Written by: Marci Whitman

The Conflict Center is thrilled to share our latest evaluation results of our Emotional Intelligence and Critical Decision Making (EICDM) classes for youth ages 11-18.

Pre and post test results of on-site EICDM classes show positive increase in all measures.  16 out of 18 questions on this survey showed statistically significant results.  The survey scored measured a positive improvement in all three domains of anger awareness, self-efficacy, and conflict management.  The strongest results were indicated with “I use conflict to improve relationships with others.”

Parents were asked to rank their youth in social emotional skills after taking the class.  Parents were asked to indicate whether their child had shown increases, no change, or decreases in specific behaviors or attitudes.  56% of parents indicate an increase in empathy, 79% of parents indicate an increase in social awareness, 78% of parents indicate an increase in self-management, 86% of parents indicate an increase in self-awareness, 76% of parents indicate an increase in responsible decision making, 69% of parents indicate an increase in relationships skills, and 58% of parents indicate an increase conflict management.

Colorado State University provided outside evaluation for EICDM classes based on a Bullying,
Fighting and Victimization Scale.  Youth who took EICDM were sorted into high and low risk groups based on their pretest scores.  Participants in the higher risk group reported significantly decreased negative behavior compared to the lower risk group, and this difference in improvement was statically significant. In other words, youth that reported more frequent negative behaviors at pretest were the ones that reported more significant decreases in those same behaviors over time.