Evaluation of the Incredible Years Teacher Classroom Management Program in a Regular Norwegian School Setting

ABSTRACT

This study examined whether the Incredible Years (IY) Teacher Classroom Management (TCM) program implemented as a school-wide preventive intervention at 1st to 3rd grade in a regular school setting reduces the development of problem behavior and improves social competence. Using a quasi-experimental pre-post design, the IYTCM was implemented in 21 schools and compared with 22 matched schools that did not receive the program. A total of 241 1st to 3rd grade teachers and 1518 students aged 6 to 8 years took part in the trial. Mixed-model analyses found small positive effects on changes in students’ social competence (d_w = 0.19), while effects on change in students problem behavior were less than small (d_w < 0.20). When the program is implemented as school-wide universal preventive intervention, results suggest a small preventive impact of the IYTCM program in regular school settings for some of the outcomes measured in the study.

KEYWORDS:

• Problem behavior
• social competence
• school-wide
• prevention

Acknowledgements

Thanks goes to Anne-Kari Johnsen, Marte Gamst, and Oddbjørn Løndal for their contribution to the data acquisition. In addition, the authors are grateful to the students and families, school principals, teachers, and all other school personnel from the 43 participating schools who gave their time to the study.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

Merete Aasheim http://orcid.org/0000-0002-6269-2677

Charlotte Reedtz http://orcid.org/0000-0001-8480-2737

Monica Martinussen http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0937-1479

Additional information

Funding

The study was funded by UiT The Arctic University of Norway and the Norwegian Directorate of Health.