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Abstract
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VioLit summary:
OBJECTIVE:
The purpose of this study by Lochman et al. was to assess the effectiveness of an Anger Coping intervention program in reducing the incidence of disruptive and aggressive behavior in the classroom. The program was based upon a social-cognitive model of anger arousal, whereby aggressive children tend to over-perceive hostility from others, underestimate their own aggression, mislabel emotional arousal as anger, solve problems primarily via nonverbal action, and do not expect to solve problems through nonaggressive means.
METHODOLOGY:
The researchers employed a quasi-experimental pre-test and post-test control group design, using a non-probability sample of 32 boys at six public elementary schools. The boys were in grades four, five and six, and were selected for the study by their teachers, who had been asked to identify the most aggressive and disruptive boys in their classroom. 13 of the boys were assigned in an unreported fashion to the Anger Coping plus Teacher Consultation group (ACTC), 11 to the Anger Coping group (AC) and 8 to the untreated control condition (UC). Boys in the three groups did not differ in age or intelligence. Data were collected during the two weeks before intervention, and during the three weeks after the program. Each of the treatment groups met for 18 sessions of discussion, problem solving and examination of behavior, with the teacher consultation component involving a focus on behavior analysis, management systems and helping the child to evaluate and change aggressive behavior. Breyer's Behavior Observation Schedule for Pupils and Teachers provided a measure for rating subjects' behavior by independent observers. The Disruptive Off-Task and the Aggressive Off-Task components of the Schedule were combined to form a dependent measure of aggressive, disruptive off-task behavior. The 19-item Aggressive subscale of the Missouri Children's Behavior Checklist (MCBC) was used as a measure of teachers' perceptions of the subjects' behavior, and has established reliability and validity. The social competence and general self-esteem subscales of the Perceived Competence Scale for Children were also used, and have previously established reliability and validity. Analyses included the Mann-Whitney U-Test and Kendall Tau coefficients.
FINDINGS/DISCUSSION:
The authors found no significant differences in behavioral, perceived competence and self-esteem characteristics between the three groups on pre-test scores. Compared with the control group, the combined treatment groups (AC plus ACTC) showed a significant reduction in Disruptive-Aggressive Off-Task behavior over the period of the study, as well an increase in Perceived Social Competence and a mild decrease in teacher Aggression ratings on the MCBC (p<.10). No significant differences were found in changes on the Self-Esteem score. These relationships held for the comparison between the control and the AC group, although for the control versus ACTC group, differences were found only on the Disruptive-Aggressive Off-Task scores. There were no significant differences found between the two treatment groups. The authors concluded that the Anger Coping program was successful in decreasing the amount of disruptive-aggressive off-task behavior, in developing a better perception in the boys of their own social competence, but not in improving self-esteem. This lack of improvement was explained by the fact that the boys had already exhibited high levels of self-esteem in the initial testing. The teacher consultation program did not seem to improve treatment effects; the effects were actually slightly stronger in the group with only the Anger Coping training. It was suggested that the presence of the teachers merely replicated the effects that were already present in the Anger Coping only group, or that teachers made only minimal efforts at changing their monitoring and management of the aggressive children.
AUTHORS' RECOMMENDATIONS:
The authors suggested that teacher training could be enhanced and therefore could be more effective by gaining the support of school administrators, and by enlisting only those teachers who seemed highly motivated. They stressed the need for research into the effects of teacher training, as well as assessment of the actual behavioral influence that the training had upon the teachers.
EVALUATION:
This research presents an interesting examination of the effectiveness of behavioral intervention programs in reducing the aggressive patterns of behavior exhibited by some children. The study seemed to have good internal validity, but the method of selection of subjects should be viewed with some trepidation. Also, the small sample size and simple methodologies preclude generalization to many other populations. The offer of alternative explanations of findings was very useful, but a more thorough discussion of results and implications of the findings would have been helpful. (CSPV Abstract - Copyright © 1992-2007 by the Center for the Study and Prevention of Violence, Institute of Behavioral Science, Regents of the University of Colorado)
KW - Elementary School Student
KW - Student Aggression
KW - Student Violence
KW - School Violence
KW - Male Aggression
KW - Male Anger
KW - Male Violence
KW - Child Aggression
KW - Child Anger
KW - Child Male
KW - Child Violence
KW - Intervention Program
KW - Anger Management
KW - Program Effectiveness
KW - Program Evaluation
KW - Aggression Intervention
KW - Violence Intervention
KW - Social Cognitive
KW - Model
KW - Late Childhood
KW - Middle Childhood
Language: en |