Systemic social and emotional learning: Promoting educational success for all preschool to high school students.

Social and emotional learning (SEL) has become more central to education because of demand from educators, parents, students, and business leaders alongside rigorous research showing broad, positive impacts for students and adults. However, all approaches to SEL are not equal. Systemic SEL is an approach to create equitable learning conditions that actively involve all Pre-K to Grade 12 students in learning and practicing social, emotional, and academic competencies. These conditions require aligned policies, resources, and actions at state and district levels that encourage local schools and communities to build the personal and professional capacities of adults to: implement and continuously improve evidence-based programs and practices; create an inclusive culture that fosters caring relationships and youth voice, agency, and character; and support coordinated school-family-community partnerships to enhance student development. Promoting social and emotional competencies-including the abilities to understand and manage emotions, achieve positive goals, show caring and concern for others, establish and maintain positive relationships, and make responsible decisions-are important for success at school and in life. In this article, we summarize key concepts and evidence for systemic SEL. Next, we explain interrelated Theories of Action and resources developed by the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL) to implement and continuously improve systemic SEL in schools, districts, and states. We discuss research on nested, interacting settings and processes involved in systemic SEL at proximal (classrooms, schools, families, and communities) and distal (districts, states, national, and international) ecological levels. We conclude with recommendations for future SEL research, practice, and policy. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Styles of Adaptation: The Impact of Frequency and Valence of Adaptation on Preventing Substance Use.

Purpose: To be effective, evidence-based programs should be delivered as prescribed. This suggests that adaptations that deviate from intervention goals may limit a program's effectiveness. This study examines the impact that number and quality of adaptations have on substance use outcomes. Design: We examined 306 video recordings of teachers delivering 'All Stars', a middle school drug prevention program. Multiple observers coded each recording, noting the number and type of adaptation each teacher made. Each adaptation was given a valence rating. Adaptations that were deleterious to program goals received negative valence ratings; positive ratings were given for adaptations that were likely to facilitate achievement of program goals; neutral ratings were given to adaptations that were expected to have neither a positive nor negative impact on program goals. Findings: All teachers made adaptations. Teachers were consistent across time in the types of adaptations they made, suggesting each teacher has a personalized style of adapting. Those who made few adaptations, and whose average adaptation was rated as being positive had a higher percentage of students who remained non-drug users. In contrast, teachers who made many adaptations, whether their average valence rating was positive, neutral or negative, failed to have as many students remain non-drug users. Measures of fidelity, including quality of delivery and teacher understanding were related to valence of adaptations, with better performance related to making positive adaptations. Practical Implications: Through training and supervision, teachers should be guided and encouraged to follow programs directions, making few adaptations and ensuring that adaptations that are made advance the goals of intervention. Programs should define acceptable and unacceptable ways they may be adapted. Value: This study provides significant evidence about the challenges that face disseminated evidence-based programs.

Promoting quality of program delivery via an internet message delivery system.

This article presents results from a study that evaluated an online message system designed to improve the delivery of prevention programs. We conducted a quasi-experimental study with 32 agencies and schools that implemented substance use prevention programs and examined differences between the comparison and intervention groups. We also examined the impact of dosage of the message system by comparing results among three groups of teachers: non-users, low users, and high users. Results for norm setting were marginally significant, such that teachers within the agencies assigned to the intervention condition scored higher on their understanding of norm setting at posttest compared to teachers within comparison agencies, after controlling for pretest knowledge scores and demographic items. In the model examining impact of dosage, high users of the intervention scored significantly higher on self-reported understanding of their program, quality of delivery, and program effectiveness compared to non-users. Low users of the intervention reported significantly higher quality of delivery compared to non-users.

The role of teacher communicator style in the delivery of a middle school substance use prevention program.

We examine whether teachers' communicator style relates to student engagement, teacher-student relationships, student perceptions of teacher immediacy, as well as observer ratings of delivery skills during the implementation of All Stars, a middle school-based substance use prevention program. Data from 48 teachers who taught All Stars up to 3 consecutive years and their respective seventh-grade students (n = 2,240) indicate that having an authoritative communication style is negatively related to student engagement with the curriculum and the quality of the student-teacher relationship, while having an expressive communicator style improves teachers' immediacy to student needs. Adaptations made by a subsample of teachers (n = 27) reveal that those who were more expressive asked students more questions, used more motivational techniques, and introduced more new concepts than authoritarian teachers.

Coaching to Enhance Quality of Implementation in Prevention.

PURPOSE: This study describes topics covered by coaches assisting teachers implementing a research-based drug prevention program and explores how coaching affected student outcomes. DESIGN: The All Stars drug prevention curriculum was implemented by 16 urban teachers who received four coaching sessions. Two coaches participated. Coaches were interviewed by investigators to assess topics covered. Students completed pretest-posttest measures of mediators and substance use behaviors. FINDINGS: The average teacher was coached on 11.7 different topics, out of a total of 23 topics. Coaching topics most heavily emphasized included: introduction and wrap up; time management; general classroom management; teacher's movement around the class; asking open-ended questions; using students' questions, comments and examples to make desired points; general preparation; engaging high-risk youth; reading from the curriculum; implementing activities correctly; focusing on objectives and goals; maintaining a focus on the task; and improving depth of understanding. Seven coaching topics were found to relate to changes in student mediators and behavior. RESEARCH LIMITATIONS/IMPLICATIONS: The current study was exploratory. Future research should explore how teachers develop the particular skills required by prevention programs and how coaches can assist them. PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS: We postulate five levels of skill development which coaches may address: (1) fundamental teaching skills, (2) mechanics of program delivery, (3) development of an interactive teaching style, (4) effective response to student input, and (5) effective tailoring and adaptation. ORIGINALITY/VALUE: This represents one of a very few studies that explores how coaching impacts outcomes in substance abuse prevention.

Three-year trajectory of teachers' fidelity to a drug prevention curriculum.

Little is known about the trajectories over time of classroom teachers' fidelity to drug prevention curricula. Using the "Concerns-Based Adoption Model" (C-BAM) as a theoretical framework, we hypothesized that teachers' fidelity would improve with repetition. Participants comprised 23 middle school teachers who videotaped their administration of three entire iterations of the All Stars curriculum. Investigators coded two key curriculum lessons, specifically assessing the proportion of activities of each lesson teachers attempted and whether they omitted, added, or changed prescribed content, or delivered it using new methods. Study findings provided only partial support for the C-BAM model. Considerable variability in teachers' performance over time was noted, suggesting that their progression over time may be nonlinear and dynamic, and quite possibly a function of their classroom and school contexts. There was also evidence that, by their third iteration of All Stars, teachers tended to regress toward the baseline mean. That is, the implementation quality of those that started out with high levels of fidelity tended to degrade, while those that started out with very low fidelity to the curriculum tended to improve. Study findings suggest the need for ongoing training and technical assistance, as well as "just in time" messages delivered electronically; but it is also possible that some prevention curricula may impose unrealistic expectations or burdens on teachers' abilities and classroom time.

Teachers' delivery skills and substance use prevention program outcomes: the moderating role of students' need for cognition and impulse decision making.

The purpose of this study was to extend the literature in both substance use implementation and persuasive health communication by examining the extent to which students' need for cognition and impulsive decision-making moderated the relationship between teachers' classroom communication behavior and program outcomes in an evidence-based middle school substance use prevention curriculum. Participants included 48 teachers and their respective 7th grade students who participated in a randomized trial testing the effectiveness of personal coaching as a means to improve the quality with which teachers implemented the All Stars curriculum. Need for cognition and impulse decision-making were both associated with positive changes in lifestyle incongruence and commitments to not use substances for students whose teachers displayed greater interactive teaching. Further, need for cognition was associated with lower alcohol use rates while impulse decision making related to lower rates of marijuana use in classes with interactive teaching.

The potential of coaching as a strategy to improve the effectiveness of school-based substance use prevention curricula.

Research-based substance use prevention curricula typically yield small effects when implemented by school teachers under real-world conditions. Using a randomized controlled trial, the authors examined whether expert coaching improves the effectiveness of the All Stars prevention curriculum. Although a positive effect on students' cigarette use was noted, this finding may be attributed to marked baseline differences on this variable across the intervention and control groups. No effects were found on students' alcohol or marijuana use or on any of several variables thought to mediate curriculum effects. The effects of coaching on teachers may not become evident until future years, when they have moved beyond an initial mechanical delivery of the curriculum.

The effects of students' curriculum engagement, attitudes toward their teachers, and perception of their teachers' skills on school-based prevention curriculum outcomes.

We examined the association between changes in the substances and mediating variables targeted by the All Stars drug prevention curriculum, and students' engagement in and enjoyment of the curriculum, their attitudes toward their teachers, and their perceptions of their teachers' skills. Forty-eight school staff administered at least one All Stars class, for up to three consecutive years, to their seventh grade students in 107 classes in a large Midwestern school district. A sample of 2428 students completed a linked pretest and post-test, for a response rate of 91%. We found that students' engagement in and enjoyment of the curriculum, their attitudes toward their teachers, and their perceptions of their teachers' skill were all associated with positive changes in the curriculum's five mediators, but not with changes in students' substance use per se. Study findings suggest the importance of these three attributes to the achievement of the objectives of prevention curricula.

Measuring quality of delivery in a substance use prevention program.

The purpose of this study was to develop and validate an observation measure designed to capture teachers' use of interactive teaching skills within the delivery of the All Stars substance use prevention program. Coders counted the number of times teachers praised and encouraged students, accepted and used students' ideas, asked questions, self-disclosed personal anecdotes, and corrected student misbehavior. These teacher behaviors loaded on three factors: classroom management, acknowledgment, and student-centered methods. Classroom management was negatively related to student engagement. Acknowledgment was negatively related to students' normative beliefs. Student-centered methods were positively related to student idealism and normative beliefs, and marginally predicted decreases in student marijuana use. Editors' Strategic Implications: The authors provide a promising approach to studying pedagogical prevention approaches, and they also link teaching processes to student outcomes. This study of program delivery should be of general interest (i.e., not limited to substance use prevention) to practitioners and researchers.

Science, policy and practice--lessons from America.

The experience in the United States regarding drug abuse prevention has involved three entities: scientific researchers, practitioners who work with youth, and policy makers. To the degree that each of these entities play complimentary roles, society benefits. In the past, these three entities have not collaborated or taken advantage of the strengths that each has to offer. Future goals should place an emphasis on scientific researchers contributing to the development and rigorous testing of programmatic approaches. Practitioners not only need to adopt effective programs and implement with fidelity, but also need to provide scientists opportunities to collaborate in order to make programs work for specific settings and populations. Finally, policy makers need to support prevention with funding and policy that is friendly to effective prevention and immune from political whims. Entities outside the United States can learn from the thirty years of experience of prevention experienced in North America.

Ciencia, política y práctica: lecciones desde Estados Unidos de América / Science, policy and practice - lessons from America

La experiencia de Estados Unidos con respecto a la prevención del consumo de drogas involucra a tres entidades: los investigadores científicos, los profesionales que trabajan con la juventud y los encargados de las medidas políticas. La sociedad se beneficia del papel complementario de estas entidades. En el pasado, dichas entidades no colaboraban ni aprovechaban el potencial que cada una de ellas podía ofrecer. Los objetivos futuros han de centrarse especialmente en la contribución de los investigadores científicos al desarrollo y comprobación rigurosa de las propuestas programáticas. Los profesionales no sólo han de adoptar programas efectivos y ejecutarlos con fidelidad, sino también deben proporcionar a los científicos la oportunidad de colaborar para lograr que los programas funcionen en ámbitos concretos y con poblaciones específicas. Por último, los encargados de las medidas políticas tienen que apoyar la prevención con financiación y estrategias abiertas a la prevención eficaz e inmunes a los vaivenes políticos. Las entidades de otros países pueden aprender de los treinta años de experiencia en prevención que tiene Estados Unidos

The experience in the United States regarding drug abuse prevention has involved three entities: scientific researchers, practitioners who work with youth, and policy makers. To the degree that each of these entities play complimentary roles, society benefits. In the past, these three entities have not collaborated or taken advantage of the strengths that each has to offer. Future goals should place an emphasis on scientific researchers contributing to the development and rigorous testing of programmatic approaches. Practitioners not only need to adopt effective programs and implement with fidelity, but also need to provide scientists opportunities to collaborate in order to make programs work for specific settings and populations. Finally, policy makers need to support prevention with funding and policy that is friendly to effective prevention and immune from political whims. Entities outside the United States can learn from the thirty years of experience of prevention experienced in North America

Substance abuse prevention program content: systematizing the classification of what programs target for change.

We conducted an analysis of programs listed on the National Registry of Effective Programs and Practices as of 2003. This analysis focused on programs that addressed substance abuse prevention from among those on the effective or model program lists and that had manuals. A total of 48 programs met these inclusion criteria. We coded program manuals for content that was covered based on how much time was devoted to changing targeted mediating variables. The value of this approach is that program content can be judged using an impartial standard that can be applied to a wide range of intervention approaches. On average, programs addressed eight of 23 possible content areas. Our analyses suggested there were seven distinguishable approaches that have been used in substance abuse prevention programs. These include (i) changing access within the environment, (ii) promoting the development of personal and social skills, (iii) promoting positive affiliation, (iv) addressing social influences, (v) providing social support and helping participants develop goals and alternatives, (vi) developing positive schools and (vii) enhancing motivation to avoid substance use. We propose that the field use such analyses as the basis of future theory development.

Simplifying the delivery of a prevention program with web-based enhancements.

The ease with which prevention programs can be delivered may impact whether or not they are implemented as designed. This paper presents a website with enhancements designed to make delivery of the All Stars substance use prevention program easier. Administrative tasks, such as completing paperwork associated with program delivery were automated using web technology. A pilot study of the web site was conducted with program instructors. There was a significant improvement in teachers' perceived ease of program delivery. Modest correlation coefficients were found for the relationship between ease of delivery of specific program activities and adherence to these activities.

Quality of implementation: developing measures crucial to understanding the diffusion of preventive interventions.

As prevention programs become disseminated, the most serious threat to effectiveness is maintaining the quality of implementation intended by the developers. This paper proposes a methodology for measuring quality of implementation in school settings and presents data from a pilot study designed to test several of the proposed components. These methods included assessments of adherence, quality of process, the positive or negative valence of adaptations, teachers' attitudes and teachers' understanding of program content. This study was conducted with 11 teachers who had varying degrees of experience who taught Life Skills Training. Observation and interview data were collected during visits to schools. Results suggest that quality of implementation can be measured through observation and interview. Teachers varied in adherence and quality of program delivery. All teachers made adaptations to the program. Experienced teachers were more likely to adhere to the curriculum, deliver it in a way that was more interactive and engaging to students, communicate the goals and objectives better, and make positive adaptations. The field can use these findings as the basis for exploring strategies for measuring and improving quality of implementation.

Pursuing the course from research to practice.

Diffusion of Innovation Theory describes the typical course by which innovations become standard practice. Research-based prevention programs are one such innovation. These programs have passed through the early phases of diffusion-innovation development and adoption by progressive schools that seek out innovations. With one quarter of the nation's schools having adopted a research-based program, the field is currently in the early majority phase of diffusion. If the patterns of normal diffusion hold true, this phase is likely to be characterized by emerging tensions between program developers and adopting schools. There are several concerns that require attention from researchers and practitioners. Practitioners need to develop their capacity to implement programs with fidelity and to adapt programs appropriately to meet their circumstance. Program developers need to simplify and redesign programs to make them appealing and useful to teachers. Operational capacity to fulfill orders and provide training needs to be developed.

A review of research on fidelity of implementation: implications for drug abuse prevention in school settings.

To help inform drug abuse prevention research in school settings about the issues surrounding implementation, we conducted a review of the fidelity of implementation research literature spanning a 25-year period. Fidelity has been measured in five ways: (1) adherence, (2) dose, (3) quality of program delivery, (4) participant responsiveness and (5) program differentiation. Definitions and measures of fidelity were found not to be consistent across studies, and new definitions are proposed. While there has been limited research on fidelity of implementation in the social sciences, research in drug abuse prevention provides evidence that poor implementation is likely to result in a loss of program effectiveness. Studies indicate that most teachers do not cover everything in a curriculum, they are likely to teach less over time and training alone is not sufficient to ensure fidelity of implementation. Key elements of high fidelity include teacher training, program characteristics, teacher characteristics and organizational characteristics. The review concludes with a discussion of the tension between fidelity and reinvention/adaptation, and ways of resolving this tension. Recommendations are made for developing a consistent methodology for measuring and analyzing fidelity of implementation. Further, researchers and providers should collaborate to develop ways of introducing flexibility into prevention programs.

Teacher training in norm setting approaches to drug education: a pilot study comparing standard and video-enhanced methods.

Norm setting has been shown to be a crucial element of effective drug education. The purpose of this study was to examine the degree to which a videotape describing concepts and methods for establishing positive norms would enhance standard training. Participants included 35 teachers and 64 health education students who were randomly assigned to the standard training condition or the video-enhanced training. Participants completed pretest and posttest measures of beliefs, attitudes, and knowledge concerning prevention methods. Both the standard and the video-based instruction produced improved understanding of norms and norm setting prevention methods. However, the video-based instruction resulted in several notable improvements beyond what was achieved in standard instruction. Video training can be an important tool as research-based drug abuse prevention achieves wide-scale dissemination. It offers a way of standardizing training and has the potential to increase the fidelity with which prevention programs are implemented.