Effectiveness of intervention programs for teachers and children/adolescents: A qualitative approach.
Quantitative studies are more common to evaluate the effectiveness of intervention programs, with fewer qualitative studies. The aim of this symposium is to present qualitative data on the effectiveness of intervention programs for teachers and children/adolescents. The first communication will present teachers’ expectations and perceptions of the impact of the Incredible Years®-Teacher Classroom Management program (IY-TCM) training on themselves using a pre-post design. Preschool teachers participated into two focus groups, before and after completing the training. Results indicated that, before the training, teachers felt exhausted but enthusiastic about the training. After the training, teachers felt more self-confident and valued the management tools acquired, the sharing and support. The second communication will explore teachers’ views on the sustainability of the IY-TCM program. Twenty-five UK primary school teachers participated in three focus groups and 10 individual interviews, one year after the end of the training. Findings suggest that teachers were still using and benefiting from the program one year later. However, barriers related to organizational and wider contextual factors need to be addressed to promote sustainability. The third communication will focus on #EntreViagenseAprendizagens, a school-based intervention aimed to promote well-being and healthy lifestyles among adolescents, based on social and emotional learning, positive psychology, and health education approaches. Qualitative data (focus groups) revealed high satisfaction with the program. Topics considered the most important learnings (e.g., mental health, social-emotional skills), and the processes most relevant to achieve the objectives (e.g., debates, group activities), are discussed. The last communication is based on PROMEHS, an Erasmus+ Project aiming to develop, implement and evaluate a curriculum to promote mental health at schools. It is the first mental health curriculum to be developed collaboratively by researchers, policymakers, and scientific associations from 20 Institutions across seven European countries (e.g., Latvia, Portugal, Romania). Results showed positive results regarding socioemotional competencies acquisition and decreased internalizing and externalizing problems among students.
SOFIA MAJOR
University of the Azores. Portugal
Sofia Major is a psychologist, with a PhD in Psychological Assessment from the Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences of the University of Coimbra (FPCE-UC). She is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Psychology at the Faculty of Social and Human Sciences – University of the Azores (UAc). She was also an invited Assistant Professor at FPCE-UC and at the Faculty of Social and Human Sciences at the University of Beira Interior (UBI). She is an integrated member of the Center for Research in Neuropsychology and Cognitive-Behavioral Intervention (CINEICC; FPCE-UC). She is also an Effective Member of the Portuguese Psychologists Association (OPP), specialist in Clinical and Health Psychology. Member of the PsyAssessmentLab (Psychological Assessment and Psychometrics Laboratory) of the FPCE-UC and of the European Association of Psychological Assessment (EAPA). She participated in several research projects in the field of assessment and intervention with preschool children, being the PI on the financed research project “Incredible Teachers + Happy Children = The IY®-TCM program in the Azores”. She is trained in the Incredible Years® Parent program and is a Certified Leader in the Teacher Classroom Management (TCM) program. She has several national and international communications. She is the author of the Portuguese version of the Preschool and Kindergarten Behavior Scales – Second Edition (PKBS-2) and (co)author of several international publications in the field of psychological assessment, mostly with preschool children.
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