This paper examines the preliminary impact of a digital teacher-training intervention targeted at reducing emotional and behavioural difficulties (EBD) amongst adolescents in Indian senior secondary classrooms. By adopting a design-based research approach, this study onboarded teachers as co-creators in the development of a contextually relevant digital intervention. Using a mixed-methods approach, the first phase investigated the causes of emotional and behavioural difficulties in students via interviews. Teachers shared concerns and strategies for classroom management. Combining their insights alongside relevant literature an intervention was developed which focused on addressing important classroom concerns such as identifying and managing behavioural difficulties, student-teacher relationships, and conflict resolution, amongst others.
The aim of this intervention study was to reduce EBD in adolescents while fostering their personal and relational resilience. Concurrently, the intervention aimed to explore if teacher self-efficacy in classroom management improved as a consequence of a consistent and emotionally supportive classroom climate. Conducted over 7 weeks, results highlighted a significant reduction in concerns such as behavioural difficulties, conduct problems, hyperactivity and conflict with peers. Additionally, the intervention also helped increase pro-social behaviour and resilience in the adolescent students. These results are encouraging and highlight the efficacy of a contextually sensitive digital intervention that can be used to improve psycho-social attributes in under-resourced systems. It especially contributes to a niche area of literature encouraging the use of the participatory intervention model, which has high significance in low and middle-income countries.