Classroom Strategy Reduces Adolescent Violence

“The Good Behavior Game helps teachers manage their classrooms and it balances discipline and academic instruction,” first lady Laura Bush said of AIR’s work at George Washington Elementary School in Baltimore. “This model is simple and inexpensive and it can work for children in schools across our country.”

With funding from the National Institute on Drug Abuse, Dr. Sheppard Kellam and Dr. Jeanne Poduska are leading the American Institutes for Research’s (AIR’s) efforts to develop the Good Behavior Game, a behavioral classroom management strategy that involves helping children learn how to work together to create a positive learning environment. They are integrating the findings of prevention science and education research to develop programs that offer youth who are at risk further educational opportunities. The prevention programs do not compete for academic instructional time

The Good Behavior Game promotes each child’s positive behavior by rewarding student teams for complying with criteria set for appropriate behavior, such as working quietly, following directions, or being polite to each other. The team-based approach uses peer encouragement to help children follow rules and learn how to be good students. At the same time, it enables teachers to build strong academic skills and positive behaviors.

More than two decades of randomized field trials in Baltimore show that using the Good Behavior Game in the first and second grades produces important outcomes in the short-, medium-, and long-term for students with high levels of aggression in the first grade.[1] The short-term gains include reducing classroom aggression while developing more on-task behavior. The long-term benefits among children at high risk are significant:[2]

• Eighty-six percent of Good Behavior Game participants attained a high school diploma, compared with a rate of 19 percent among similar students who did not participate in the program.
• Ninety-nine percent of nonparticipants went on to use illicit drugs, compared with 66 percent of participants.
• Eighty percent of nonparticipants demonstrated antisocial behavior in later years, compared with 43 percent of participants.

By middle school, those who played the Good Behavior Game in the first 2 years of elementary school were less likely to be delinquent and in need of mental health services than those not playing the game. At ages 19–21, those who played the game were far more likely to have attained a high school diploma and far less likely to have needed special educational services, to have been diagnosed with antisocial behavior, or to have used illicit drugs, compared to those who did not play the game in the early elementary years.

During the Good Behavior Game, a teacher divides the class into heterogeneous teams of four to seven students. The teacher then posts rules that explain what is considered improper student behavior, such as verbal disruption or leaving one’s seat without permission. A team receives a checkmark whenever a member of the team displays inappropriate behavior. Teams win when the number of checkmarks does not exceed four by the end of the game. Initially, rewards for winning include receiving stickers for good behavior. As time progresses, winning teams receive extra privileges like a longer recess. The length of a game initially lasts 10 minutes and gradually increases until it spans an entire school day.

AIR, founded in 1946, is a nonpartisan, not-for-profit organization engaged in domestic and international research, development, evaluation, analysis, product development, training, and technical assistance and assessment.

For more information on the Center for Integrating Education and Prevention Research in Schools, visit www.edprevcenter.org.

[1] Ialongo, N. S., Werthamer, L., Kellam, S., Brown, C. H., Wang, S., & Lin, Y. (1999). Proximal impact of two first-grade preventive interventions on the early risk behaviors for later substance abuse, depression, and antisocial behavior. American Journal of Community Psychology, 27, 599–641.

[2] Kellam, S. G., & Rebok, G. W. (1992). Building developmental and etiological theory through epidemiologically based preventive intervention trials. In J. McCord & R. E. Tremblay (Eds.), Preventing antisocial behavior: Interventions from birth through adolescence (pp. 162–195). New York: Guilford Press.

See also:

Kellam, S. G., Rebok, G. W., Ialongo, N., & Mayer, L. S. (1994). The course and malleability of aggressive behavior from early first grade into middle school: Results of a developmental epidemiologically-based preventive trial. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 35, 259–281.

Kellam, S. G., Ling, X., Merisca, R., Brown, C. H., & Ialongo, N. (1998). The effect of the level of aggression in the first grade classroom on the course and malleability of aggressive behavior into middle school. Development and Psychopathology, 10, 165–185.

See also the erratum: Kellam, S. G., Ling, X., Merisca, R., Brown, C. H., & Ialongo, N. (2000). The effect of the level of aggression in the first grade classroom on the course and malleability of aggressive behavior into middle school: Results of a developmental epidemiology-based prevention trial: Erratum. Development and Psychopathology, 12,107.

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