This study will evaluate a virtual reality enhanced version of an evidence-based aggression and bullying prevention program, praise (preventing aggression in schools everyday) for 3RD-5TH graders…

This federal Project Grant award from the National Institute of Justice (NIJ) under the STOP School Violence Program (CFDA 16.839) will evaluate a virtual reality-enhanced version of an evidence-based aggression and bullying prevention program called PRAISE (Preventing Aggression in Schools Everyday) for 3rd-5th grade students and their teachers.

The $2,335,668 award to The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia Research Institute will fund a cluster-randomized controlled trial to compare the impact of the PRAISE program with and without the integration of virtual reality. The virtual reality components are intended to enhance teacher training and implementation, as well as provide a new Tier 2 intervention for high-risk aggressive students. Key expected outcomes include reduced aggression and bullying, improved social-emotional skills, and increased teacher efficacy and student-teacher relationships for schools receiving the PRAISE-VR intervention compared to PRAISE alone. The project will be conducted over 4 years starting in January 2025.

This study will evaluate a virtual reality enhanced version of an evidence-based aggression and bullying prevention program, praise (preventing aggression in schools everyday) for 3RD-5TH graders and their teachers. Praise was designed using community-based participatory research in schools situated in urban, under-resourced communities and includes school-wide professional development and teacher-led universal classroom programming. The purpose of this proposal is to conduct a cluster-randomized control trial to rigorously examine the impact of combining virtual reality at multiple tiers to enhance praise (praise-VR) as compared to praise without virtual reality. The proposed use of virtual reality is an extension of our previous work developing and testing the bullying classroom check-up with funding from NIJ and nichd. Activities include recruiting 14 schools across four years and randomizing 3RD-5TH grade classrooms within each school to receive praise only (comparison) or praise-VR, which integrates virtual reality as a (1) training and fidelity optimization tool for teachers to address their reported low levels of knowledge and efficacy to promote social-emotional skills in students and implementation challenges, and (2) a new tier 2 intervention targeting high-risk aggressive youth with coach-guided practice of learned skills. Expected outcomes for students receiving praise-VR as compared to praise alone include reduced aggression and bullying and improved positive approaches for social information processing, academic engagement, empathy, positive bystander behavior, and teacher-student relationships, as well as increased efficacy for non-violence and decreased hostile attributions and proactive and reactive aggression for high-risk students. Expected outcomes for teachers in the praise-VR condition include improved implementation efficacy and fidelity, efficacy to promote students' social-emotional skills, and teacher-student relationships. Broader outcomes of praise-VR include decreased prevalence of school-level aggression, bullying, suspensions, and office referrals, as well as improved class climate and feelings of school safety. This project will serve under-resourced elementary schools in a large urban public school district. Intended beneficiaries are 3RD-5TH grade students from predominantly minoritized backgrounds and their teachers, who will receive praise or praise-VR training, coaching, and programming to prevent and reduce aggression and bullying and improve school safety.