There was a new best evidence in brief past week and this item isn’t that great news:

An evaluation conducted for the Education Endowment Foundation in the UK looked at whether the  Good Behaviour Game (GBG) improved students’ reading skills and behavior.

The GBG intervention is a classroom management approach designed to improve student behavior and build confidence and resilience. The game is played in groups and rewards students for good behavior. More than 3,000 Year 3 (equivalent to second grade in the U.S.) students from 77 UK schools took part in a randomized controlled trial of GBG over two years. Around a quarter of the students in the schools were eligible for free school meals, around a fifth were students with special educational needs, and 23% had English as an additional language.

The analysis indicated that, on average, GBG had no significant impact on students’ reading skills (effect size = +0.03) or their behavior (concentration, disruptive behavior, and pro-social behavior) when compared to the control group students. However, there was some tentative evidence that boys at risk of developing conduct problems showed improvements in behavior.