Project Activities
The project included a partnership between New York University (NYU), MDRC, the Research Alliance for New York City Schools, and the New York City Department of Education. The Research Alliance provided administrative data (e.g., state test scores, discipline referrals) and the NYU and MDRC teams collected information about these students in middle school through direct assessments and student and teacher report of academic, behavioral, and social-emotional skills.
Structured Abstract
Setting
Additional information about key outcomes and study findings will be reported as more peer reviewed publications are available.
Sample
The researchers invited the 435 students and their families who participated in the 2008 efficacy study to participate in data collection for this follow-up study. These students were in 6th, 7th, or 8th grade. Most of these students are Black (72%) and were living in low-income households (86%) when they participated in the original efficacy trial between 2008 and 2012.
Intervention
The INSIGHTS into Children's Temperament intervention helps students, parents and teachers recognize how children differ in their reactions to stressful situations and offers strategies to help children regulate emotions and behaviors effectively based on their specific temperament. INSIGHTS provides teachers and parents with strategies to reduce children's behavior problems, support their competencies, and enhance their ability to self-regulate. For children, INSIGHTS teaches strategies to learn empathy, appreciate unique qualities of others, and solve typical problems in school. The intervention uses puppets to demonstrate four empirically derived temperament profiles: Gregory or Gretchen the Grumpy (high maintenance), Hilary or Henry the Hard Worker (industrious), Coretta or Carlos the Cautious (slow to warm up), and Fredrico or Felicity the Friendly (social/eager to try). Parents and teachers watch the puppets enact vignettes in videotapes used during parent and teacher workshops, and children interact with the puppets in their classrooms. The parent and teacher curriculum focuses on helping adults to shape their expectations and approaches to discipline based on different child temperament profiles. The student curriculum focuses on helping children develop empathy for others and strategies for resolving dilemmas both real and hypothetical.
Research design and methods
A group randomized trial testing the efficacy of INSIGHTS was completed from 2008 to 2012. Twenty-two urban elementary schools serving low-income families were randomly assigned to INSIGHTS or a supplemental reading program that served as an attention control condition. In the original efficacy trial, data were collected at five time points across kindergarten and first grade in three sequential cohorts of students. There were three sets of participants in this efficacy follow-up: students in 6th grade (Cohort 3 in the original trial), 7th grade (Cohort 2 in the original trial), and 8th grade (Cohort 1 in the original trial); their teachers in middle school; and their parents. Researchers re-contacted parents and students from all three cohorts in Year 1; collected student assessment data as well as student and teacher self-report data in Year 2; cleaned, merged, and analyzed the data in Year 3; and disseminated the findings in Year 4.
Control condition
Students in schools randomized to the control group in the 2008 efficacy study received a supplemental reading intervention.
Key measures
Researchers assessed student outcomes in middle school using a combination of administrative data (standardized tests, attendance, suspensions, disciplinary referrals, and special education referrals), direct assessments (Woodcock-Johnson III Tests of Achievement, Leiter International Performance Scale Revised), and surveys of students (Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire, Children's Perceived Self-Efficacy Scales) and teachers (Sutter-Eyberg Student Behavior Inventory, Student Teacher Relationship Scale). All measures were standardized and previously demonstrated to show evidence of good psychometric properties.
Data analytic strategy
The researchers used multilevel modeling and individual growth modeling to investigate the long-term impacts of INSIGHTS, whether treatment dosage or fidelity moderate the impact of the program, and whether children's long-term academic skill development is mediated by children's social-emotional development, school behavior, and short-term impacts of the INSIGHTS program in kindergarten and first grade.
People and institutions involved
IES program contact(s)
Products and publications
Journal article, monograph, or newsletter
McCormick, M. P., Neuhaus, R., Horn, E. P., O'Connor, E. E., White, H. I., Harding, S., ... & McClowry, S. (2019). Long-Term Effects of Social-Emotional Learning on Receipt of Special Education and Grade Retention: Evidence From a Randomized Trial of INSIGHTS. AERA Open, 5(3), 2332858419867290.
McCormick, M. P., Neuhaus, R., O'Connor, E. E., White, H. I., Horn, E. P., Harding, S., ... & McClowry, S. (2020). Long-Term Effects of Social-Emotional Learning on Academic Skills: Evidence from a Randomized Trial of INSIGHTS. Journal of Research on Educational Effectiveness, 1-27.
Publicly available data
Data is publicly available via a Restricted Access File (RAF). The data is accessible to qualified researchers who request it and sign an agreement that aligns with the project's data security protocols and Institutional Review Board approvals. Researchers can request access to the data on the project's website here: https://steinhardt.nyu.edu/ihdsc/projects/insights
Related projects
Supplemental information
Co-Principal Investigators: McCormick, Meghan; Cappella, Elise; McClowry, Sandra
- Lower-SES students attending kindergarten in schools assigned to the INSIGHTS group were less likely to have received special education services by fifth grade than lower-SES students enrolled in schools assigned to the attention-control group.
- Students enrolled in a school assigned to INSIGHTS in kindergarten and first grade had higher scores on the ELA standardized test in third and fourth grade, compared to students enrolled in a school assigned to the comparison group. Further, students who began elementary school with better academic skills outperformed similar students in the comparison group on the ELA standardized test in fourth, fifth, and sixth grade.
This study took place in New York City.
Questions about this project?
To answer additional questions about this project or provide feedback, please contact the program officer.