Violence
Conditions
Brief summary
R-CITY refers to the Collaborative Intervention with Teachers and Youth to practice and apply the 4 Rs of social skills in the classroom - Recognizing, Responding, Relationships, and Resilience. R-CITY is a collaborative teacher- and youth-focused prevention intervention that offers student lessons to accompany the Second Step curriculum. The lessons are designed to create safe and positive learning environments for all. The R-CITY Project uses a school-level randomized controlled trial (RCT) design to test the integration of the Second Step program that the school district had been scaling up district wide with the R-CITY lessons. The purpose of the RCT is to determine the value-added of the Second Step program plus the new skill content compared to the Second Step alone in elementary and middle schools. Students in both conditions get access to the Second Step content, as an active control condition.
Detailed description
The study aims to test the R-CITY intervention in 27 elementary and middle schools. Specific aims are as follows: Aim 1 is to test the effects of the integrated R-CITY intervention on attitudes. Aim 2 is to test the effects of the integrated R-CITY intervention on classroom practices and teaching self-efficacy. Aim 3 is to test the effects of the integrated R-CITY intervention on student behaviors. Outcomes are assessed at pre-test in the fall and post-test in the spring, over the course of the school year.
Interventions
BEHAVIORALSecond Step + R-CITY
For the Second Step + R-CITY (experimental) condition schools, activities include those in the Second Step Only condition, as well as student lessons designed by the project team, as well as training and individualized support for implementing classroom lessons, five 45-minute professional development sessions, and one-on-one coaching to support teacher practices and the implementation of the 6 classroom lessons.
BEHAVIORALSecond Step Only
For the Second Step Only (active comparator) condition schools, activities involve school-wide technical assistance and implementation support for the Second Step program implementation, as well as individualized technical assistance for the Second Step program. In the year following participation, Second Step Only condition schools are offered access to and training and technical support for the classroom lessons.
Sponsors
Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
Sheppard Pratt Health System
National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD)
University of Virginia
Study design
Allocation
RANDOMIZED
Intervention model
PARALLEL
Primary purpose
PREVENTION
Masking
SINGLE (Outcomes Assessor)
Intervention model description
School-level randomization of teachers to arm.
Eligibility
Sex/Gender
ALL
Age
18 Years to No maximum
Healthy volunteers
Yes
Inclusion criteria
\- General education teachers of core subjects (Mathematics, Science, Social Studies, English/Language Arts).
Design outcomes
Primary
| Measure | Time frame | Description |
|---|---|---|
| ASSIST Classroom Observations | Post-intervention, within one month following the completion of the intervention. | The ASSIST is a direct observational measure that assesses the classroom interactions between students and teachers. Observation cycles are 15 minutes and scales include tallied counts of teacher and student behaviors, as well as global ratings of interactions based on a Likert-style scale. |
Secondary
| Measure | Time frame | Description |
|---|---|---|
| R-CITY Teacher Self-Report Survey | Post-intervention, within one month following the completion of the intervention. | This survey assesses teachers' cultural competence and self-efficacy. Each item on this scale was scored on a 6-point Likert-type scale where 1 is strongly disagree and 6 is strongly agree. |
| Suspensions | Post-intervention, within one month following the completion of the intervention. | School-level student suspensions (publicly reported and accessible). |
Countries
United States
Outcome results
None listed