What kinds of things are schools doing across the country to help keep students safe and prevent violence on campus? Do any of these strategies really work?

These were the questions that prevention researchers Denise Gottfredson, Ph.D., Gary Gottfredson, Ph.D., and their colleagues set out to answer through several complex studies. The Baltimore-based researchers are experts in school-based crime prevention and youth problem behaviors, including delinquency, drug use, and violence.

What Are Schools Doing to Prevent Violence?

The Gottfredsons and their colleagues first asked, "Exactly how many different kinds of school-based prevention activities are schools engaged in? Can they be classified?"

Through a careful analysis of many different research studies, they identified 17 different types of "environmental" prevention practices that schools across the country are using. Environmental approaches are those that focus on the structure or management of school or classroom environments. Such approaches include improving classroom management methods; clearly communicating the school's expectations for behavior and enforcing the rules; or reorganizing grades, classes, and school schedules.

They also identified six different types of "individual" prevention practices that schools are using. Individual approaches are those that focus on improving the skills of individual students. These include such practices as using prevention curricula to teach students self-control, providing counseling services, or pairing students with mentors.

By classifying the kinds of activities schools are engaged in, they were able to see that there seems to be little overlap between the kinds of things schools are doing to prevent violence and those activities that have scientific research to back them. Of the 23 prevention practices identified, only 11 have actually been studied in research with any reasonable vigor and shown to be at least somewhat effective.

Does that mean that the other 12 practices that schools across the country are engaged in aren't worthwhile? Not exactly. Many schools are engaged in many different kinds of prevention activities that seem to be quite effective in keeping students safe and healthy. They haven't yet, however, been well studied in research and proven to work.

The researchers thus concluded that while many
prevention activities are being used in schools, because so few of them have been studied in research, our actual knowledge about the programs schools are choosing from is still quite limited.

Which School-Based Strategies Are Effective?

With the knowledge that most school-based prevention activities have not yet been studied in research, the Gottfredsons asked, "What do we know about those strategies that have been studied? Which seem to be the most effective?"

By studying the differences in levels of problem behaviors among students who had participated in various prevention activities and those who had not, the researchers found that environmental prevention practices seem to be somewhat more effective than individual prevention practices. That is, programs and strategies that focus on changing schools and classroom practices show slightly better outcomes than those that seek to change individual students' behaviors. The most effective seem to be a blend of the two approaches.

Of the individual prevention strategies that have been studied in research, the most effective are prevention
curricula, instruction, or training programs that teach students social competency skills using cognitive-behavioral teaching methods.

What does that mean? It means that prevention
curricula that teach students self-control, positive decision making and refusal skills through active role playing, rehearsal and practice were more effective than those that taught the same content using traditional lecture and seat work. They were also more effective than methods such as offering individual attention/mentoring and providing counseling/social work.

However, even with the most effective strategies, the researchers saw a wide range of results. Students studied at one school showed noticeable improvements in problem behaviors while students studied at another school showed none--even though the same prevention program or strategy was implemented. Why?

Implementation Quality

The researchers guessed that the variability in a program's effectiveness from school to school was due to the way that the program was conducted in each school: the better the implementation, the better the outcome. But what does effective implementation look like? Are there things schools can do to increase their chances for success?

To answer these questions, the researchers surveyed principals and prevention coordinators nationwide about their school-based prevention practices. They then developed a complex grading scale to rate each program in three areas: technical quality, the intensity of the program application, and the extensiveness of student exposure to the program. By grading the programs "A" through "F," the researchers were able to see patterns in the school programs that were implemented most effectively.

What they found is that high morale, past success in program implementation, strong leadership, and organizational support (training, supervision, and support from the principal) seem to contribute highly to the success of a school's prevention programs. So do having structured materials such as well-written curriculum guides and having the prevention activities integrated into the normal school operations. As Gary Gottfredson concluded, "Programs are strongest when integrated into the school program and initiated by insiders." Schools that work carefully to ensure high-quality implementation see the best results.

This article is adapted from the presentation, "School-Based Prevention of Problem Behavior: What Works ... Under What Conditions?" made by Denise C. Gottfredson, Ph.D., Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice, University of Maryland, and Gary D. Gottfredson, Ph.D., Gottfredson Associates, Inc., at the Safe and Drug-Free Schools Program 2001 national technical assistance meeting.