| An increasing amount of pressure is being placed on educators to ensure that all students succeed academically and that no child is left behind. However, a great number of students identified as at-risk have made this task a difficult one to accomplish. As a result, many programs have been developed to specifically help the at-risk population. Research has indicated that teaching resiliency skills and emotional intelligence to all students is a promising venture (Aviles et al., 1999; Bernard, 1997; Borda, 1994; Bosworth & Earthman, 2002; Chavkin, 2000; Grayson, 2001; Henderson and Milstein, 1992; Miller et al., 1998; Wang, 1993; Werner & Smith, 1992).; Of particular interest to this study was the Teen Leadership Program by the Flippen Group (2005) which promotes skills enhancement related to resiliency and emotional intelligence. The purpose of this experimental study was to examine the effects of the Teen Leadership Program by measuring emotional intelligence. The study was conducted over a 16 week period with daily 55 minute Teen Leadership class sessions. Identified at-risk seventh and eighth grade middle school students in an urban region of South Texas served as the population for this study.; A pre-post treatment and control group design was utilized. Test instruments administered in this study included the Personal Responsibility Map (PRM), the Personal Responsibility Survey (PRS). Other dependent measures were overall grade point average, number of absences, and number of office referrals. The final sample in this study consisted of 70 seventh and eighth grade students which were divided equally between the treatment and control groups.; Three separate multivariate analyses of covariance (MANCOVAs) were used to test the null hypotheses regarding emotional intelligence skills, grades, absences, and office referrals. The first data analysis did not reveal an effect of treatment when differences in the student self report. The second data analysis did reveal a significant effect of treatment when examining differences in the teacher's student report. Follow-up univariate analysis of covariance revealed statistical significance in five of the twelve subscales: goal setting, self efficacy, achievement drive, self management, and resiliency. No significant differences between groups were found on overall G.P.A., number of absences, and number of office referrals. Discussion of the findings and recommendations for future research are further elaborated in this study. |
