A DUTY TO CARE: A QUANTITATIVE INVESTIGATION OF BEHAVIORAL INTERVENTION TEAMS AND COLLEGE STUDENT ENGAGEMENT

Abstract

Over the last 30 years, the nation has endured frequent news stories about school shootings. In many of these incidents it has been discovered that a member of the school community was responsible for the act, leading the community to ask if these incidents could have been avoided. Students, faculty, and staff have the expectation that their educational communities will be safe spaces to learn, live, and work. In addition, there is an expectation that support will be provided to those within the community who may be struggling . In response, educational institutions have implemented Behavioral Intervention Teams in order to assess risk around student behavior. Research conducted up to this point about threat assessment and behavioral intervention has focused on the teams themselves, including their composition and training. There is little information available about the effect of the actual interventions that are applied. This study examined the way in which one behavioral intervention team, from a large public institution in the northeastern part of the United States, engaged students, specifically looking at the types of interventions applied, and how these interactions affect student persistence. The study was designed to look for a relationship between the interventions applied and the student’s ability to succeed academically one semester after their referral to the intervention team. The study showed that on average there was improvement in students’ GPAs one semester after referral to the Behavioral Intervention Team. However, results did not show a significant difference when considering age, gender, and student GPA. In addition, there was no significant relationship between the level of intensity of the intervention applied and academic persistence one semester after the intervention.