Effects of School-Wide Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports on Child Behavior Problems

12,344 elementary school children in 37 schools; group-randomised, 5 measurement points across 4 school years

Maryland, US; 52.9% male, 45.1% African American, 46.1% Caucasian, ~49% free/reduced-price meals, 12.9% receiving special education at baseline.

Child-level analysis of the 37-school Maryland randomised trial. The critical measurement caveat: behaviour problems, concentration problems, social-emotional functioning and prosocial behaviour are all TEACHER RATINGS, and teachers were not blind to condition in a whole-school behavioural intervention whose explicit mechanism is changing teacher behaviour. Only the office discipline referral and suspension outcomes are administrative.

Significant effects on teacher-rated behaviour problems, concentration problems, social-emotional functioning and prosocial behaviour. Children in SWPBIS schools were 33% less likely to receive an office discipline referral than those in comparison schools — the one effect measured independently of the raters. Effects tended to be strongest among children who entered the trial in the earliest grades, i.e. those exposed longest.

Low — school-level randomisation.

Consistent with the school-level Maryland analysis and with pooled discipline effects in Lee & Gage 2020. Not replicated on achievement, and not tested in a non-US system in the way the Good Behavior Game has been.