Evaluation of aggression-reducing effects of the "Viennese Social Competence Training"

The "Viennese Social Competence Training" (ViSC), a primary violence prevention program for school classes, is summatively and formatively evaluated. The summative evaluation focused on the effectiveness of ViSC concerning the reduction of aggressive behavior, the formative evaluation focused on program implementation and accomplishment of training principles. Four school classes (N = 109) participated in the program, three school-classes (N=15) served as controls. Qualitative and quantitative data were collected before, during, shortly after and 4 months after the training. Qualitative data indicate high quality of program implementation and accomplishment of training principles. Quantitative data show a decrease in aggressive behavior responses among trained classes. Findings are discussed with regard to their usefulness for future evaluation studies.