Social Skills Strategies: The Socially Wise Program
Study: Vernon & Schumaker (n.d.)

Describe how students were selected to participate in the study:

The instructional program was described orally to potential participants by agency personnel at the county diversion program and by school guidance counselors. If interested, youths took a written description of the instructional program and the research study along with a consent form home to their parents/guardians. Only those youth whose parents signed consent forms, who signed consent forms themselves, and who met the criteria for inclusion were included in the study. The criteria for inclusion in the study were as follows. They had to be between 11 and 18 years old. Additionally, they had to meet at least one of the following criteria: they had to have been adjudicated by a juvenile court for a crime or arrested for a social problem; they had to have been formally classified as having a behavior disorder or learning disability by school personnel; they had to have more than four referrals to the school office for social problems; they had to have a 501 plan for social problems in school; or they had to have been removed from the home and placed in a facility or group home for juveniles as a result of social-conduct problems.

Describe how students were identified as being at risk for academic failure (AI) or as having emotional/behavioral difficulties (BI):

The records of youths with consent were reviewed by school personal to determine eligibility and diagnoses and to collect demographic information which was given to the researchers.

ACADEMIC INTERVENTION: What percentage of participants were at risk, as measured by one or more of the following criteria:

• below the 30th percentile on local or national norm, or
• identified disability related to the focus of the intervention?

%

BEHAVIORAL INTERVENTION: What percentage of participants were at risk, as measured by one or more of the following criteria:

• emotional disability label,
• placed in an alternative school/classroom,
• non-responsive to Tiers 1 and 2, or
• designation of severe problem behaviors on a validated scale or through observation?

100.0%

Please describe the study design:

The experimental design was a multiple-baseline across behaviors design. The three behaviors representing the three baselines were students' performance in role-play situations of three social skills: Dealing with Critical Feedback, Coping with No, and Accepting Advice. Each of twelve students took part in one iteration of the design. That is, each student learned each of the three social skills in sequence while data were being collected throughout the study.

Clarify and provide a detailed description of the treatment in the submitted program/intervention:

The treatment was a multimedia computerized program, called the Socially Wise Program, that students used individually at their own pace to learn the three social skills to mastery.

Clarify what procedures occurred during the control/baseline condition (third, competing conditions are not considered; if you have a third, competing condition [e.g., multi-element single subject design with a third comparison condition], in addition to your control condition, identify what the competing condition is [data from this competing condition will not be used]):

The baseline role-play tests were administered and videotaped individually by one staff member per student. These tests, including the three initial baseline role-play tests for each skill (nine role-play situations in all), usually were administered in one testing session. The researcher read the background information on the situation to the youth and asked the youth to respond as he/she normally would in that situation.

Please describe how replication of treatment effect was demonstrated (e.g., reversal or withdrawal of intervention, across participants, across settings)

The replication of the treatment effect was demonstrated most broadly across the twelve students. It was also individually demonstrated across the three social skills since students performed the skills after each lesson was taught. The data show that their performance in role-play situations only improved after they were taught the pertinent social skill taught in the most previous lesson.

Please indicate whether (and how) the design contains at least three demonstrations of experimental control (e.g., ABAB design, multiple baseline across three or more participants).

The multiple baseline across behaviors design for each student consisted of three baselines: one for each of the three social skills taught. Twelve students replicated this design across the three social skills.

If the study is a multiple baseline, is it concurrent or non-concurrent?

Concurrent

How was the program delivered?

Individually
Small Group
Classroom

Study measures are classified as targeted, broader, or administrative data according to the following definitions:

• Targeted measures
  Assess outcomes, such as competencies or skills, that the program was directly targeted to improve.
  • In the academic domain, targeted measures typically are not the very items taught but rather novel items structured similarly to the content addressed in the program. For example, if a program taught word-attack skills, a targeted measure would be decoding of pseudo words. If a program taught comprehension of cause-effect passages, a targeted measure would be answering questions about cause-effect passages structured similarly to those used during intervention, but not including the very passages used for intervention.
  • In the behavioral domain, targeted measures evaluate aspects of external or internal behavior the program was directly targeted to improve and are operationally defined.
• Broader measures
  Assess outcomes that are related to the competencies or skills targeted by the program but not directly taught in the program.
  • In the academic domain, if a program taught word-level reading skill, a broader measure would be answering questions about passages the student reads. If a program taught calculation skill, a broader measure would be solving word problems that require the same kinds of calculation skill taught in the program.
  • In the behavioral domain, if a program taught a specific skill like on-task behavior in one classroom, a broader measure would be on-task behavior in another setting.
• Administrative data measures apply only to behavioral intervention tools and are measures such as office discipline referrals (ODRs) and graduation rates, which do not have psychometric properties as do other, more traditional targeted or broader measures.

If you have excluded a variable or data that are reported in the study being submitted, explain the rationale for exclusion:

Students provided satisfaction ratings showing how satisfied they were with the multimedia program on a Satisfaction Questionnaire. Since that measure was a social validity measure and not an outcome measure, it was not included in this report. (See the article for the results.)