Dr. Burns Video

With funding from the Safe and Drug Free School’s office of the US Department of Education, Smart Character Choices Program will be further developed, implemented and tested.   Prior research (2002-2006) found the Smart Character Choices program was implemented with high levels of fidelity, led to increased student outcomes, and was linked to sound psychological theory.  Research found that parent, teacher, and self report ratings of student behavior relevant to character (e.g., altruism, sense of belonging, responsibility, etc.) increased over baseline at a rate that significantly exceeded the control group.  Moreover, a moderate correlation was found between a measure of how well students’ psychological needs were met by the school using the Student Needs Survey (Burns, Vance, Szadokierski, & Stockwell, International Journal of Reality Therapy, Spring 2006) and scores from the Character Plus ™ Student Survey r (n = 522) = .62, p < .001,  supported program theoretical soundness.     

The proposed project will take the next step in the research process by assessing the implementation of the Smart Character Choices program over a 4-year period with schools not trained in internal control psychology prior to the program onset.  Ellis (2001) emphasizes the importance of ensuring that new educational programs are supported by research on three levels: 1) involves basic research on learning and/or behavior from which sound theoretical base could be developed; 2) research in applied settings to examine efficacy;  3) research that examines how effective the innovation is when implemented on a wide scale. A comprehensive research/evaluation plan will include the collection and analysis of objective performance data to assess the level of project implementation and project effectiveness.  The chart below lists proposed project interventions, expected outcomes and valid and reliable objective performance measures.