Coping Power Program
Study: Lochman, Boxmeyer et al. (2009); Lochman, Powell et al. (2009); Lochman et al. (2012)

Describe how students were selected to participate in the study:

During screening, third-grade teachers were asked in the spring to complete the Teacher Report of Reactive and Proactive Aggression (Dodge, Lochman, Harnish, Bates, & Pettit, 1997) for all of the children in their classes. Teachers rated the frequency of six aggressive behaviors on a 5-point Likert scale (total scores ranged from 6 to 30). Based on these ratings, the 30% most aggressive children across all classes was determined. Because children in the upper 2nd percentile were believed to be more likely to already have psychiatric diagnoses and to be engaged in severe antisocial behavior, and hence not appropriate for indicated prevention programs, the upper 2% were excluded. The selection criterion (30%) was based on the distribution of teacher ratings across all of the third-grade classes, rather than identifying the 30% most aggressive children in each class.

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

Rating scale used to screen students measured proactive and reactive aggression.

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?

%

Specify which condition is the submitted intervention:

The Coping Power program included a 34-session child component (Lochman, Wells, & Lenhart, 2008) and a 16-session parent component (Wells, Lochman, & Lenhart, 2008), designed to be implemented across 18 months or two school years. In this implementation trial, the intention was for counselors to hold 11 child group sessions and 5 parent group sessions during the fourth grade spring semester and the remaining 23 child and 11 parent group sessions during fifth grade. Child sessions took place at children’s schools during the school day, and children attended groups at times that were negotiated with classroom teachers, typically at times of the day when children were not involved in academic instruction in reading and math. Parent sessions were also held at school and took place either during the school day or after school, depending on scheduling preferences. The intended length of Coping Power child group sessions was 50–60 min, and for Coping Power parent group sessions it was 90 min. The recommended group size was 4–8 children. The program also included monthly individual sessions with each child to identify individual behavioral goals and to reinforce generalization of skills outside the group setting (e.g., Lochman & Wells, 2003, 2004). The Coping Power child component addressed the social–cognitive deficits identified in prior studies and focused on (a) establishing group rules, weekly behavioral goals, and contingent reinforcement; (b) developing organizational and study skills; (c) improving emotional awareness and developing anger management skills; (d) improving accuracy of perspective taking and attributions of others’ intentions; (e) developing social problem solving skills; and (f) coping with peer pressure. The Coping Power parent component consisted of 16 parent group sessions over the same 18-month period. Parents met in groups of up to 10 parents or parent dyads with the counselor. Assertive attempts were made to include mothers and fathers in parent groups, using reminder phone calls and postcards, snacks during parent meetings, and volunteers to supervise children during parent meetings. Parent groups were generally scheduled at children’s schools to make the groups geographically accessible. Over the course of the sessions, parents learned skills for (a) identifying prosocial and disruptive behavioral targets in their children using specific operational terms, (b) rewarding appropriate child behaviors, (c) giving effective instructions and establishing age-appropriate rules and expectations for their children, (d) applying effective consequences to negative behaviors, and (e) establishing family communication structures in the home (e.g., weekly family meetings). In addition to these standard parenting skills, parents also learned to support the social– cognitive and problem-solving skills that children learn in the Coping Power child component, and they focused on their own stress management.

Specify which condition is the control condition:

The children in the care as usual condition received services as usual within their schools.

If you have a third, competing condition, in addition to your control and intervention condition, identify what the competing condition is (data from this competing condition will not be used):

There were 3 conditions in this study: Coping Power - Training + Feedback (CP-TF), Coping Power - Basic Training (CP-BT), and Control. The two Coping Power condition have been combined in the demographic information below.

Using the tables that follow, provide data demonstrating comparability of the program group and control group in terms of demographics.

Grade Level

Race–Ethnicity

Socioeconomic Status

Disability Status

ELL Status

Gender

What method was used to determine students' placement in treatment/control groups?

Random

Please describe the assignment method or the process for defining treatment/comparison groups.

Assignment was stratified so that each school system had at least one comparison, one CP-TF, and one CP-BT school. Random assignment occurred at the level of the school counselor. Sixteen of the participating schools shared a school counselor. These eight pairs of schools were yoked for the purpose of assignment, so that schools that shared a counselor were assigned to the same condition. Yoking of schools was another level of stratification, and yoked pairs were randomly assigned to condition, with at least two yoked school pairs per condition (four pairs in the CP-TF condition, two pairs in the CP-BT condition, and two pairs in the comparison condition). Assignment was stratified to ensure that the final number of schools in each condition was equal (19).

What was the unit of assignment?

Schools

If other, please specify:

Please describe the unit of assignment:

What unit(s) were used for primary data analysis?

Schools
Teachers
Students
Classes
Other
If other, please specify:

Please describe the unit(s) used for primary data analysis:

How was the program delivered?

Individually
Small Group
Classroom

What were the background, experience, training, and ongoing support of the instructors or interventionists?

Seventy-nine percent of the counselors were trained at the master’s degree level, with the remainder having bachelor’s or doctoral degrees (CP-TF: 15 master’s; CPBT: 1 bachelor’s, 13 master’s, 3 PhDs; comparison: 10 master’s, 6 PhDs, 1 unknown). Seventy-eight percent were certified as school counselors (CP-TF: 12; CP-BT: 12; comparison: 14), and 16% were licensed in the state as mental health counselors (2–3 in each condition). In terms of prior work experience, nearly 80% had worked with groups (CP-TF: 15; CP-BT: 11; comparison: 12), and about three quarters of the counselors had not used an intervention that they regarded as similar to Coping Power in the past (CP-TF: 9; CP-BT: 14; comparison: 12). Twenty-four percent of counselors reported using structured manualized group interventions, but there was no single specific type of program that was being widely disseminated or used by counselors in these schools. Coping power–training plus feedback (CP-TF). CP-TF provided more intensive training and had four training components. First, the school counselors received a total of three initial workshop training days in the fall, prior to the beginning of intervention. Second, the school counselors participated in monthly ongoing training sessions (2.0 hr) in which the trainers provided concrete training for upcoming sessions, debriefed previous sessions, and conducted problem solving concerning barriers and difficulties involved in the implementation of the program. Third, individualized problem solving concerning barriers and difficulties in the implementation of the program was available to only counselors in the CP-TF condition through a technical assistance component. This component included access by the implementation staff to an e-mail account in which they could raise implementation concerns and problems and through which they could receive trainers’ responses; it also included a telephone hotline through which trainers were available for consultation about these same concerns. Fourth, the trainers reviewed the rate of completion of session objectives and provided individualized supervisory feedback through written and telephone contacts with the school counselors to enhance the intervention integrity. Counselors in this condition received from their trainer a monthly letter, followed up with a phone call when serious concerns with implementation were evident. In addition to noting the objectives that had been fully, partially, or not met based on the trainers’ review of session audiotapes, the trainers provided qualitative feedback on the enthusiasm of children’s or parents’ involvement in the session, the ability of counselors to stimulate discussion and elaborate and clarify material while still staying on the topic, the counselors’ ability to engage students in positive ways, and the counselors’ use of appropriate monitoring and consequences during sessions. Coping power–basic training (CP-BT). CP-BT had two training components. First, the school counselors received a total of three initial workshop training days in the fall, prior to the beginning of intervention. Second, the counselors participated in monthly ongoing training sessions (2 hr) in which the trainers provided concrete training for upcoming sessions, debriefed previous sessions, and conducted problem solving concerning barriers and difficulties involved in program implementation. These sessions were conducted separately for CP-BT counselors but were equivalent to the ongoing monthly training sessions for the CP-TF condition.

Describe when and how fidelity of treatment information was obtained.

IIntervention integrity. To ensure that these Coping Power intervention components were provided as planned, we formulated procedures for evaluating intervention integrity. Intervention manuals were used for both the Coping Power child component and parent component interventions. These manuals indicated session goals and the activities to be used in the session to attain those goals. While some degree of individualization of the intervention programs was permitted, allowing the interveners to adapt the terminology used or to spend more time on certain sections of the intervention to address children’s and/or parents’ particular deficits, all sections of the interventions were expected to be administered. Intervention sessions were audiotaped, and trained research staff coded each taped session for intervention integrity based on the number of objectives completed.

What were the results on the fidelity-of-treatment implementation measure?

NA

Was the fidelity measure also used in control classrooms?

NA

For any substantively (e.g., effect size ≥ 0.25 for pretest or demographic differences) or statistically significant (e.g., p < 0.05) pretest differences, please describe the extent to which these differences are related to the impact of the treatment. For example, if analyses were conducted to determine that outcomes from this study are due to the intervention and not pretest characteristics, please describe the results of those analyses here.

Please explain any missing data or instances of measures with incomplete pre- or post-test data.

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

Describe the analyses used to determine whether the intervention produced changes in student outcomes:

Hierarchical linear modeling (HLM), with counselor as the second level in a mixed-model design, was used to evaluate if intervention condition influenced children’s externalizing behavior problems (as rated by teachers, parents, and children) and proximal processes that were targeted by the intervention (positive social and academic behaviors as rated by parents and teachers, children’s outcome expectations for aggressive behavior, and parents’ consistency of discipline.