Read more about the project--Shifting Boundaries: Lessons on Relationships for Students in Middle School and access the curriculum, links, findings, etc.>>

A dating violence prevention program for each grade in middle school: a longitudinal multi-level experiment was a three-year study funded by the National Institute of Justice to evaluate the effectiveness of grade-differentiated dating violence and sexual harassment (DV/H) prevention curricula. Fifty middle schools were randomly assigned to one of four treatment conditions, with a fifth group of ten classrooms serving as the control group. The project included a baseline and five follow-up surveys with 6th, 7th and 8th grade students to assess short-term environmental impacts; intermediate changes in knowledge, norms, attitudes, and intentions; and long term impact on rates of DV/H. These data were supplemented with qualitative data from staff and students. Using a randomized experiment, the researchers investigated (1) whether and how much of a difference it makes when all three middle school grades received a set of DV/H interventions compared to when only two grades or only one grade received it; (2) the impact of multiple doses of grade-differentiated curricula compared to 6th graders who received it only once; and (3) the effects of new grade-differentiated curricula compared to generalized curricula.

Read more about the pilot study>>