About the Project

Project Overview

ETR Associates spearheaded the California keepin' it REAL Project from a passion to prepare and support educators to make evidence-based health curricula work! The research and development project is funded by the National Institutes of Health — National Institute on Drug Abuse.

The goal of the California keepin' it REAL Project is to assess whether web-based training, which is convenient and cost-efficient, can be "as" or "more" effective than traditional training methods. The project will:

1. Provide middle school educators with the materials and support needed to lead the keepin' it REAL curriculum, and
2. Collect educator data and compare two types of educator preparation to effectively lead the curriculum:

• self-paced individual preparation using the keepin' it REAL curriculum,
• self-paced web-based training

Read more about the study in Details of Participation.

The California keepin' it REAL Project represents a unique partnership between ETR Associates — a nationally recognized training, education and research organization — and SecondPeak — a cutting edge software development company. These two companies are combining their experience with health education, professional development and computer technology to help educators deliver keepin' it REAL in ways that meet the needs of the students without sacrificing the integrity of the curriculum. For more information about ETR and SecondPeak, go to About Us.

Project Calendar

Project Rationale

Through research, we know that keepin' it REAL works. We also know that educators who remain true to the curriculum achieve the best results.

According to the Center for Substance Abuse Prevention (CSAP), how a program is implemented can determine its effectiveness in preventing substance use. In fact, the most serious threat to the effectiveness of school-based substance use prevention programs is poor implementation (Dusenbury et al, 2005). Yet a survey of 1,795 educators who implement substance abuse prevention programs in middle schools found that few (17.4%) used effective delivery (Ennett et al, 2003).

The California keepin' it REAL Project is addressing the importance of effective program delivery through a unique web-based professional development program designed to increase educators' skills and comfort level when implementing a substance use prevention curriculum.

Our own research and the research of others indicate that educators like web-based training and perceive that the training increases their ease of program delivery (Bishop et al, 2006). Additionally, our web-based training specifically targets factors that have been found to influence quality of program implementation — recency of training and comfort level with interactive teaching methods (Ennett et al, 2003).