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Institution:
Vanderbilt
University
Program:
Love in a Big World
http://www.loveinabigworld.org/
Principal Investigators:
Leonard Bickman, Katie Smith
Key Staff:
L. James Schut, Manuel Riemer,
Robin Boshers
Program Description and
Site-Specific Research:
Love in a Big World (LBW) is a character education program that is
designed to promote children's positive relationships with their teachers
and peers, and enhance the classroom and school environment. The LBW
program includes a curriculum that uses stories to teach students about
positive character traits and their use, staff and principal training, a
peer recognition program, school assemblies, service projects,
motivational morning announcements, and newsletters. The effects of the
program are being tested in suburban and rural schools in the mid-South.
Children in these schools are predominantly Caucasian and African American
and are from low-income to middle-class families.
In
the complementary study, the research team is testing not only the impact
of the LBW program on student outcomes, but also the effect of the program
on teachers. Specifically, the researchers are testing whether teacher
training affects teachers' character education knowledge, self-efficacy,
and positive attitudes toward character education, and whether these
outcomes influence the fidelity of program implementation. The researchers
are also testing the program theory behind LBW. That is, they are
examining how the program affects antisocial and prosocial behavior, and
classroom and school climate, through changes in teacher/student
interaction, acquisition of character education knowledge and
social-emotional competence, and students' positive attitudes and beliefs
about their control over their own actions.
For more information on this project,
please contact:
Leonard
Bickman
Director
Vanderbilt University
Center for Evaluation and Program Improvement
Peabody # 151
230 Appleton Place
Nashville, TN 37203-5721
Phone: 615-322-8694
E-mail: Leonard.bickman@vanderbilt.edu
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