Effects of the Tools for Getting Along Curriculum on teachers’ reports of elementary students’ executive functions, social-emotional skills, and behavior problems

Abstract

In this study, we examined the effectiveness of Tools for Getting Along (TFGA) on teachers’ reports of executive functioning (EF), social-emotional, and behavioral skills of upper elementary school students. TFGA is a classroom-level prevention curriculum that teaches students a sequence of empirically based problem-solving steps to apply in emotionally charged situations. We randomly assigned 52 elementary schools in California, Oklahoma, and Kentucky to the treatment (n = 26) or comparison (n = 26) condition, with study participants including 135 grade 4 teachers and their 1713 students. Multilevel analyses revealed that relative to those in the comparison group, students who participated in TFGA had significantly better social skills (effect size = 0.12) and higher levels of behaviors associated with EFs (effect size = 0.11), as reported by their teachers. Further, students whose teachers reported as having higher internalizing and externalizing behaviors, lower competence, and weaker behaviors associated with EFs at baseline experienced greater improvements in these skills after participating in TFGA than their counterparts with relatively stronger skills in the comparison group. We discuss educational implications of this study to promote and scale evidence-based, social-emotional practices in elementary school classrooms.