Graduation Year

2023

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree

Ph.D.

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.)

Degree Granting Department

Psychology

Major Professor

Shannon Suldo, Ph.D.

Committee Member

John Ferron, Ph.D.

Committee Member

Robert Dedrick, Ph.D.

Committee Member

Elizabeth Shaunessy-Dedrick, Ph.D.

Keywords

High School Students, Longitudinal data, Mental Health, Social-Emotional Learning Program

Abstract

Student success hinges on educational settings that feature a well-developed, comprehensive mental health support system (Hoover et al., 2019). Salient pieces of well-functioning mental health supports adhere to Multi-Tiered Systems of Support (MTSS) principles, including evidence-based practices with incremental intensity (Stoiber & Gettinger, 2015). Adolescents pursuing accelerated curricula in high school, specifically Advanced Placement courses (AP) and the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme (IBDP), display a need for psychosocial support related to the stressors inherent to a rigorous curriculum (Suldo & Shaunessy-Dedrick, 2013b). Suldo and colleagues’ (2018) research on AP and pre-IBDP youth identified malleable predictors of success that became intervention targets for a preventative social-emotional skill-building curriculum. The Advancing Coping and Engagement (ACE) program targets 9th grade AP and pre-IBDP students and consists of universal components for students, parents, and teachers and a selective component for students with signs of academic or emotional risk (Shaunessy-Dedrick et al., 2022). After multiple years of iterative development and pilot testing, Suldo et al. (2022) conducted a randomized control trial of the ACE program with 547 9th grade AP and pre-IBDP students in 14 schools (15 AP/IB school programs) during the 2017-2018 school year. Researchers gathered academic and self-report social-emotional data from students' pre-and-post intervention on ACE program targets (coping, engagement, eustress) and student outcomes (academic and mental health). Post-intervention results showed promising coping, engagement, eustress, and mental health outcomes among students in AP and pre-IBDP programs randomized to the intervention condition as compared to students in programs in the control condition (Ferron et al., 2021; Suldo et al., 2022). The researchers collected data for a follow-up assessment at one-year post-intervention (2018-2019 school year). At one-year post-intervention, 336 (61.4%) previous study participants completed the same surveys administered at post-intervention (self-report social-emotional data) and academic records provided data on course grades and test scores. This dissertation examined this data from the one-year follow-up assessment and found significant differences (p<.05) between the treatment and control group on affective engagement (belongingness at school; d= 0.29), behavioral engagement (in-class participation; d=0.24), behavioral engagement (extracurricular activities; d=0.23), eustress (d=0.38), and externalizing problems (d=-0.25). The treatment effects that remained significant from post-intervention to one-year follow-up included affective engagement (belongingness at school), behavioral engagement (in-class participation), and eustress. Behavioral engagement (extracurricular activities) and externalizing problems were not significant at post-intervention but emerged as significant treatment effects in 10th grade. Significant treatment effects at post-intervention for affective engagement (in-class positive emotions), achievement motivation (value school), and academic burnout attenuated to non-significance at the one-year follow-up. Of note, significantly more students who received the ACE program continued participating in AP/pre-IBD classes in 10th grade than their control group counterparts (88% compared to 76%). However, a sizeable percentage of students in the treatment group (49%) and the control group (56%) demonstrate the need for additional support. Data from these analyses indicate that the ACE program is an intervention that has lasting positive treatment effects on multiple outcomes. Implications for practice, study limitations, and directions for future research are discussed.

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