- ICH GCP
- US Clinical Trials Registry
- Clinical Trial NCT04097496
Effects of ACT OUT! Social Issue Theater on Youth and Adolescents
Multi-Site Cluster, Randomized Proof of Concept Trial to Study the Effects of the ACT OUT! Social Issue Theater Program on Social-Emotional Competence and Bullying in Youth and Adolescents
Study Overview
Status
Conditions
Intervention / Treatment
Detailed Description
This study will be an assessment of the ACT OUT! Social Issue Theater program as a universal social and emotional learning (SEL) intervention targeting social-emotional competence (SEC) and bullying in elementary, middle, and high school students. ACT OUT! is an existing program that has been performed in various forms by professionally-trained members of an acting ensemble since 1995. The present iteration consists of three distinct scenarios per grade range (elementary, middle, and high) that present age-appropriate improvisational drama illustrating issues related to SEL and bullying, including facilitated discussion with the actors, who remain in character. The program lasts approximately one hour (scenario descriptions and a fidelity checklist for SEL/bullying elements will be made available as supplemental files).
SEL curricula typically consist of manualized and/or structured classroom or multicomponent programs taking place over time; the median number of sessions within an SEL program in a meta-analysis of 213 SEL studies was 24. At one hour in duration, ACT OUT! is substantially shorter and is performed by professional actors - meeting the goal of reduced school resource costs for SEL programming, but potentially raising concerns about whether such a dose could reasonably be expected to produce an effect. Underlying this study is a supposition that unique properties of a dramatic performance specifically may trigger SEL responses. In Aristotle's Poetics, which is the first known work on dramatic theory, it is written that a dramatic tragedy (in the Aristotelian sense) is designed to arouse certain feelings, "wherewith to accomplish catharsis of… emotions." This precise mechanism underlies the development of psychodrama as a psychotherapeutic intervention, as combined action and verbalization can present a situation "freed from the restricting stereotyped residues of past experience." Recent studies and meta-analyses have examined psychodrama as a means of prevention and/or behavior change with generally positive findings. Researchers have also found that youth report that they enjoy psychodramatic elements as part of a larger prevention curriculum. However, no studies have measured any outcomes of a psychodramatic SEL experience.
This will be the first study to examine whether a short dose of interactive psychodrama can affect SEC metrics and bullying experiences in schoolchildren. In responding to recent criticism of SEL studies, the investigators have chosen to utilize the SPIRIT 2013 clinical trial guidelines in developing this protocol to promote rigor, reproducibility, and transparency.
Study Type
Enrollment (Actual)
Phase
- Not Applicable
Contacts and Locations
Study Locations
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Indiana
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Indianapolis, Indiana, United States, 46204
- Claude McNeal Productions
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Participation Criteria
Eligibility Criteria
Ages Eligible for Study
- ADULT
- OLDER_ADULT
- CHILD
Accepts Healthy Volunteers
Genders Eligible for Study
Description
Inclusion Criteria:
- Classrooms must be comprised of 4th grade (Elementary), 7th grade (Middle), or 10th grade (High) students
Exclusion Criteria:
- Participants and their parents or legal guardians will review study procedures. Parents or guardians may opt out on behalf of their dependents, and participants may themselves opt out.
- If a given grade within a school has an odd number of classrooms, one classroom randomly will be excluded from participation.
Study Plan
How is the study designed?
Design Details
- Primary Purpose: OTHER
- Allocation: RANDOMIZED
- Interventional Model: PARALLEL
- Masking: SINGLE
Arms and Interventions
Participant Group / Arm |
Intervention / Treatment |
---|---|
EXPERIMENTAL: Act Out! Intervention
Eligible classrooms will be randomized to attend a 1-hour ACT OUT! interactive, semi-improvisational psychodrama performance.
The ACT OUT! intervention is an established theater program (https://www.claudemcnealproductions.com/act-out-ensemble/).
The ACT OUT! production will include three to five vignettes paired with moderated discussions between the audience and the actors, the latter who will remain partly in character for the duration of the intervention.
Vignettes will be different for each grade level included in the study (4th, 7th, and 10th).
Public documentation of the guidelines for the ACT OUT! intervention will be made available as a supplemental file attached to the primary outcomes paper for the study.
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Data included in the description of the intervention arm.
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NO_INTERVENTION: Control
Classrooms randomized to this arm will continue with their school day as normal, except that they will complete the data collection tools.
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What is the study measuring?
Primary Outcome Measures
Outcome Measure |
Measure Description |
Time Frame |
---|---|---|
Change from Baseline Social-Emotional Competence
Time Frame: Separately, 2 weeks post-intervention, and 3 months post-intervention
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Computed from the Delaware Social Emotional Competency Scale (DSECS-S).
The score is averaged from Likert-type data (e.g., one overall score will be computed from 12 questions).
The score ranges from '1' to '4' - some items will be reverse coded, so that a '4' is consistently the optimal score across questions and for the total scale value.
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Separately, 2 weeks post-intervention, and 3 months post-intervention
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Change from Baseline Bullying Prevalence (self-report)
Time Frame: Separately, 2 weeks post-intervention, and 3 months post-intervention
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Bullying activity (being bullied and bullying) via two parallel 13-item scales on the Bullying and Cyberbullying Scale for Adolescents (BCS-A).
This scale captures frequency data and so is interpretable on its face (e.g., # instances of a behavior or observation).
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Separately, 2 weeks post-intervention, and 3 months post-intervention
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Change from Baseline Bullying Prevalence (objective)
Time Frame: 3 months post-intervention
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Disciplinary referrals for bullying (aggregated, not individual)
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3 months post-intervention
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Secondary Outcome Measures
Outcome Measure |
Measure Description |
Time Frame |
---|---|---|
Change from Baseline Social-Emotional Competence Sub-Domains (7th and 10th grades only)
Time Frame: Separately, 2 weeks post-intervention, and 3 months post-intervention
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Social awareness, emotion regulation, relationship skills, and responsible decision-making as measured via 4 sub-scales of the Washoe County School District Social-Emotional Competency Assessment.
For each sub-scale, the score is averaged from Likert-type data (e.g., one overall score will be computed from 3-5 questions).
The score ranges from '1' to '4' - a '4' is consistently the optimal score across questions and for the total scale value.
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Separately, 2 weeks post-intervention, and 3 months post-intervention
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Receptivity to the Act Out! Intervention
Time Frame: 2 weeks post-intervention
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Subjective receptivity to the intervention (e.g., enjoyment) as measured by response items from Dent et al. (1998).
This scale *does not* have a specific name.
It measures the following characteristics of receptivity to the intervention: whether it was enjoyable, interesting, a waste of time, boring, understandable, difficult to understand, believable, important, and helpful.
Each item is measured using a Likert-type scale.
The score ranges from '1' to '4' - some items will be reverse coded, so that a '4' is consistently the optimal score across questions and for the total scale value.
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2 weeks post-intervention
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Frequency of Truancy/Absenteeism
Time Frame: 3 months post-intervention
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Data for clusters from district records (aggregated, not individual).
These data already exist.
No individual-level data will be utilized, only aggregated frequency of truancy/absenteeism.
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3 months post-intervention
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Academic Performance using standard Grade Point Average
Time Frame: 3 months post-intervention
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Data for clusters from district records (aggregated, not individual); grade point average normalized to a 4.0 grading scale (where 4.0 is an A and 1.0 is an F).
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3 months post-intervention
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Collaborators and Investigators
Sponsor
Publications and helpful links
General Publications
- Chan AW, Tetzlaff JM, Gotzsche PC, Altman DG, Mann H, Berlin JA, Dickersin K, Hrobjartsson A, Schulz KF, Parulekar WR, Krleza-Jeric K, Laupacis A, Moher D. SPIRIT 2013 explanation and elaboration: guidance for protocols of clinical trials. BMJ. 2013 Jan 8;346:e7586. doi: 10.1136/bmj.e7586.
- Durlak JA, Weissberg RP, Dymnicki AB, Taylor RD, Schellinger KB. The impact of enhancing students' social and emotional learning: a meta-analysis of school-based universal interventions. Child Dev. 2011 Jan-Feb;82(1):405-32. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-8624.2010.01564.x.
- Claude McNeal Productions. Act Out Ensemble [Internet]. Claude McNeal Productions. 2019 [cited 11 September 2019]. Available from: https://www.claudemcnealproductions.com/act-out-ensemble/
- Rosenstein L. On Aristotle and thought in drama. Critical Inquiry. 1977;3(3):543-65.
- Davies MH. The origins and practice of psychodrama. Br J Psychiatry. 1976 Sep;129:201-6. doi: 10.1192/bjp.129.3.201.
- Krahé B, Knappert L. A group-randomized evaluation of a theatre-based sexual abuse prevention programme for primary school children in Germany. J Community Appl Soc Psychol. 2009;19(4):321-9.
- Lauby JL, LaPollo AB, Herbst JH, Painter TM, Batson H, Pierre A, Milnamow M. Preventing AIDS through live movement and sound: Efficacy of a theater-based HIV prevention intervention delivered to high-risk male adolescents in juvenile justice settings. AIDS Educ Prev. 2010 Oct;22(5):402-16. doi: 10.1521/aeap.2010.22.5.402.
- Lightfoot AF, Taboada A, Taggart T, Tran T, Burtaine A. 'I learned to be okay with talking about sex and safety': assessing the efficacy of a theatre-based HIV prevention approach for adolescents in North Carolina. Sex Educ. 2015;15(4):348-363. doi: 10.1080/14681811.2015.1025947.
- Joronen K, Konu A, Rankin HS, Astedt-Kurki P. An evaluation of a drama program to enhance social relationships and anti-bullying at elementary school: a controlled study. Health Promot Int. 2012 Mar;27(1):5-14. doi: 10.1093/heapro/dar012. Epub 2011 Mar 7.
- Cheadle A, Cahill C, Schwartz PM, Edmiston J, Johnson S, Davis L, Robbins C. Engaging youth in learning about healthful eating and active living: an evaluation of Educational Theater Programs. J Nutr Educ Behav. 2012 Mar-Apr;44(2):160-5. doi: 10.1016/j.jneb.2011.06.005. Epub 2011 Nov 25.
- Belknap RA, Haglund K, Felzer H, Pruszynski J, Schneider J. A theater intervention to prevent teen dating violence for Mexican-American middle school students. J Adolesc Health. 2013 Jul;53(1):62-7. doi: 10.1016/j.jadohealth.2013.02.006. Epub 2013 Apr 11.
- Joronen K, Rankin SH, Astedt-Kurki P. School-based drama interventions in health promotion for children and adolescents: systematic review. J Adv Nurs. 2008 Jul;63(2):116-31. doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2648.2008.04634.x.
- Sussman SY. Evaluating the efficacy of Project TND: Evidence from seven research trials. In: Scheier LM, editor. Handbook of adolescent drug use prevention: Research, intervention strategies, and practice. Washington DC: American Psychological Association; 2015. p. 159-76.
- Mantz LS, Bear GC, Yang C, Harris, A. The Delaware Social-Emotional Competency Scale (DSECS-S): Evidence of validity and reliability. Child Indic Res. 2018;11(1):137-57.
- Thomas HJ, Scott JG, Coates JM, Connor JP. Development and validation of the Bullying and Cyberbullying Scale for Adolescents: A multi-dimensional measurement model. Br J Educ Psychol. 2019 Mar;89(1):75-94. doi: 10.1111/bjep.12223. Epub 2018 May 3.
- Dent CW, Sussman S, Hennesy M, Galaif ER, Stacy AW, Moss M, Craig S. Implementation and process evaluation of a school-based drug abuse prevention program: Project Towards No Drug Abuse. J Drug Educ. 1998;28(4):361-75. doi: 10.2190/UFY9-WHXX-AFC1-RXB1.
- Agley J, Jun M, Eldridge L, Agley DL, Xiao Y, Sussman S, Golzarri-Arroyo L, Dickinson SL, Jayawardene W, Gassman R. Effects of ACT Out! Social Issue Theater on Social-Emotional Competence and Bullying in Youth and Adolescents: Cluster Randomized Controlled Trial. JMIR Ment Health. 2021 Jan 6;8(1):e25860. doi: 10.2196/25860.
- Agley J, Jayawardene W, Jun M, Agley DL, Gassman R, Sussman S, Xiao Y, Dickinson SL. Effects of the ACT OUT! Social Issue Theater Program on Social-Emotional Competence and Bullying in Youth and Adolescents: Protocol for a Cluster Randomized Controlled Trial. JMIR Res Protoc. 2020 Apr 13;9(4):e17900. doi: 10.2196/17900.
Study record dates
Study Major Dates
Study Start (ACTUAL)
Primary Completion (ACTUAL)
Study Completion (ACTUAL)
Study Registration Dates
First Submitted
First Submitted That Met QC Criteria
First Posted (ACTUAL)
Study Record Updates
Last Update Posted (ACTUAL)
Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria
Last Verified
More Information
Terms related to this study
Additional Relevant MeSH Terms
Other Study ID Numbers
- 2019 0543
- 161999 (OTHER: Indiana University)
Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)
Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?
IPD Plan Description
All IPD that underlie results in study publications will be made available in fully de-identified form. The study protocol will be published in an open-access journal and will include the statistical analysis plan, per SPIRIT 2013 recommendations.
All forms related to recruitment and protocol execution will also be made available as supplemental files in appropriate outcome publications. The analytic code for each outcome publication will be published as a supplemental file with the corresponding paper.
IPD Sharing Time Frame
IPD Sharing Access Criteria
IPD Sharing Supporting Information Type
- STUDY_PROTOCOL
- SAP
- ICF
- ANALYTIC_CODE
Drug and device information, study documents
Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product
Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product
This information was retrieved directly from the website clinicaltrials.gov without any changes. If you have any requests to change, remove or update your study details, please contact register@clinicaltrials.gov. As soon as a change is implemented on clinicaltrials.gov, this will be updated automatically on our website as well.
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