Behavioral Programs in Schools May Improve Grades

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - School-based programs that target students' emotional, social and decision-making skills are likely to also boost their academic achievement, a team of Washington researchers reports. Their findings suggest that more broadly focused interventions can have a wider-ranging effect than those that specifically target academic achievement.

"Social skills, bonding to school, and early behavioral problems-- such as substance use, relational aggression, and other forms of disruptive or antisocial behavior -- predict academic achievement," according to study author Charles B. Fleming, a research analyst at the University of Washington School of Social Work.

"These findings provide evidence that school-based programs that target these variables, and are aimed at preventing drug use and other types of problem behavior, are likely to have positive effects on academic achievement," he told Reuters Health.

Fleming and his colleagues analyzed data collected from 576 students in 10 schools in the Pacific Northwest, who were participating in the long-term Raising Healthy Children project. They looked at the children's social and behavioral skills in seventh grade, as indicated by survey responses from the students, their parents and teachers, and the student's academic achievement in tenth grade.

The students' social, emotional, and decision-making skills predicted their test scores and grades in tenth grade, the researchers report in the Journal of School Health.

For example, students with higher levels of school bonding, who thought of school as fun and said they tried to do well in school, as well as those with better social, emotional, and decision-making skills tended to receive higher test scores and earn higher grades than their peers.

In contrast, those with attention problems, those whose friends exhibited negative behaviors, like alcohol drinking and fighting, and those with disruptive and aggressive behavior tended to get lower test scores and lower grades.

"Students with early discipline problems are likely to experience negative reactions from teachers and their peers and fewer opportunities to be engaged productively in school," Fleming told Reuters Health. He added that "students who thus feel less connected or bonded to school are likely to learn less and perform poorly."

The findings "support the argument that interventions that boost the social and emotional skills of children, increase their ability to stay focused in the classroom, and improve school bonding, are likely to increase academic performance," the authors write.

Fleming acknowledges that the current findings "are by no means earth shattering." Still, he added, "they are a reminder, in this era of No Child Left Behind and its focus on improving standardized test scores, that it is also important to focus on other aspects of social development which are, in fact, related to academic achievement."

The study was funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse.

SOURCE: Journal of School Health, November 2005.