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Social CompetenceNCT04097496

Effects of ACT OUT! Social Issue Theater on Youth and Adolescents

A study testing Act Out! Intervention in people with Social Competence and Bullying, run by Indiana University at 1 site in United States.

Terminated

Stopped early. The study ended before it was planned to and will not resume.

Official record
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Trial summary

The ACT OUT! Trial is designed as a proof-of-concept, cluster, randomized, superiority trial with two parallel groups. Although the unit of measurement is student, the unit of randomization is classroom, stratified by school. Read more about this study

Who is it for?
Any ageHealthy volunteers can take part
Conditions the study is for
Social Competence, Bullying
What is being tested?
Act Out! Intervention
Could I receive a placebo?
No, everyone receives an active treatment
How many people
1,537 participants
Where
1 siteUnited States
Study dates
16 Oct 2019to 15 Mar 2020
Phase
Interventional
Are there results?
None posted in the registry

Key requirements

Who can take part, as listed by the sponsor. Only the study team can confirm whether you are eligible, so take this list to your doctor.

  • Ages Any age
  • All sexes
  • Healthy volunteers accepted
  • Child, Adult, Older adult

Who may be able to join

  • Classrooms must be comprised of 4th grade (Elementary), 7th grade (Middle), or 10th grade (High) students

Who cannot join

  • Participants and their parents or legal guardians will review study procedures. Parents or guardians may opt out on behalf of their dependents, and participants may themselves opt out.
  • If a given grade within a school has an odd number of classrooms, one classroom randomly will be excluded from participation.

Trial locations and contacts

1 site in 1 country.

United States1 site
  • Claude McNeal Productions

    Indianapolis, Indiana, 46204

Other trials in United States

About this study

Official title: Multi-Site Cluster, Randomized Proof of Concept Trial to Study the Effects of the ACT OUT! Social Issue Theater Program on Social-Emotional Competence and Bullying in Youth and Adolescents

The ACT OUT! Trial is designed as a proof-of-concept, cluster, randomized, superiority trial with two parallel groups. Although the unit of measurement is student, the unit of randomization is classroom, stratified by school. For each grade, an even number of classrooms will be selected from each school; half of the selected classrooms will be randomly assigned to intervention arm, whereas the other half will be assigned to control arm. This way, sociodemographic and school-level factors will be made approximately comparable between intervention and control arms.

Read the detailed description

This study will be an assessment of the ACT OUT! Social Issue Theater program as a universal social and emotional learning (SEL) intervention targeting social-emotional competence (SEC) and bullying in elementary, middle, and high school students. ACT OUT! is an existing program that has been performed in various forms by professionally-trained members of an acting ensemble since 1995. The present iteration consists of three distinct scenarios per grade range (elementary, middle, and high) that present age-appropriate improvisational drama illustrating issues related to SEL and bullying, including facilitated discussion with the actors, who remain in character. The program lasts approximately one hour (scenario descriptions and a fidelity checklist for SEL/bullying elements will be made available as supplemental files).

SEL curricula typically consist of manualized and/or structured classroom or multicomponent programs taking place over time; the median number of sessions within an SEL program in a meta-analysis of 213 SEL studies was 24. At one hour in duration, ACT OUT! is substantially shorter and is performed by professional actors - meeting the goal of reduced school resource costs for SEL programming, but potentially raising concerns about whether such a dose could reasonably be expected to produce an effect. Underlying this study is a supposition that unique properties of a dramatic performance specifically may trigger SEL responses. In Aristotle's Poetics, which is the first known work on dramatic theory, it is written that a dramatic tragedy (in the Aristotelian sense) is designed to arouse certain feelings, "wherewith to accomplish catharsis of… emotions." This precise mechanism underlies the development of psychodrama as a psychotherapeutic intervention, as combined action and verbalization can present a situation "freed from the restricting stereotyped residues of past experience." Recent studies and meta-analyses have examined psychodrama as a means of prevention and/or behavior change with generally positive findings. Researchers have also found that youth report that they enjoy psychodramatic elements as part of a larger prevention curriculum. However, no studies have measured any outcomes of a psychodramatic SEL experience.

This will be the first study to examine whether a short dose of interactive psychodrama can affect SEC metrics and bullying experiences in schoolchildren. In responding to recent criticism of SEL studies, the investigators have chosen to utilize the SPIRIT 2013 clinical trial guidelines in developing this protocol to promote rigor, reproducibility, and transparency.

Being tested
Act Out! Intervention
Medical subject headings
Social Skills, Bullying

What participants receive

What participants receive. In a randomised study each person is assigned to one group by chance.

  • Act Out! InterventionBehavioural

    Data included in the description of the intervention arm.

Study groups in NCT04097496
Study groupRoleWhat they receive
Act Out! InterventionExperimentalEligible classrooms will be randomized to attend a 1-hour ACT OUT! interactive, semi-improvisational psychodrama performance. The ACT OUT! intervention is an established theater program (https://www.claudemcnealproductions.com/act-out-ensemble/). The ACT OUT! production will include three to five vignettes paired with moderated discussions between the audience and the actors, the latter who will remain partly in character for the duration of the intervention. Vignettes will be different for each grade level included in the study (4th, 7th, and 10th). Public documentation of the guidelines for the ACT OUT! intervention will be made available as a supplemental file attached to the primary outcomes paper for the study.
Receives: Behavioral: Act Out! Intervention
ControlNo interventionClassrooms randomized to this arm will continue with their school day as normal, except that they will complete the data collection tools.

What is being measured

The primary outcome is the main question the study is designed to answer.

  1. Change from Baseline Social-Emotional Competence

    Computed from the Delaware Social Emotional Competency Scale (DSECS-S). The score is averaged from Likert-type data (e.g., one overall score will be computed from 12 questions). The score ranges from '1' to '4' - some items will be reverse coded, so that a '4' is consistently the optimal score across questions and for the total scale value.

    Measured: Separately, 2 weeks post-intervention, and 3 months post-intervention

  2. Change from Baseline Bullying Prevalence (self-report)

    Bullying activity (being bullied and bullying) via two parallel 13-item scales on the Bullying and Cyberbullying Scale for Adolescents (BCS-A). This scale captures frequency data and so is interpretable on its face (e.g., # instances of a behavior or observation).

    Measured: Separately, 2 weeks post-intervention, and 3 months post-intervention

  3. Change from Baseline Bullying Prevalence (objective)

    Disciplinary referrals for bullying (aggregated, not individual)

    Measured: 3 months post-intervention

Secondary outcomes (4)
  1. Change from Baseline Social-Emotional Competence Sub-Domains (7th and 10th grades only)

    Social awareness, emotion regulation, relationship skills, and responsible decision-making as measured via 4 sub-scales of the Washoe County School District Social-Emotional Competency Assessment. For each sub-scale, the score is averaged from Likert-type data (e.g., one overall score will be computed from 3-5 questions). The score ranges from '1' to '4' - a '4' is consistently the optimal score across questions and for the total scale value.

    Measured: Separately, 2 weeks post-intervention, and 3 months post-intervention

  2. Receptivity to the Act Out! Intervention

    Subjective receptivity to the intervention (e.g., enjoyment) as measured by response items from Dent et al. (1998). This scale *does not* have a specific name. It measures the following characteristics of receptivity to the intervention: whether it was enjoyable, interesting, a waste of time, boring, understandable, difficult to understand, believable, important, and helpful. Each item is measured using a Likert-type scale. The score ranges from '1' to '4' - some items will be reverse coded, so that a '4' is consistently the optimal score across questions and for the total scale value.

    Measured: 2 weeks post-intervention

  3. Frequency of Truancy/Absenteeism

    Data for clusters from district records (aggregated, not individual). These data already exist. No individual-level data will be utilized, only aggregated frequency of truancy/absenteeism.

    Measured: 3 months post-intervention

  4. Academic Performance using standard Grade Point Average

    Data for clusters from district records (aggregated, not individual); grade point average normalized to a 4.0 grading scale (where 4.0 is an A and 1.0 is an F).

    Measured: 3 months post-intervention

Timeline

From the start of the study to its completion; the mark is today. Estimated dates are the sponsor’s plan.

  1. First posted20 Sep 2019
  2. Study start16 Oct 2019
  3. Primary completion15 Mar 2020
  4. Study completion15 Mar 2020

Why it stopped: COVID-19 pandemic and related school policies.

Resources

More details

For doctors and researchers: how the study is designed, who runs it, and its registry IDs.

Study design
Study type
Interventional
Phase
Phase N/A
Primary purpose
Other
Allocation
Randomised
Intervention model
Parallel groups
Model description
The ACT OUT! Trial is designed as a proof-of-concept, cluster, randomized, superiority trial with two parallel groups. Randomization will be performed within clusters with a 1:1 allocation.
Masking
Single blind
Who is masked
Outcomes assessor
Enrolment
1,537 participants (actual)
IDs, dates and publications
ClinicalTrials.gov ID
NCT04097496
Sponsor's protocol ID
2019 0543
Other IDs
161999
Status last verified
Sep 2020
First submitted
17 Sep 2019
Last updated
9 Sep 2020
Results posted
No
Data monitoring committee
No
FDA-regulated drug
No
FDA-regulated device
No
Individual data sharing
Yes: All IPD that underlie results in study publications will be made available in fully de-identified form. The study protocol will be published in an open-access journal and will include the statistical analysis plan, per SPIRIT 2013 recommendations. All forms related to recruitment and protocol execution will also be made available as supplemental files in appropriate outcome publications. The analytic code for each outcome publication will be published as a supplemental file with the corresponding paper.

Publications

  • Claude McNeal Productions. Act Out Ensemble [Internet]. Claude McNeal Productions. 2019 [cited 11 September 2019]. Available from: https://www.claudemcnealproductions.com/act-out-ensemble/

  • Durlak JA, Weissberg RP, Dymnicki AB, Taylor RD, Schellinger KB. The impact of enhancing students' social and emotional learning: a meta-analysis of school-based universal interventions. Child Dev. 2011 Jan-Feb;82(1):405-32. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-8624.2010.01564.x.

    PubMed 21291449
  • Rosenstein L. On Aristotle and thought in drama. Critical Inquiry. 1977;3(3):543-65.

  • Davies MH. The origins and practice of psychodrama. Br J Psychiatry. 1976 Sep;129:201-6. doi: 10.1192/bjp.129.3.201.

    PubMed 786420
  • Krahé B, Knappert L. A group-randomized evaluation of a theatre-based sexual abuse prevention programme for primary school children in Germany. J Community Appl Soc Psychol. 2009;19(4):321-9.

  • Lauby JL, LaPollo AB, Herbst JH, Painter TM, Batson H, Pierre A, Milnamow M. Preventing AIDS through live movement and sound: Efficacy of a theater-based HIV prevention intervention delivered to high-risk male adolescents in juvenile justice settings. AIDS Educ Prev. 2010 Oct;22(5):402-16. doi: 10.1521/aeap.2010.22.5.402.

    PubMed 20973661
  • Lightfoot AF, Taboada A, Taggart T, Tran T, Burtaine A. 'I learned to be okay with talking about sex and safety': assessing the efficacy of a theatre-based HIV prevention approach for adolescents in North Carolina. Sex Educ. 2015;15(4):348-363. doi: 10.1080/14681811.2015.1025947.

    PubMed 26300693
  • Joronen K, Konu A, Rankin HS, Astedt-Kurki P. An evaluation of a drama program to enhance social relationships and anti-bullying at elementary school: a controlled study. Health Promot Int. 2012 Mar;27(1):5-14. doi: 10.1093/heapro/dar012. Epub 2011 Mar 7.

    PubMed 21385761
  • Cheadle A, Cahill C, Schwartz PM, Edmiston J, Johnson S, Davis L, Robbins C. Engaging youth in learning about healthful eating and active living: an evaluation of Educational Theater Programs. J Nutr Educ Behav. 2012 Mar-Apr;44(2):160-5. doi: 10.1016/j.jneb.2011.06.005. Epub 2011 Nov 25.

    PubMed 22118997
  • Belknap RA, Haglund K, Felzer H, Pruszynski J, Schneider J. A theater intervention to prevent teen dating violence for Mexican-American middle school students. J Adolesc Health. 2013 Jul;53(1):62-7. doi: 10.1016/j.jadohealth.2013.02.006. Epub 2013 Apr 11.

    PubMed 23583507
  • Joronen K, Rankin SH, Astedt-Kurki P. School-based drama interventions in health promotion for children and adolescents: systematic review. J Adv Nurs. 2008 Jul;63(2):116-31. doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2648.2008.04634.x.

    PubMed 18537845
  • Sussman SY. Evaluating the efficacy of Project TND: Evidence from seven research trials. In: Scheier LM, editor. Handbook of adolescent drug use prevention: Research, intervention strategies, and practice. Washington DC: American Psychological Association; 2015. p. 159-76.

  • Chan AW, Tetzlaff JM, Gotzsche PC, Altman DG, Mann H, Berlin JA, Dickersin K, Hrobjartsson A, Schulz KF, Parulekar WR, Krleza-Jeric K, Laupacis A, Moher D. SPIRIT 2013 explanation and elaboration: guidance for protocols of clinical trials. BMJ. 2013 Jan 8;346:e7586. doi: 10.1136/bmj.e7586.

    PubMed 23303884
  • Mantz LS, Bear GC, Yang C, Harris, A. The Delaware Social-Emotional Competency Scale (DSECS-S): Evidence of validity and reliability. Child Indic Res. 2018;11(1):137-57.

  • Thomas HJ, Scott JG, Coates JM, Connor JP. Development and validation of the Bullying and Cyberbullying Scale for Adolescents: A multi-dimensional measurement model. Br J Educ Psychol. 2019 Mar;89(1):75-94. doi: 10.1111/bjep.12223. Epub 2018 May 3.

    PubMed 29726005

Questions about this trial

What is this clinical trial studying?

A study testing Act Out! Intervention in people with Social Competence and Bullying, run by Indiana University at 1 site in United States.

The full registered description is in the About this study section and the official record.

Who may be eligible to take part?

The sponsor lists 1 inclusion and 2 exclusion criteria. Eligibility is decided by the study team after screening, so read the full criteria and contact a listed site.

Is this clinical trial currently recruiting?

The record says: stopped early, as of the sponsor's last update on 9 Sep 2020. Status can change between updates, so confirm with the study contact before making plans.

Where is the study taking place?

The record lists 1 site in United States. Whether a site is taking part right now should be confirmed with that site. See every site.

What are the possible benefits and risks?

They depend on the study and the treatment, and no study can promise a benefit. The study team explains the known risks during informed consent, before anyone joins; the record itself does not list them.

Are results available for this study?

The study was stopped early (reason given: COVID-19 pandemic and related school policies.). Results are not available in the source record.

How can a doctor refer a patient or contact the research team?

The record lists no contact. The official record names the sponsor, who can be asked directly. AzTrials does not enrol participants or take referrals.

What does the primary outcome measure?

Change from Baseline Social-Emotional Competence (time frame: Separately, 2 weeks post-intervention, and 3 months post-intervention). The study lists 3 primary outcomes in all. It is what the study was designed to measure, not a finding.

Where can I read the original study information?

On the ClinicalTrials.gov record for NCT04097496, which also lists 18 linked publications.

Does a listing mean the treatment is approved or proven to work?

No. A listing means the study is registered. It does not show that the treatment is safe, works, or is approved by a regulator.

How often is this information updated?

AzTrials copies changed records from ClinicalTrials.gov every night and reloads the whole registry every week. The sponsor last updated this record on 9 Sep 2020.

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