Program Profile: Good Behavior Game

This is a classroom management strategy designed to reduce aggressive and disruptive classroom behavior and create a classroom environment that is conducive to learning for students, ages 6 to 10. The program is rated Promising. At the 14-year follow up, the treatment group had statistically significant reductions in levels of alcohol-related disorders and antisocial personality disorder compared with participants in the control group.

A Promising rating implies that implementing the program may result in the intended 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

Good Behavior Game (GBG) is a classroom management strategy designed to reduce aggressive and disruptive classroom behavior and create a classroom environment that is conducive to learning for all students. GBG attempts to reduce children’s negative behaviors and promote prosocial behaviors by encouraging positive interactions with peers and by improving teachers’ ability to define tasks, set rules, and discipline students. GBG is implemented when children are in early elementary grades to provide them with the skills they need to respond to later life experiences and societal influences that may be negative.

The program seeks to reduce early risk factors (i.e., aggressive and disruptive classroom behavior) that can lead to later problem behaviors such as criminal/delinquent activity and substance use. The reduction in problem behaviors can also lead to a reduction in use of services for those behaviors, such as drug treatment.

Target Population

The program is universal and can be applied to general populations of early elementary school children, ages 6 to 10.

Program Components

GBG is a group-contingent reinforcement classroom management strategy in which students are assigned to work in teams, and each individual is responsible to the rest of his or her team for its success. It is understood that the entire team will be rewarded if they are found to be following classroom rules. This strategy creates incentive for students to manage their own behavior through group reinforcement and mutual self-interest.

Before the game begins, teachers clearly specify those disruptive behaviors (e.g., verbal and physical disruptions, noncompliance) that, if displayed, will result in a team’s receiving a checkmark on the board. Team members are encouraged to support each other's efforts at appropriate behavior. By the end of the game, teams that have not exceeded the maximum number of marks are rewarded, while teams that exceed this standard receive no rewards. Rewards change over the course of the year from being tangible (such as stickers or erasers) to being more intrinsically related to the classroom setting, such as having additional quiet time to read during the school day.

GBG is implemented in three phases. In the introduction phase, children and teachers are familiarized with the GBG intermittently and for short periods. In the expansion phase, the duration of the GBG, the settings in which the GBG is played, and the behaviors targeted by the GBG are expanded. In the generalization phase, compliance with classroom rules outside GBG periods is encouraged by explaining to children that the GBG rules are applicable even when the game is not played. Eventually, the teacher begins the game with no warning and at different periods during the day, so that students will continue to monitor their behavior and conform to expectations.

Study 1

Kellam and colleagues (2008) used a randomized controlled design to examine the effects of the Good Behavior Game (GBG) on the prevalence of lifetime alcohol abuse or dependence disorders and antisocial personality disorder at a 14-year follow-up survey. The researchers began the initial evaluation of GBG in the 1985–1986 school year by selecting five urban areas within Baltimore City, Md. From a total of 19 schools, the three or four most similar schools were identified within each of the five urban areas and randomly assigned to one of the following three conditions: 1) GBG; 2) the Mastery Learning (ML) program, which was designed to improve poor reading achievement; and 3) an external control condition with no experimental intervention. Both interventions were administered at the classroom level. To avoid confounding intervention status with school effects, classrooms in the intervention schools (GBG and ML schools) were divided into two types: intervention classes (GBG or ML) and internal control classes (classes in the same school that did not receive either intervention). Individual first-grade classrooms were randomly assigned to intervention or internal control groups within the intervention schools.

This multilevel design originally included 19 schools, 41 classrooms, and 1,196 students within five urban areas. The initial sample of students was 49 percent male, and 65 percent Black, 31 percent white, and 4 percent other ethnic groups. Children ranged in age from 5.0 to 9.7 years, with an average age of 6.6 years. There were no statistically significant differences between the intervention groups on baseline characteristics of teacher ratings of aggressive, disruptive behavior, fall-of-first-grade achievement, or free/reduced-price lunch. There were statistically significant differences between GBG students and internal control students on measures of depressive symptoms with control students demonstrating slightly higher levels of depression; however, the authors concluded that the small effect size and small correlation between aggression and depressive symptoms minimized the potential confounding effect.

At the 14-year follow up, analyses focused on 689 of the original 922 students who were either in GBG classrooms or included in one of the three control groups for the 2-year trial period. The 689 children included 183 who were assigned to the eight GBG classrooms and 126 children assigned to the six internal control classrooms within the six GBG schools, and the 380 additional children who were in external or ML control classrooms. Most of the students lost to follow up had moved out of the system. A small number of others refused to participate in the study.

The primary outcomes, lifetime alcohol use/dependence disorders and antisocial personality disorder, were measured using the Composite International Diagnostic Interview-University of Michigan version (Kessler et al. 1994). The authors conducted subgroup analyses on gender and level of aggression and disruptive behavior during childhood.

More information about training can be found at the Good Behavior Game website: https://goodbehaviorgame.air.org/

Subgroup Analysis

With regard to subgroup findings, Kellam and colleagues (2008) found that participation in the GBG resulted in statistically significant reductions in levels of lifetime drug abuse/dependence disorders for male participants, but not for female participants, compared with individuals in the control group. Furthermore, GBG males who were rated as highly aggressive and disruptive by their first-grade teachers had statistically significant reductions in levels of lifetime drug abuse/dependence, compared with aggressive and disruptive control group males.

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:

Universal School-Based Prevention and Intervention Programs for Aggressive and Disruptive Behavior

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Evidence Ratings for Outcomes

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This practice includes classroom management techniques and programs for teaching prosocial behaviors and reducing or preventing inappropriate or aggressive behaviors of students in K–12th grades. This practice is rated Effective in reducing disruptive, inappropriate, and aggressive behavior in students. Test

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Evidence Ratings for Outcomes

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School-Based Interventions to Reduce Exclusion

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Evidence Ratings for Outcomes

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