Practice Profile: Schoolwide Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports

Evidence Rating for Outcomes

Juvenile Problem & At-Risk Behaviors | Problem behavior

Date: This profile was posted on September 28, 2023

This practice utilizes a multi-tiered system of supports designed to make schools more effective in establishing a school culture and building a behavioral supports system to improve students’ behavioral, social, emotional, and academic outcomes. It involves three tiers of support, including both prevention and intervention efforts. The practice is rated Promising for reducing students’ problem behaviors.

Practice Goals

Schoolwide positive behavior interventions and supports involve multiple tiers of prevention and intervention to support students behaviorally and academically and establish schoolwide expectations for appropriate behavior (Lee and Gage 2020). The goal of the practice is to select, implement, monitor, evaluate, and adapt a tiered system of practices to improve students’ behavioral, social, emotional, and academic outcomes.

Target Population/Practice Components

Schoolwide positive behavior interventions and supports is not a formal curriculum, but rather a framework of supports that is designed to prevent students’ problem behavior from occurring and to intervene when it does occur (Sugai and Horner 2009). Each school implements features of the practice in a way that fits with its unique cultural values. The central feature of the practice involves school‐based teams making data-based decisions to identify students in need of behavior support, which is delivered through tiers of prevention and intervention. Tier 1, primary prevention, provides universal support to all students. Tier 1 emphasizes teaching prosocial skills and behavior expectations, and builds a culture where students expect, prompt, and reinforce appropriate behavior for each other. Tier 2, secondary interventions, focus on students who are not successful with Tier 1 supports alone. These interventions are typically implemented with a small group of students and can include self-management, small group social skills lessons (Mitchell, Stormont, and Gage 2011), or strategies such as Check‐In/Check‐Out where certain students meet with adults at the beginning and end of the school day to establish and track behavioral goals (Crone, Hawken, and Horner 2010; Hawken et al. 2015). Tier 3, tertiary interventions, are more intensive and individualized to support students with more challenging social, emotional, and behavioral needs. Schools use more formalized assessments to match interventions to meet the needs of each student. These intervention plans incorporate the student’s academic strengths and deficits, mental health needs, and family and community support (Center on PBIS 2023).

Schoolwide positive behavior interventions and supports involve regular engagement in professional development (Horner, Sugai, and Anderson 2010). Sources of professional development vary across schools but are often provided from state or district personnel.

Meta-Analysis Snapshot
	Literature Coverage Dates	Number of Studies	Number of Study Participants
Meta Analysis 1	2002-2019	32	0

Meta Analysis 1

Lee and Gage (2020) conducted a meta-analysis to evaluate schoolwide positive behavior interventions and supports on school-level behavior, academic, and organizational outcomes. To find eligible studies, the following electronic databases were searched: Education Resources Information Center, Academic Search Premier, Education Index Retrospective, Education Source, PsycINFO, Psychology and Behavioral Sciences Collection in EBSCO host, and ProQuest Dissertations and Theses Global. Then, a hand search of the Journal of Positive Behavioral Interventions and a forward-and-backward search were conducted. Lastly, authors who were identified in the search were contacted about current, unpublished, or submitted research.

After the removal of duplicated records, 1,711 records were included for review. The abstracts were reviewed for inclusion eligibility using the following criteria: 1) the study was conducted in 12 public schools; 2) the independent variable was implementation of schoolwide positive behavior interventions and supports; 3) the primary outcomes could be assessed at the school level; and 4) studies used group experimental or quasi-experimental design with a true comparison group, excluding case studies (for example, pre-post), single-case design, literature reviews, or meta analyses, and correlational studies (e.g., within a group longitudinal designs). Studies with one-to-one school comparisons also were excluded because school-level variance could not be calculated, as were studies with proprietary models (e.g., Safe and Civil Schools).

Thirty-two studies using either a randomized controlled trial design (n = 6) or a quasi-experimental design with a comparison group that did not receive schoolwide positive behavior intervention and support training (n = 26) were included. Studies were conducted in the United States (California, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Kentucky, Maryland, Minnesota, Missouri, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, and Texas), and one study was conducted in Norway. Sixteen studies were conducted in elementary schools, three in middle schools, two in high schools, and 11 included mixed levels of schools with the majority at the elementary level. The average student enrollment was 698 students per school. All but three of the studies focused on the implementation of Tier 1 schoolwide positive behavior interventions and supports. Two studies evaluated the implementation of all three tiers, while one study evaluated the universal and tertiary tiers.

Outcomes of the studies were coded by behavior, academic, and organizational domains. The CrimeSolutions review of this practice focused exclusively on the behavior domain, problem behavior (measured by office discipline referrals, in- and out-of-school suspensions, and teacher ratings). Most studies reported proportions of students with a behavior outcome, while one included study used the Teacher Observation of Classroom Adaptation checklist, a teacher-completed rating scale.

As most studies reported more than one outcome, a robust variance estimation was used to analyze the behavior outcome. Standardized mean difference effect sizes (g) and the variance of g for all outcomes was calculated. The unit of interest was the school-level effect of schoolwide positive behavior interventions and support; thus, the number of schools was used to calculate the variance of g, even when the study reported student-level outcomes, to ensure that the weights were applied accurately in the meta analysis.