Smart Projects Research Articles

The Adoption Process for Health Curriculum Innovations in Schools: A Case Study

Abstract A qualitative study is presented of the adoption process in six North Carolina school districts that were given the opportunity to adopt one of three curricula: Project SMART, Growing Healthy, and the Teenage Health Teaching Modules. Adoption represents a first major commitment by an organization toward using an innovation. Three themes are presented that characterize the curriculum adoption process in the six districts: (1) district decision making for curriculum adoption consisted of a three stage process, and at each stage, different decision makers played key roles; (2) the decision making process was influenced by the degree of engagedness of a “linking agent” within the district; and (3) a central office administrator facilitated the role played by the linking agent. Recommendations are provided that may increase adoption of innovative health curricula.

Drug use prevention programs, gender, and ethnicity: Evaluation of three seventh-grade project SMART cohorts

One-year follow-up data from three seventh-grade cohorts of Project SMART were examined to assess the effects of two social psychology-based programs within each of six subgroups: males, females, Asians, blacks, Hispanics, and whites. The three cohorts (total N = 5,070) were those receiving curriculum or serving as controls as seventh-graders in 1982–1983, 1983–1984, and 1984–1985 school years. The outcome measures used were composite indices based on lifetime and recent use items for cigarettes, alcohol, and marijuana. The major analysis was ANCOVA on classroom means for the composite indices at post-test, using pretest classroom means for the indices as a covariate. The results showed clear prevention effects for females but not for males. Overall prevention effects were strongest for cigarette smoking, but were also evident for alcohol. Significant sex by program interactions, showing differential program effects for males and females, were found for cigarettes and marijuana, but not for alcohol. There was a nonsignificant trend suggesting that the programs were most effective for Asians and least effective for whites.

Project SMART Parent Program: Preliminary Results of a Chronic Disease Risk Reduction Trial

Project SMART Parent Program is a school-based healthy lifestyle promotion program designed to reduce chronic disease risk in adults and to provide a health-conscious home environment for children through the adoption of healthy lifestyle by their parents. Parents in the high involvement condition received comprehensive health status appraisals, and a program designed to reduce dietary fat intake, and increase aerobic activity levels. Parents in the low involvement condition received only the comprehensive health status appraisals. ANCOVA, using treatment condition as the independent variable and change scores as the dependent variables, were used to assess program outcomes. At the first posttest measure, the intervention group compared to the control group had a significantly greater decrease in blood cholesterol, a greater gain in aerobic fitness, a greater weight loss, and a greater decrease in body fat. At the second posttest measure, the intervention group had significantly greater gain in aerobic fitness, a greater decrease in body fat, a greater decrease in systolic blood pressure, and a marginally significant decrease in weight. Preliminary results provide strong support for the effectiveness of the Parent Program in reducing chronic disease risks.

Affective and social influences approaches to the prevention of multiple substance abuse among seventh grade students: Results from project SMART

Two drug abuse prevention curricula were tested to determine their efficacy in preventing the onset of tobacco, alcohol, and marijuana use among adolescents. The first program focused on prevention through social pressure resistance training. The second featured affective education approaches to prevention. Curricula were tested on seventh grade students. Subjects were pretested just prior to the program and were post-tested at 12 and 24 months. Post-test analyses indicated that the social program delivered to seventh grade subjects was effective in delaying the onset of tobacco, alcohol, and marijuana use. No preventive effect of the affective education program was observed. By the final post-test, classrooms that had received the affective program had significantly more drug use than controls.

Reliability of self-report measures of drug use in prevention research: evaluation of the Project SMART questionnaire via the test-retest reliability matrix.

The present article describes an evaluation of a self-report questionnaire administered to whole classrooms of 7th graders. Using the test-retest reliability matrix (based on concepts of Cronbach [1] and Campbell and Fiske [2]), eight of nine drug-use indices appeared to have acceptable to good reliability. The three measures included in the test-retest reliability matrix provide stronger evidence for good reliability than could any single measure.

Flying Skill Maintenance

A skills maintenance and reacquisition training (Project SMART) research program has been developed to improve Air Force continuation flying training. Project SMART consists of four phases: 1. Preliminary evaluation of research concepts and procedures, 2. Identification and definition of critical flying skills and development of skill measures, 3. Evaluation of skill maintenance and reacquisition training program alternatives, and 4. Measurement of skill retention. The program is sponsored by Air Force Headquarters and is being accomplished by the Air Force Human Resources Laboratory with participation by the Strategic Air Command and the Tactical Air Command. Selected studies completed during Phases 1 and 2 are reported.

FIRST: Flexible Information Retrieval System for Text

AbstractAn on‐line document retrieval system is described which combines a data base management system with automatic processing of natural language queries and abstracts. Data consists of an abstract, from which index terms are automatically extracted, along with bibliographic and descriptive information. The data base management system is used to store bibliographic and descriptive information, providing direct access to documents with specified bibliographic or descriptor items. Methods originally developed in the SMART project are used for abstract analysis: stemming algorithm, cosine function for query‐document comparisons, ranked output, and clustered document collection. Searches are entered and performed on‐line, with output consisting of document abstracts ranked in decreasing order of similarity with the query. Additional facilities include off‐line searches, SDI, and display of data base statistics. Future plans and improvements are also discussed.

Document clustering: An evaluation of some experiments with the cranfield 1400 collection

The single-link cluster method is used to construct a hierarchic classification for the 1400 documents in the Cranfield test collection. A variety of retrieval strategies applied to this hierarchy are evaluated in terms of effectiveness and efficiency. Comparisons are made between our results and those of similar experiments in document clustering on the Smart project.

Photographic Instrumentation at Project SMART

Project SMART, Supersonic Military Air Research Track, is a 12,000-ft supersonic sled track designed and built for the Air Force. The track is located and operated to simulate pilot escape systems of high-speed aircraft. Photographic instrumentation of this site is described.