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Abstract
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Before
Emotions can be overwhelming and result in aggressive and uncooperative behaviour, especially when we have no appropriate strategy to deal with them. We evaluate a school-based programme, Surfeel, which teaches primary school children socio-emotional skills, enabling them to find appropriate strategies to cope with uncomfortable situations through verbalisation. We hypothesise that the implementation of the programme will result in a less aggressive learning environment which will improve children’s educational outcomes. To test this, we will first look at reported bullying incidents in treated classes. Secondly, we will investigate how children’s grades evolve over the course of the programme.
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After
Emotions can be overwhelming and result in aggressive and uncooperative behaviour, especially when we have no appropriate strategy to deal with them. We evaluate a school-based programme, Surfeel, which teaches primary school children socio-emotional skills, enabling them to find appropriate strategies to cope with uncomfortable situations through verbalisation. We hypothesise that the implementation of the programme will result in a less aggressive learning environment which will improve children’s educational outcomes. To test this, we will first look at reported bullying incidents in treated classes. Secondly, we will investigate how children’s grades evolve over the course of the programme. Last, we will collect pre and post treatment data in treated and control classes about the children's abilities to recognize and express emotions; their feelings in class; through surveys as well as drawings.
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Trial Start Date
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Before
January 29, 2024
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After
November 12, 2024
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Trial End Date
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Before
July 26, 2024
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After
July 31, 2026
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Last Published
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Before
January 19, 2024 02:24 PM
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After
November 11, 2024 03:16 PM
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Intervention Start Date
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Before
February 05, 2024
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After
December 02, 2024
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Intervention End Date
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Before
June 28, 2024
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After
June 30, 2025
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Primary Outcomes (End Points)
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Before
Educational outcomes (grades); bullying incidents and social worker interventions; learning environment measured by teachers' perception; emotional intelligence of subjects measured through parents' reports of children’s behaviours and direct evaluation of subjects through standardized test
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After
Educational outcomes (grades); bullying incidents and social worker interventions; learning environment measured by teachers' perception, both the teacher administering the treatment as well as another teacher not knowing the program; emotional intelligence of subjects measured through parents' reports of children’s behaviours and direct evaluation of subjects through standardized tests and drawings.
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Experimental Design (Public)
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Before
We run an RCT to evaluate a school-based intervention in Lisbon, Portugal which teaches children socioemotional skills by enabling them to verbalise their feelings in a playful way, primarily through videos and songs.
We randomize treatment assignment at the class level, so that we will be able to compare children who did and did not receive the treatment within the same school and grade, to exclude any possible confounder given by school choice and age of participants.
The intervention is developed and distributed by Brokkolat. The programme is prepared to be used in schools directly and is divided into 18 separate sessions, consisting of 5-10 minutes of videos, 5-10 minutes of discussion and 30-40 minutes of arts/crafts activity. Teachers usually teach one or two sessions a week, making the intervention last between 9 and 18 weeks.
The programme is based mainly on Cognitive-Behavioural Therapy (Beck, 1975) and on Transactional Analysis (Ian Stewart, 1987). It further draws from Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (Kabat-Zinn, 2005) and contemporary research on the impact of emotional awareness by Brackett (2019).
References:
BECK, A. (1975). Cognitive Therapy and the emotional disorders. Plume.
BRACKETT, M. (2019). Permission to feel: unlocking the power of emotions to help our kids, ourselves, and our society thrive. Celadon Books.
STEWART, I., JOINES, V.. (1987). TA Today: A New Introduction to Transactional Analysis.
KABAT-ZINN, J. (2005). Wherever you go, there you are: Mindfulness meditation for everyday life. Hachette Books.
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After
We run an RCT to evaluate a school-based intervention in Portugal which teaches children socioemotional skills by enabling them to verbalise their feelings in a playful way, primarily through videos and songs.
We randomize treatment assignment at the class level, so that we will be able to compare children who did and did not receive the treatment within the same school district and grade, to exclude any possible confounder given by regional differences and age of participants.
The intervention is developed and distributed by Ginja. The programme is prepared to be used in schools directly and is divided into 36 separate sessions, consisting of 5-10 minutes of videos, 5-10 minutes of discussion and 30-40 minutes of arts/crafts activity. Teachers usually teach one or two sessions a week, making the intervention last between 18 and 36 weeks.
The programme is based mainly on Cognitive-Behavioural Therapy (Beck, 1975) and on Transactional Analysis (Ian Stewart, 1987). It further draws from Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (Kabat-Zinn, 2005) and contemporary research on the impact of emotional awareness by Brackett (2019).
References:
BECK, A. (1975). Cognitive Therapy and the emotional disorders. Plume.
BRACKETT, M. (2019). Permission to feel: unlocking the power of emotions to help our kids, ourselves, and our society thrive. Celadon Books.
STEWART, I., JOINES, V.. (1987). TA Today: A New Introduction to Transactional Analysis.
KABAT-ZINN, J. (2005). Wherever you go, there you are: Mindfulness meditation for everyday life. Hachette Books.
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Planned Number of Clusters
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Before
300 classrooms in 13 schools
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After
25 classrooms in 3 school districts
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Planned Number of Observations
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Before
7,044
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After
492
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Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
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Before
150 treated classes, 150 control classes
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After
13 treated classes, 12 control classes
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Pi as first author
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Before
No
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After
Yes
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