CCT is designing and conducting a formative evaluation of the ENACT Classroom Instruction Project, a program to help at-risk public school students develop the social and emotional skills necessary to succeed in school and in their lives. ENACT activities teach self-awareness, behavior management, and responsibility for choices and consequences. CCT's evaluation will focus on ENACT's use of a new methodology that combines drama therapy techniques and a solid pedagogical foundation. CCT will study the work of specially trained, professional actors as they work with young people and create games and scenes to help students understand and avoid conflict and to make better choices in their lives. CCT will examine the extent to which the work is effective at relationship building and group dynamics and whether the scenes depict issues relevant to the students' lives, such as peer pressure, violence, diversity issues, and the aftermath of trauma.

CCT will observe planning sessions, review notes, plans and professional development activities and materials, develop preliminary observation and survey instruments, and interview schedules. The observations will be made in a representative sample of classes and planning professional development activities for teaching artists, the collection of student surveys, analyses of artist, teacher, and student performances, and the completion of a mid-year progress report in March 2004 and of a final report by September 2004.

The evaluation will address the following key research components:

• Review ENACT's development of a model self-awareness and behavior management program.
• Identify the characteristics of the model that are appropriate for elementary, middle schoo, and high school populations.
• Evaluate ENACT-developed evaluation tools: needs assessment, group behavior rubrics, program evaluations, teacher questionnaires, student questionnaires, parent workshops questionnaires, and staff workshop questionnaires.
• Evaluate the effectiveness of the preparation of teaching artists to use the strategies associated with the ENACT program.
• Evaluate the ways that ENACT's program addresses school-specific needs.
• Identify a set of promising behavior management practices from ENACT's program for sharing with other schools.
• Join with the project's advisory panel as they review the pilot project's features and activities to select the most promising practices.
• Prepare for a follow-up longitudinal study of the replication of ENACT's program in new sites.
• Evaluate project products and plans for dissemination of the model.