SMART Team
Problems addressed
Externalizing behaviors/problems
Effectiveness

No Effect

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No Effect

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Life periods served
Children (4 to 13 years)
Teenagers (14 to 17 years)
Where the program was applied
Education establishment
Country of application
United States
Description

This is a school-based violence prevention program for students from the sixth to the ninth grades, aged 11 to 15. The aim is to increase their repertoire of non-violent conflict resolution strategies, their knowledge of what triggers anger, and their confidence in their ability to improve.
The intervention is developed with the support of multimedia technologies, including games, graphics, simulations, cartoons, and interactive interviews, to teach anger management, dispute resolution, and perspective-taking skills.

Impact evaluations

An impact assessment showed that the program led to an improvement in social skills, knowledge, attitude, and beliefs about aggression and disruptive and antisocial disorders. However, there was no statistically significant effect on aggressive behavior, which is the main objective of the program [1].
The study had an experimental design with a sample of 516 students from metropolitan area schools in the Midwest of the United States. Of this total, 321 were assigned to the intervention group and 195 to the non-intervention comparison group [1].

Bibliographic reference

[1] Bosworth, K., Espelage, D., DuBay, T., Daytner, G. & Karageorge, K. (2000). Preliminary Evaluation of a Multimedia Violence Prevention Program for Adolescents. American Journal of Health Behavior, 24(4), 268–280. https://doi.org/10.5993/AJHB.24.4.3

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