Testing the Effectiveness of Relationship Smarts and the Effects of Enhanced Facilitator Training

Testing the Effectiveness of Relationship Smarts Curriculum and the Effects of Enhanced Facilitator Training

This project will test the effectiveness of offering healthy marriage and relation education for youth as part of the regular school curriculum and examine whether providing enhanced training and support for facilitators shows promise for enhancing the effects on high school students. The evaluation will examine a range of students' relationship outcomes, including their attitudes toward relationships, their knowledge of healthy relationships, their communication skills, and the characteristics of their current relationship.

Study Overview

• Status: Withdrawn
• Conditions: Attitude; Knowledge
• Intervention / Treatment: Behavioral: Codeacademy; Behavioral: RS+

Detailed Description

Family Bridges will deliver the "Relationship Smarts +" program to students at 10 Chicago-area high schools. The RS+ curriculum will be delivered to 9th grade students in the target schools and classrooms during the 2016-2017 and 2017-2018 school years. The curriculum's 12 sessions will be delivered over a period of about 12 weeks during the winter quarter, with an average of one session taught per week.The lessons cover topics such as personal values, the principals of smart relationships, communication and conflict management, and sexual decision making. Using a three-arm randomized controlled trial design, this study will test the effectiveness of offering RS+ as part of the regular school curriculum on the students' knowledge of healthy relationships, their communication skills, and the characteristics of their current relationship. In addition to testing the effects of the curriculum, the study will also test the effects of providing enhanced training and support to facilitators.

• Study Type: Interventional
• Phase: Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

Study Locations

• United States
  • Illinois
    • Oak Park, Illinois, United States, 60302
      • Family Bridges, Inc.

Participation Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

• Ages Eligible for Study: No older than 17 years (Child)
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: Yes
• Genders Eligible for Study: All

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

• Students must be age 17 or younger
• have consent from a parent or guardian for evaluation activities
• provide assent for evaluation activities.

Exclusion Criteria:

• Students in evaluation classrooms who do not meet these criteria will still receive programming, but will not be included in the STREAMS data collection activities or in the study's analysis.

Study Plan

How is the study designed?

Design Details

• Primary Purpose: Treatment
• Allocation: Randomized
• Interventional Model: Parallel Assignment
• Masking: None (Open Label)

Number of Arms

3

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm	Intervention / Treatment
Placebo Comparator: Control; Control group members will receive an alternate curriculum that is not related to relationship education. Family Bridges has identified a computer programming curriculum, Codeacademy, that teaches students how to use HTML.	Behavioral: Codeacademy; a computer programming curriculum, Codeacademy, that teaches students how to use HTML.
Experimental: RS+; The RS+ curriculum's 12 sessions will be delivered over a period of about 12 weeks during the winter quarter, with an average of one session taught per week. The lessons cover topics such as personal values, the principals of smart relationships, communication and conflict management, and sexual decision making.	Behavioral: RS+; The curriculum's 12 sessions will be delivered over a period of about 12 weeks during the winter quarter, with an average of one session taught per week. The lessons cover topics such as personal values, the principals of smart relationships, communication and conflict management, and sexual decision making.
Experimental: RS+ with enhanced facilitator support; The RS+ curriculum's 12 sessions will be delivered over a period of about 12 weeks during the winter quarter, with an average of one session taught per week. The lessons cover topics such as personal values, the principals of smart relationships, communication and conflict management, and sexual decision making. Affiliates assigned to this enhanced treatment group will participate in enhanced facilitator training and support activities.	Behavioral: RS+; The curriculum's 12 sessions will be delivered over a period of about 12 weeks during the winter quarter, with an average of one session taught per week. The lessons cover topics such as personal values, the principals of smart relationships, communication and conflict management, and sexual decision making.

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Knowledge about Healthy Relationships	audio computer-assisted self-administered interviewing (ACASI) software on tablet devices.	end of programming (approx. 12 weeks after beginning of programming )
Attitudes about Healthy Relationships	audio computer-assisted self-administered interviewing (ACASI) software on tablet devices.	end of programming (approx. 12 weeks after beginning of programming )
Knowledge about Healthy Relationships	audio computer-assisted self-administered interviewing (ACASI) software on tablet devices.	1 year follow-up
Attitudes about Healthy Relationships	audio computer-assisted self-administered interviewing (ACASI) software on tablet devices.	1 year follow-up

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Communications skills	audio computer-assisted self-administered interviewing (ACASI) software on tablet devices.	end of programming (approx. 12 weeks after beginning of programming )
Characteristics of current romantic relationship	audio computer-assisted self-administered interviewing (ACASI) software on tablet devices.	end of programming (approx. 12 weeks after beginning of programming )
Communications skills	audio computer-assisted self-administered interviewing (ACASI) software on tablet devices.	1 year follow-up
Characteristics of current romantic relationship	audio computer-assisted self-administered interviewing (ACASI) software on tablet devices.	1 year follow-up

Collaborators and Investigators

• Sponsor: Mathematica Policy Research, Inc.
• Collaborators: Department of Health and Human Services
• Investigators: Principal Investigator: Diane Paulsell, Mathematica Policy Research

Study record dates

Study Major Dates

• Study Start (Actual): December 1, 2016
• Primary Completion (Actual): January 1, 2018
• Study Completion (Actual): January 1, 2018

Study Registration Dates

• First Submitted: June 2, 2016
• First Submitted That Met QC Criteria: July 8, 2016
• First Posted (Estimate): July 13, 2016

Study Record Updates

• Last Update Posted (Actual): May 15, 2019
• Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria: May 13, 2019
• Last Verified: May 1, 2019

More Information

Terms related to this study

• Other Study ID Numbers: MPR-500098-FB

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

• Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?: NO