Session: Using Innovative Methods to Understand the Broader Impacts of the Good Behavior Game Universal Prevention Program (Society for Prevention Research 26th Annual Meeting)

A series of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) has demonstrated promising effects of a school-based universal preventive intervention called the Good Behavior Game (GBG; Barrish, Saunders, & Wolfe, 1969). GBG is a classroom-based behavior management strategy that targets aggressive, disruptive, and off-task behavior; it helps teachers create a classroom environment conducive to teaching and learning. GBG also allows teachers to utilize social-learning principles within a team-based, game-like context to reduce aggressive/disruptive and off-task behavior, and consequently, to facilitate instruction. Prior RCTs of the original GBG have demonstrated reductions in off-task, aggressive, disruptive, and violent behavior, conduct disorder, antisocial personality disorder, drug and alcohol abuse and dependence, tobacco use, and school-based mental health service use. When GBG was combined with instructional components, significant effects were observed on aggressive/disruptive behavior, conduct problems, suspensions, need for mental health and special education services, academic achievement, high school completion, and college attendance. However, there has been less empirical investigation into the combined or possibly synergistic effects of GBG when integrated with other models. This panel leverages data from 3 RCTs to better understand the impacts of GBG when combined with other evidence-based programs on youth outcomes using a variety of innovative design and statistical methods. The first paper explores potential genetic effect modifiers of GBG when combined with an academic program. The second paper tests the impacts of GBG when combined with a social-emotional learning program (Promoting Alternative Thinking Strategies) in urban elementary schools; this 3-armed trial reports on findings for GBG alone relative to the combination of GBG and PATHS, and compared to a control condition. This study uses a causal inference approach which takes into consider implementation fidelity (i.e., compliance). The third trial tests an integration of GBG and MyTeachingPartner, which is a widely-used coaching model; in this trial, the focus is on early career teachers, who are typically lacking in effective classroom management and student engagement strategies. Taken together, these 3 papers examine GBG’s synergistic effects when combined with other programs on a range of child outcomes by leveraging innovative design and statistical methods. A senior leader in the research on GBG will serve as discussant, placing the current findings in a historical context and outlining a series of research questions that lays the foundation for the next stage of research on GBG.