The Behavioral Vaccine

Bridging the Gap Between Research and Practice to Reduce Disruptive Behavior and Improve Student Outcomes

The Problem

In today's classrooms, the headlines are dominated by stories of increasingly disruptive behavior, posing challenges to academic progress and straining educators and staff. This disruption leads to lower academic performance, heightened stress among teachers and school personnel, and an overall decline in learning environments. Administrators often invest significant funds in programs that yield uncertain results, leading to a cycle of wasted resources without tangible improvements.

A Potential Solution

However, we have a science to combat these problems. A wealth of research in the behavior-analytic community focuses on reducing disruptive behavior. One of the oldest and most well-researched is a procedure known as the Good Behavior Game (GBG). The GBG is a group contingency, specifically an interdependent group contingency. This means that your behavior impacts the success of your peers and vice versa. The purpose of the game is to essentially break as few rules as possible, and if the class is below the criterion, the whole class wins. It doesn’t matter who breaks the rule; so if student A breaks a rule, it impacts the entire class. If student B breaks a rule, it impacts the entire class. And so forth.

To implement the GBG, you first tell the students what rules need to be followed. You then ensure you’ve identified a potent reinforcer (e.g., extra recess time, no homework) that can be earned. Last, you must choose how many times the rules can be broken. It shouldn’t be zero because that’s unreasonable and it shouldn’t be a large number that gives students too much leeway, but something in between. It is also possible to start with a large number and slowly decrease the criterion (to ensure students “win” the game).

The first iteration of the GBG was published in 1968 and has been replicated countless times across schools, students, grades, behaviors, countries, you name it. And what the data almost always shows is that it is effective in reducing disruptive classroom behavior. But even more importantly, the GBG positively affects student outcomes outside the classroom. The GBG has even been called a “behavioral vaccine,” with results that could have a beneficial impact on substance use, delinquency, and violence, among others. If you’re wondering how that’s possible, think about it like this. Education will often result in a higher chance of obtaining and maintaining employment, which provides income and stability in an individual’s home. If students are unable to learn (at any point in their education), it will have a potentially negative effect on graduation rates, employment, income, and prosocial behavior.

Okay, great. So we have these data-driven procedures available for the public to utilize. How many educators use it? Well, probably not many. The problem seems to be disseminating the literature in an easily consumable format. Unfortunately, what is disseminated by news sources includes using chess and implementing somatic check-ins to reduce disruptive behavior. To address the disconnect between evidence-based practices like the GBG and their implementation in classrooms, we need to enhance the dissemination of these strategies in ways that educators can easily understand and adopt. This can be achieved through targeted professional development programs that provide hands-on training, clear guidelines, and ongoing support. Schools and districts should prioritize collaboration with behavior analysts to ensure that interventions are tailored to the unique needs of each classroom. Additionally, creating accessible resources, such as simplified manuals and instructional videos, can empower teachers to implement these proven methods effectively. By bridging the gap between research and practice, we can foster more productive learning environments, reduce disruptive behaviors, and ultimately enhance student outcomes inside and outside the classroom.

If you’re interested in learning more about the GBG, please listen to this great interview with Dr. Jeanne Donaldson:

Thanks and see you next week.

Faris & Frank