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Program Findings Sheet

The Child Development Project (CDP)

Developmental Studies Center

Change in Drug Use Over Four Years

Location
Cupertino, Salinas, and San Francisco, California; Louisville, Kentucky; Dade County, Florida; and White Plains, New York

Program sites
Elementary schools.

Target group
Students, families, and school staff.

Program objectives

  • Promote attachment to the school community, internalization of the community’s salient norms and values, behavior consistent with school norms and values, and reduced involvement in drug use and other problem behaviors.

  • Establish a system of mutually reinforcing processes that reduce risk factors (such as aggressive behavior and poor academic performance) and bolster protective factors (such as conflict resolution skills and academic motivation) among youth at risk for substance use.
Findings
  • Students who experience a strong “sense of community” in their schools, compared with students who experience lower levels of community, also experience greater enjoyment of class, greater trust and respect for teachers, greater motivation to go further in school, greater empathy and concern for others, stronger motivation to be kind and helpful, more sophisticated conflict resolution skills, more frequent acts of altruistic behavior, greater acceptance of people who are different, higher general self-esteem, higher academic self-esteem, stronger feelings of social competence, less loneliness in school, and fewer delinquent acts.

  • Although issues of substance abuse are not directly addressed in the CDP program, a comprehensive evaluation of the program shows that when well implemented, it produces significant preventive effects on students’ use of alcohol and marijuana, and marginal effects on use of tobacco.

  • In schools where the program led to widespread change in teaching practices, the following effects were shown:

    • Prevalence of alcohol use declined by an average 11% over 4 years in CDP schools, compared with an increase of 2% in matched comparison schools.

    • Prevalence of marijuana use by CDP students declined by 2%, compared with a 2% increase by comparison school students.

    • Prevalence of cigarette use by CDP students declined by 8%, compared with a 3% decline by comparison school students.
Evaluation design
  • Quasi-experimental design, involving two demonstration schools and two comparison schools in each of the districts.

  • Cohort sequential design, beginning with baseline assessments followed by annual assessments for 3 years, using a structured classroom observation system and student and teacher questionnaires.

  • Teacher nominations and rating of students, standardized multiple-choice achievement tests and performance assessments, and review of school records.
Program interventions
  • Train school staffs in revised teaching practices that include cooperative learning activities, activities to enhance interpersonal understanding and relationships, and a literature-based approach to reading in the classroom.

  • Implement schoolwide cross-grade buddy programs and other student service activities.

  • Conduct schoolwide events and activities that involve parents with their children.

  • Provide “homework” activities that involve parents and students in conversations that strengthen family relationships and relate to what the children are learning in school.

The Child Development Project (CDP)

Program Description

The Child Development Project (Grant #2647) was a 5-year initiative designed as a comprehensive school-based program to reduce risk and bolster protective factors related to substance use. The program was implemented at 12 demonstration schools in 6 school districts located throughout the United States (6 in the West and 2 each in the South, the Southeast, and the Northeast). Youth populations targeted at each school also varied widely, ranging from 2–95% receiving free or reduced lunch, 26–100% being members of minority groups, and having average achievement test scores ranging from the 24th to the 67th percentile.

The effort attempted to transform the school into a “caring community,” in which a student’s intrinsic motivation to learn was nurtured, and supportive social relationships, sense of common purpose, and a commitment to prosocial values responsive to children’s developmental needs were commonplace. The specific intervention activities cited to accomplish these objectives included:

  • Cooperative classroom learning;

  • A “values-rich” literature-based reading and language arts program;

  • A teaching and problem-solving approach to discipline and classroom management, with regular opportunities for input from the students;

  • Classroom and school-community building projects that foster helping, cooperation, and communication among teachers, students, and families; and

  • At-home activities that involve youth and their families in conversations and activities relevant to what the students are learning in school.
The basic mode of implementation was a combination of direct training and training of trainers. Initially a small cadre of supervisory staff and teachers were trained by project and school district staff in the spring of 1992. They returned to their schools and assisted project staff to train the faculty there. Over time, trained school staff provided an increasing proportion of services including assistance with cooperative learning, modifying curricula, and implementing the discipline approach.

The outcome evaluation design involved 24 elementary schools in 6 school districts. In each district, two treatment schools were selected based upon their likelihood of embracing the program. They were matched with two comparison schools on the basis of SES, sociodemographic characteristics, and the willingness of the administration to participate as a no-treatment comparison school. A cohort sequential design was employed in which third through fifth graders or fourth through sixth graders (depending on school composition) were assessed each spring. (Kindergarten through second or third grade participated in the intervention, which was schoolwide, but in most respects were not assessed as part of the outcome evaluation.) In addition to school records and psychological batteries, the highest grade in each school was asked to complete drug use and delinquency measures.

The strength of the research design was bolstered by high levels of student participation (at least 75% each year) and good initial comparability between treatment and comparison samples (no meaningful differences on gender, ethnicity, percent low income, or substance use), as well as relatively low attrition rates over the course of the program.

Initial evaluations of treatment and comparison schools provided little evidence that the program had a positive effect on students. However, a review of school program implementation revealed that there was considerable variation in the extent to which teaching practices were affected in each school. Internal analyses revealed that 5 of the 12 demonstration schools showed high levels of classroom change relative to their comparison schools. Analyses of student outcomes for these five schools provided considerable support for the program’s effectiveness. These analyses revealed a large positive effect on students’ sense of school community; moderate positive effects on their liking for school, task orientation toward learning, intrinsic academic motivation, intrinsic prosocial motivation, and use of alcohol and marijuana (i.e., a decline in use among program students and an increase in use among comparison students); and small positive effects on their enjoyment of class, sense of autonomy, conflict resolution skills, commitment to democratic values, concern for others, altruistic behavior, enjoyment of helping others learn, and positive interpersonal behavior in the classroom. These “moderate effects” translate to about 15–20% of students in these five demonstration schools showing positive changes in outcomes that were greater than the largest changes observed among comparison students, and the average program student showed more positive change than roughly 60% of comparison students.

Multilevel regression analyses and structural equation modeling showed that:

  • Students’ sense of the school as a community was associated with a wide range of positive outcomes, including increased liking for school and learning motivation, greater concern for others and more frequent altruistic behavior, greater skill at resolving conflicts and an increased sense of efficacy, and reduced involvement in drug use and delinquent behaviors (Battistich, Solomon, Kim, Watson, & Schaps, 1995; Battistich & Hom, 1997).

  • Teacher practices (i.e., warmth and supportiveness, encouragement of cooperation, reduced use of extrinsic control, emphasis on prosocial values, and elicitation of student thinking and expression) were significantly related to students’ classroom behaviors (i.e., increased engagement, influence, and positive classroom behavior), which in turn were significantly related to students’ sense of community. Moreover, the relationships were found to be virtually identical for classrooms with predominantly poor student populations and those with relatively few poor students (Solomon, Battistich, Kim, & Watson, 1997).

  • Data indicate that students who experience a strong sense of community in their schools, compared to students who experience lower levels of community, also experience greater liking of school, greater enjoyment of class, greater trust and respect for teachers, greater motivation to go further in school, greater empathy and concern for others, stronger motivation to be kind and helpful, more sophisticated conflict resolution skills, more frequent acts of altruistic behavior, greater acceptance of people who are different, higher general self-esteem, higher academic self-esteem, stronger feelings of social competence, less loneliness in school, and fewer delinquent acts.

  • Although issues of substance abuse are not directly addressed in the CDP program, a comprehensive evaluation of the program shows that, when well implemented, it produces significant preventative effects on students’ use of alcohol and marijuana, and marginal effects on use of tobacco. In schools where the full program was well implemented, the following effects were shown:

    • Prevalence of alcohol use declined by an average 11% over 4 years in CDP schools, compared with an increase of 2% in matched comparison schools. Use of alcohol by students in CDP program schools declined from 48% to 37%; use of alcohol by students in comparison schools rose from 36% to 38%.

    • Prevalence of marijuana use by CDP students declined by 2%, compared with a 2% increase by comparison school students. Use of marijuana by students in CDP program schools declined from 7% to 5%; use of marijuana by students in comparison schools rose from 4% to 6%.

    • Prevalence of cigarette use by CDP students declined by 8%, compared with a 3% decline by comparison school students. Use of cigarettes by students in CDP program schools declined from 25% to 17%; use of cigarettes by students in comparison schools declined from 17% to 14%.
Collectively, these findings provide considerable support for CDP’s underlying conceptual model, as well as evidence that CDP training had a statistically significant, moderate effect on teachers’ classroom practices that, in turn, increased students’ sense of community and had positive effects on a number of student outcome variables. Further, treatment-comparison and internal contrasts, using fidelity of implementation as a means to partition schools, demonstrated that when implemented more fully, the program positively affected students’ social skills and behaviors, school bonding, and substance use.


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Last Updated: March 4, 2002