Abstract

Strong Teens is a curriculum designed to help students develop the social-emotional skills needed to manage challenges and become successful socially and academically (Carrizales- Engelmann et al., 2016). Strong Teens has shown promise among adolescents, but this was the first study to evaluate the newly updated version of the intervention in a high school setting. The curriculum was implemented by a special education teacher with students at-risk for emotional and behavioral disorders. A mixed method design was used to evaluate outcomes with 16 ninth grade students. Overall findings suggest that Strong Teens was effective at improving students' social emotional knowledge over a 3-month period. However, there was a worsening of students' internalizing symptoms and teacher-student relationships. The teacher implemented the curriculum with low to moderate fidelity. Students were mostly neutral in their view of Strong Teens, while the teacher held a more favorable view. Future studies should include a larger sample size, offer training to educators on the implementation of Strong Teens, and consider using a more effective collection method to ensure students' anonymity.

Degree

EdS

College and Department

David O. McKay School of Education; Counseling Psychology and Special Education

Rights

https://lib.byu.edu/about/copyright/