Blueprints
Promising Programs Fact Sheets
The Good Behavior Game (GBG) is a classroom management
strategy designed to improve aggressive/disruptive classroom
behavior and prevent later criminality. It is implemented
when children are in early elementary grades in order
to provide students with the skills they need to respond
to later, possibly negative, life experiences and societal
influences.
Program Targets:
The program is universal and can be applied to general
populations of early elementary school children, although
the most significant results have been found for children
demonstrating early high-risk behavior.
Program Content:
The Good Behavior Game is primarily a behavior modification
program that involves students and teachers. It improves
teachers' ability to define tasks, set rules, and
discipline students, and allows students to work in
teams in which each individual is responsible to the
rest of the group. Before the game begins, teachers
clearly specify those disruptive behaviors (e.g.,
verbal and physical disruptions, noncompliance, etc.)
which, ir displayed, will result in a team's receiving
a checkmark on the board. By the end of the game,
teams that have not exceeded the maximum number of
marks are rewarded, while teams that exceed this standard
receive no rewards. Eventually, the teacher begins
the game with no warning and at different periods
during the day so that students are always monitoring
their behavior and conforming to expectations.
Program Outcomes:
Evaluations of the program have demonstrated beneficial
effects for children at the end of the first grade
and positive outcomes at grade 6 for males displaying
early aggressive behavior.
At the end of first grade, GBG students, compared
to a control group, had:
- Less aggressive and shy behaviors according to
teachers, and
- Better peer nominations of aggressive behavior.
At the end of sixth grade, GBG students, compared
to a control group, demonstrated:
- Decreases in levels of aggression for males who
were rated highest
for aggression in the first grade
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