Program Profile: Fourth R Curriculum

This interactive classroom curriculum is designed to reduce youth dating violence by addressing bullying, unsafe sexual behavior, and substance use. The program is rated No Effects. The program had small, statistically significant effects on decreasing dating violence and sexual harassment/assault victimization. However, there were no significant effects on sexual harassment/assault perpetration, peer violence perpetration or victimization, sexual activity, substance use, or prosocial attitudes.

An Ineffective rating implies that implementing the program is unlikely to result in the intended outcome(s) and may result in a negative outcome(s).

This program's rating is based on evidence that includes at least one high-quality randomized controlled trial.

This program's rating is based on evidence that includes either 1) one study conducted in multiple sites; or 2) two or three studies, each conducted at a different site. Learn about how we make the multisite determination.

Program Goals/Target Population

The Fourth R is an interactive classroom curriculum designed to reduce youth dating violence by addressing youth violence and bullying, unsafe sexual behavior, and substance use. The program has been given to seventh-grade middle school students and ninth-grade high school students in a classroom setting.

Program Activities

The curriculum consists of 21 lessons integrated into existing health and physical education curriculum requirements and is administered in sex-segregated classrooms. It does not require additional class time, scheduling, or human resources. The 21 lessons are composed of three units of seven, 75-minute classes. These are 1) personal safety and injury prevention, 2) healthy growth and sexuality, and 3) substance use and abuse. Lessons and activities include teaching youth negotiation, delay, and refusal skills; helping youth define and rehearse responsibilities associated with healthy relationships; and role-playing instructions designed to increase interpersonal and problem-solving skills. Teachers use examples of dating and peer conflicts commonly faced by youth. Detailed lesson plans, video resources, role-playing exercises, rubrics, and handouts are provided for all lessons.

Key Personnel

Teachers with specialization in health and physical education deliver the curriculum. Teachers receive a 6-hour training workshop on teen dating violence and healthy relationships as part of the program.

Program Theory

The program aims to achieve its goals by emphasizing core relationship issues and pressures in early adolescence and by teaching skills to promote safer decision-making with peers and dating partners. The program targets health promotion through capitalizing on youth interest in learning about lifestyle issues. Because it also takes a gender-specific approach to dating violence by emphasizing gender-specific patterns and factors and matching activities accordingly, the curriculum content is slightly different for boys and girls.

Study

Cissner and Ayoub (2014) used a cluster randomized control design to evaluate the effectiveness of the Fourth R Curriculum for seventh-grade students across 10 schools in the Bronx, New York. The Fourth R group received the intervention in sex-segregated classes, whereas the control group received a standard seventh-grade curriculum in mixed-sex classes.

Individual-level data was collected at the baseline survey. The Fourth R intervention group (n = 263) was 51 percent male, 75 percent Hispanic, 27 percent Black, 3 percent white, 2 percent American Indian, and 7 percent other. The control sample (n = 248) was 38 percent male, 70 percent Hispanic, 33 percent Black, 4 percent white, 2 percent American Indian, 1 percent Asian, and 10 percent other. The average age in both samples was 12 years. There were more females in the control group, compared with the Fourth R group, but there was no statistically significant difference between the intervention and control groups in previous exposure to program materials or content.

Regression analyses were used to examine the effects of the Fourth R Curriculum. The outcomes included sexual harassment or assault perpetration, sexual harassment or assault victimization, peer violence or bullying perpetration, peer violence or bullying victimization, sexual activity, drug and alcohol use, and prosocial attitudes. The researchers conducted subgroup analyses on gender, student level of risk, and program fidelity (i.e., how much of the curriculum students received).

Study

Crooks and colleagues (2011) conducted a cluster randomized controlled trial to evaluate the effects of the Fourth R Curriculum on violent delinquency 2.5 years after the initial intervention. The study was a follow up to the 2009 study by Wolfe and colleagues (see Study 1) and used the same sample. Violent delinquency was measured using eight items from a self-report inventory developed by the National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth (Human Resources Development Canada 2001). From the original sample of 1,722 ninth-grade students, 1,520 (655 control, 865 intervention) completed follow-up measures as 11th-grade students.

The researchers used two-level hierarchical models to estimate the effect of individual and school-level variance on acts of violent delinquency 2.5 years after the initial intervention. The authors conducted subgroup analyses on gender, delinquency at the time of the first study, and previous maltreatment.

Study

Wolfe and colleagues (2009) conducted a cluster randomized controlled trial to evaluate the Fourth R Curriculum. Thirty rural and urban high schools in southwestern Ontario, Canada, were recruited for the study, based on general school populations and the agreement of principals to conduct randomization, teacher training, delivery of the assigned intervention, and evaluation, and to restrict similar programs during delivery. The participants were all students enrolled in the ninth-grade health and physical education curriculum within those schools. Schools were randomly assigned to the intervention or control groups.

Students in the experimental schools received the 21-lesson intervention curriculum, Fourth R: Skills for Youth Relationships. The program was implemented for 1 year prior to the evaluation. Students in the comparison schools received a standard health and physical education curriculum in sex-segregated classrooms. Teachers in the comparison schools were required to cover the topics of the three units being taught in the intervention schools, but without any background or training on these topics or access to a structured curriculum.

Twenty schools, each with a large student body, were split equally between urban and rural locations and had comparably experienced teachers. A total of 1,722 students participated in the study. Participants were predominantly white (88 percent), although some students identified as Asian (4 percent), Arabic (2 percent), Hispanic/Latino (0.6 percent), or other (4 percent). The intervention group (n = 968) was 51 percent female, and the control group (n = 754) was 55 percent female. Both groups had similar levels of risk behaviors, with 1 percent of participants in both groups showing physical dating violence in the past year. There were more girls in the control schools, compared with the intervention schools. There were no other statistically significant differences between the groups at baseline.

A confidential, online survey was given to students in school at baseline and 2.5 years later, at follow up. Peer dating violence was assessed using eight items from the Conflict in Adolescent Dating Relationships Inventory, a self-report measure. Students answered “yes” or “no” to questions regarding their actions during fights or arguments with their significant others within the past 12 months. Although respondents who did not have any dating partners were included in the study, they were given a score of 0 at baseline. Physical peer violence was self-reported, using the National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth delinquent behavior inventory. Students were counted if, in the last 3 months, they had injured someone as a result of a fight; had used an object other than their hands in a fight; or had hit, slapped, or physically hurt another teen with the intention of scaring or humiliating them. Substance use was assessed using the National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth guidelines, and classified as substance abuse if one of the following four criteria was met: 1) drank alcohol 1 or 2 days a week or more, 2) had five or more alcoholic drinks at one time in the past 30 days, 3) used marijuana 1 to 2 days a week or more, or 4) had tried any other illicit drugs in the past 3 months. 

The curriculum packet can be purchased online and includes teacher-friendly lessons, including lesson objectives, learning expectations, teaching and learning strategies, handouts and overhead masters, marking rubrics, DVDs, and CD-ROMs. A training day can be arranged to assist teachers with implementation. Online training is also available.

Subgroup Analysis

With regard to subgroup findings, Wolfe and colleagues (2009) found no statistically significant differences between the control and intervention groups for the subset of students who had been dating in the previous year. However, they did find a statistically significant decrease in the likelihood to engage in dating violence for boys in the intervention group, compared with boys in the control group. Girls in both groups showed the same rates of physical dating violence. The follow up study by Crooks and colleagues (2011) found that boys were 4.67 times more likely to engage in violent delinquency than were girls. Cissner and Ayoub (2014) found that high-risk students, or students who had experienced dating violence at the baseline, who participated in the Fourth R curriculum experienced statistically significant reductions in dating violence, compared with high-risk students who did not receive the intervention.

These sources were used in the development of the program profile:

These sources were used in the development of the program profile:

Following are CrimeSolutions-rated programs that are related to this practice:

Programs to Reduce Dating and Sexual Violence for Youth and Young Adults

This practice involves a range of prevention and intervention programs that are designed to address problems associated with dating violence for youth and young adults. The practice is rated Effective for reducing the perpetration of dating violence and improving dating violence knowledge and attitudes. The practice is rated No Effects for reducing dating and sexual violence victimization, reducing sexual violence perpetration, and for improving bystander behaviors.

Evidence Ratings for Outcomes

	Attitudes & Beliefs - Dating violence knowledge
	Attitudes & Beliefs - Dating violence attitudes
	Crime & Delinquency - Violent offenses
	Victimization - Bystander behavior and intentions
	Crime & Delinquency - Sex-related offenses
	Victimization - Sexual abuse/exploitation
	Victimization - Domestic/intimate partner/family violence

Why might a practice's outcome ratings differ from the ratings of specific programs encompassed by that practice?