PROJECT REAL (Rural Early Adolescent Learning): Demonstrating the Efficacy of the SEALS Program

1. PROJECT REAL (Rural Early Adolescent Learning): Demonstrating the Efficacy of the SEALS Program Principal Investigators: Thomas W. Farmer, Penn State; Jill V. Hamm, UNC-CH Funded by the U.S. Department of Education, Institute for Education Sciences (R305A04056)

2. What are SEALS and REAL? • SEALS is Supporting Early Adolescents’ Learning and Social Success. It is a universal intervention program that uses professional development with teachers of early adolescents, to off-set student risk for adjustment difficulties during the early adolescent transition. • REAL is Rural Early Adolescents’ Learning, and is the research intervention project in which the SEALS intervention was finalized and tested for efficacy.

3. Conceptual Foundations of SEALS • Stage-Environment Fit Hypothesis • Developmental Science

4. Person-Environment Mismatch Hypothesis (Eccles et al., 1993) • Many youth experience difficulties during early adolescence, particularly as they transition to middle or junior high school • When students’ abilities, characteristics, and aims are not consistent with the resources and demands of the school ecology, they are more likely to experience difficulties • When students’ needs and goals are congruent with opportunities afforded by the environment, they will experience positive affective, behavioral, and motivational outcomes

5. Developmental Science • Individuals develop as an integrated whole (see figure 1) • Multiple factors operate as a correlated system • Correlated constraints • Stability in functioning • Change in functioning

7. Academic Engagement Enhancement Positive Behavior Enhancement Social Dynamics Training • Positive Behavior Enhancement – • Strategies to create structure and consistency across classes • Encouraging self-directed behavior • Proactive approaches to prevent behavioral difficulties Academic Engagement Enhancement – -General strategies that promote an instructional context that is responsive to the need of a broad and diverse range of students Social Dynamics Training – - Promoting teachers’ awareness of the impact of peers on motivation & achievement. - Recognizing peer groups and social roles - Identifying youth with social difficulties that interfere with their own or others’ learning - Strategies to use peer group dynamics to foster classroom engagement - Strategies to help students with social difficulties develop positive, supportive relationships

8. Universal Components Site Visits, Needs Assessments, and Summer Institutes Web-based training modules on universal topics including: Early adolescent development Motivation and academic engagement Instruction for low-achieving students School and classroom social dynamics Information processing Literacy support SEALS Intervention Delivery • Targeted Components • Video-conference consultation with Project REAL staff following Directed Consultation Model • Provides a forum for intervention specialists to facilitate discussions of: • Web-based training modules • Strategies for at-risk students • Strategies for classroom issues

11. Research Design for Project REAL • Intervention schools matched with control schools • 1/2 with middle school transition configuration • 1/2 alternative configuration (e.g., k-8, k-12) • Schools are matched closely on demographic data • Baseline student data collected in spring of 5th grade; Process/transition data collected in fall and spring of 6th grade • Student outcome data on school adjustment and academic achievement collected in spring of 6th grade • A follow-up year of data is collected for some sites (7th grade, fall & spring)

12. Research Sites • Pilot Sites • 2 Appalachian states, 4 middle school transition schools • Northern Plains: 4 k-12 schools • Full Implementation Sites • Appalachia: 4 middle school transition schools • Midwest: 2 k-8, 2 middle school transition schools • Southwest: 4 middle school transition schools • Deep South: 4 k-12 schools • Southeast: 2 k-8, 2 middle school transition schools • Far West, 4 middle school transition schools • Pacific Northwest, 4 k-8 schools Across Rural Areas of the United States: Total Number of Districts/Schools: 36 districts/schools Total Number of Teachers: 392 Total Number of Students: approximately 4000

13. Evidence of Efficacy of SEALS Program in Rural Schools • Effects on student achievement and student capacity variables (individual and individual-in-context adaptation) • Effects on teacher capacity to enhance individual-in-context adaptation • Effects on multiple dimensions of the peer culture of effort and achievement, with implications for student achievement

14. SEALS Program Effects on Student Achievement and Student CapacityHamm, Farmer, Robertson, Dadisman, Murray, Meece, & Song, 2010 • Is participation in Project REAL associated with more favorable outcomes on measures of (a) student’s perceptions of the social-academic context, (b) affective relationships with schooling, and (c) student achievement? • Do estimated program effects differ by subgroup (i.e., gender or race/ethnicity)?

15. Three Key Outcome Domains • Perceptions of Social-Academic Context • Peer norms for effort and achievement (Hamm, 2001) • Emotional risk of participation (Hamm & Faircloth, 2005) • Bullying context (Song, 2008) • Affective Relationships with Schooling • Sense of belonging (Hagborg, 1994; 1998) • School valuation (Voelkl, 1996) • Achievement • End-of-year state-level standardized test (school records) • Grades (school records)

16. Sample • Recruited from all 4th, 5th, & 6th grade classrooms of four public k-12 schools in a state in the Northern Plains • 72% agreed to participate, N=165 student participants • 45% Native American, 55% White • 92 boys, 73 girls • Schools were eligible for U.S. Department of Education’s Rural and Low-Income School Program (RLISP) • Locale code 7 or 8 and at least 20% of students are from families living below the federal poverty level • In our sample, 64.6% of students were eligible for subsidized meals through the National School Lunch Act

17. Summary of Results After controlling for previous year scores on each outcome, and for student demographic characteristics, students in Project REAL intervention schools, compared to their peers in matched control schools reported … • More supportive peer norms for effort and achievement; • More peer protection from bullying; • A greater sense of school belonging; • Greater valuing of school; • Higher year-end grades.

23. SEALS Program Effects on Teacher Capacity: Teacher Attunement and Benefits to Student AdjustmentHamm, Farmer, Dadisman, Gravelle, & Murray, in press Attunement is an aspect of teacher involvement, which is the extent to which teachers “take time for, express affection toward, enjoy interactions with, are attuned to, and dedicate resources to their students” (Skinner & Belmont, p. 573) • Dimensions of teacher involvement (i.e., teacher support, teacher caring) have demonstrated benefits to students’ social and affective experiences of school. Teacher attunement refers to teachers’ understanding of students’ peer group affiliations.

24. Sample Six rural middle schools • Two from Midwestern and four from Southwestern regions of United States • School sizes ranged from 131 to 246 students • Two schools were primarily White student body (91.3% White), four were primarily Latino student body (70.8% Latino) • Consent rate 73% • 28-98% of students from each school were eligible for free/reduced lunch • 50% of participating schools did not meet AYP during this school year Students • 254 participating students, all sixth-graders, 56% female • 50% of participating students Hispanic, 46.6% White, 1.5% African-American, 1.9% other (Asian, multi-racial, American Indian, unknown) Teachers • 26 sixth-grade teachers (14 intervention/12 control) • Average level of education is a master’s and some graduate work • 72% of teachers have 10+ years of teaching experience • Teachers in Southwestern schools primarily Latina, teachers in Midwestern schools primarily European-American

25. Differences in Teacher Attunement to Peer Groups in Intervention versusControl Schools Teacher Attunement Scores

26. Differences in Classroom Practice for Intervention versus Control SchoolTeachers Observation Scores

27. Teacher Attunement and Student Experiences of the School Social Affective Context Teacher attunement predicted improvements over the course of the middle school transition year to students’ … • Sense of school belonging • Perceptions that classmates would intervene in bullying instances • Perceptions that they (self) would intervene in bullying instances • Students whose teachers maintained greater attunement also declined in their perception that their classmates encouraged bullying.

30. Enhancing the Peer Culture of Effort and Achievement: SEALS Intervention EffectsHamm, Farmer, et al., 2011 • Peer cultures reflect a “…stable set of activities or routines, artifacts, values, and concerns that children produce and share in interactions with peers.” (Corsaro & Eder, 1990; p. 197). • Early adolescents experience a peer culture of academic effort and achievement; aspects of this peer culture are associated with students’ subsequent academic effort and achievement (Hamm, Hoffman, & Farmer, 2011)

31. Key Indicators of Peer Cultures of Effort and Achievement • Peer group normative contexts • Provision of peer support • Social costs/benefits of academic behaviors and dispositions to social status

32. Sample Participating Rural Schools • 10 matched pairs (20 schools) from 16 school districts in 9 states • 5 pair middle school transition, 5 pair k8/k12 • 62% of students eligible for free/reduced lunch • School size: 72-622 students • School proportion of ethnic minority students .04% - 98% • Average consent rate 70.2% Students and Teachers • 1619 students (54% female, 35% ethnic minority) • 115 6th grade teachers (77% female)

33. Fidelity of Intervention Training • Site visit prior to intervention school year • Summer institute prior to intervention school year • Introduction to three intervention components • Completion of self-guided instructional models and directed consultation sessions during intervention school year • Teacher professional development hours were logged • Average of 27.55 hours (SD = 3.76)

34. Fidelity of Teacher Implementation • Determined by classroom observation by trained observers blind to condition • Instrument well-aligned with intervention components • Intervention classrooms were significantly more aligned with intervention ideals than were control schools

35. Peer Group Injunctive Norms – Intervention/Control

38. SEALS Intervention Effect on the Relationship BetweenPeer Group Norms and Student Grades

40. Conclusions • Correlated constraint approach of the SEALS intervention helps teachers to reorganize classroom and school settings to provide greater support to early adolescents’ social, behavioral, and academic adaptation. • Diverse aspects of early adolescents’ peer systems can be improved through the SEALS program. When aspects of the peer system are more supportive of positive adaptation, student academic success is enhanced. • Enhanced capacities such as attunement to peer group affiliations and management of students in groups likely promotes teachers’ abilities to act as an “invisible hand” that guides positive social, behavioral, and academic adjustment.