Effectiveness of the universal school-based intervention Rock and Water in improving students' social safety: Communication as indirect effect?

Rock and Water (R&W) is a widespread, but still poorly evaluated, universal school-based intervention that aims to improve students’ social safety. The intervention uses a psychophysical approach, i.e., play and exercises are used to increase the strength of students, to teach them to make (physical) contact with others and to explore, respect and set own and other’s boundaries. This physical approach makes R&W eminently suitable for prevocational students. During the sessions the symbolic principles of ‘rock’ and ‘water’ are used. Rock indicates a rigid and uncompromising attitude. Water represents flexibility and cooperation. Verbal and non-verbal communication is a recurrent theme throughout the intervention and is proposed to increase feelings of social safety. In this study we will analyze 1) the effectiveness of R&W in improving students’ social safety (i.e., perceived security in the classroom, aggression, and bullying) and 2) communication as possible mediator of the effect of the intervention on social safety. Schools are randomly assigned to an intervention condition (3 schools) or control condition (2 schools) (Care as usual; i.e., current school policy to enhance students’ social safety). R&W will be implemented in the 7th Grade of prevocational education level from November 2017 until February 2018. We will use a multi-informant (i.e., student, teacher, and parent) approach with multiple measurement points for social safety (i.e., prior, during, and after R&W). Communication will be assessed prior and after R&W in a random subsample of 120 dyads with an adapted version of the Peer Interaction Task. Same-sex dyads of classmates will plan an activity together, as warm-up, and subsequently discuss three vignettes concerning daily school situations. Each of these four segments lasts 5 minutes. The interaction will be videotaped and coded for verbal and non-verbal communication. Deviant (e.g., “I would hit him”) and prosocial (e.g., “I would borrow him a pen”) communication will be coded. Furthermore, communication will be rated using codes for responsiveness, reciprocity, and affective valence. The effect of R&W on students’ social safety will be analyzed in two ways, first with a MANCOVA in which the baseline measurements are the covariates, and second by modeling the trajectories of change in social safety during the intervention using Latent Growth Curve modeling. The mediating effect of communication on the effect of R&W on students’ social safety will be analyzed by modeling an indirect effect using bootstrapping. This study will give insight in the effectiveness of R&W in improving students’ social safety as well as in a possible working mechanism of this intervention.