character skills while improving mental and physical health and self-concept. Lessons are scripted and use a wide variety of strategies: classroom discussion, role-play, games, songs, journals, manipulatives and activity sheets and text booklets.
Reviewed Research
Character Education
|
Outcome domain |
Effectiveness rating |
Studies meeting standards |
Grades examined |
Students |
Improvement index |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Academic achievement |
|
2 studies meet standards | K-6 | 2,696 |
|
| Flay, B., Acock, A., Vuchinich, S., & Beets, M. (2006) | K-4 | 2,660 |
|
||
| Flay, Brian R.; Allred, Carol G. (2003) | 1-6 | 36 |
|
||
| Behavior |
|
2 studies meet standards | K-6 | 2,696 |
|
| Flay, B., Acock, A., Vuchinich, S., & Beets, M. (2006) | K-4 | 2,660 |
|
||
| Flay, Brian R.; Allred, Carol G. (2003) | 1-6 | 36 |
|
Related Reviews
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Using Social-Emotional and Character Development to Improve Academic Outcomes: A Matched-Pair, Cluster-Randomized Controlled Trial in Low-Income, Urban Schools
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Can Universal SEL Programs Benefit Universally? Effects of the Positive Action Program on Multiple Trajectories of Social-Emotional and Misconduct Behaviors
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Impact of a Social-Emotional and Character Development Program on School-Level Indicators of Academic Achievement, Absenteeism, and Disciplinary Outcomes: A Matched-Pair, Cluster-Randomized, Controlled Trial
A group of closely related outcomes.
A summary of the effectiveness of an intervention in an outcome domain, based on the quality of research, the statistical significance of findings, the magnitude of findings, and the consistency of findings across studies.
 Positive: strong evidence that intervention had a positive effect on outcomes. |
 Potentially Positive: evidence that intervention had a positive effect on outcomes with no overriding contrary evidence. |
 Mixed: evidence that intervention’s effect on outcomes is inconsistent. |
 No Discernible: no evidence that intervention had an effect on outcomes. |
 Potentially Negative: evidence that intervention had a negative effect on outcomes with no overriding contrary evidence. |
 Negative: strong evidence that intervention had a negative effect on outcomes. |
For more, please see the WWC Glossary entry for rating of effectiveness.
The number of studies that met WWC design standards and provide evidence of effectiveness. Selecting an item below will display all studies that met WWC design studies in the domain. Selecting a study citation will take you to more information on that study and its findings.
For more, please see the WWC Glossary entry for study rating.
Grades of the students examined in the studies that met WWC design standards, which may not reflect the full range of grades for which the intervention may be used.
The number of students included in the studies that met WWC design standards.
The sample size for the studies that met WWC design standards.
An indicator of the effect of the intervention, the improvement index can be interpreted as the expected change in percentile rank for an average comparison group student if that student had received the intervention.
For more, please see the WWC Glossary entry for improvement index.
The indicator represents the highest level of similarity found between your students and each of the high-quality studies of the intervention. Three filled in ovals indicates that at least one study that met standards was conducted on students very similar to yours. Clicking on the indicator for a study will provide information on the similarity for each of the characteristics you selected.