In this study, psychological control of children was conceptually and empirically distinguished from behavioral control. Further, it was demonstrated as hypothesized that psychological control was more predictive of adolescent internalized problems, and that behavioral control was more predictive of externalized problems. Subjects were 473 fifth-, eighth-, and tenth-grade males and females from a Southern suburb. Control was measured by the Child Report of Parent Behavior Inventory and the Colorado Self-Report of Family Functioning Inventory. Problem behaviors were measured with the Child Behavior Checklist. First- and second-order factor analyses discriminated psychological and behavioral control, and structural equation analyses demonstrated the differential prediction of internalized and externalized problems. These last analyses were conducted using youth-reported data and validated using a subsample of 227 mother-youth pairs.

In this study, psychological control of children was conceptually and empirically distinguished from behavioral control. Further, it was demonstrated as hypothesized that psychological control was more predictive of adolescent internalized problems, and that behavioral control was more predictive of externalized problems. Subjects were 473 fifth-, eighth-, and tenth-grade males and females from a Southern suburb. Control was measured by the Child Report of Parent Behavior Inventory and the Colorado Self-Report of Family Functioning Inventory. Problem behaviors were measured with the Child Behavior Checklist. First- and second-order factor analyses discriminated psychological and behavioral control, and structural equation analyses demonstrated the differential prediction of internalized and externalized problems. These last analyses were conducted using youth-reported data and validated using a subsample of 227 mother-youth pairs.

A randomized experiment of Comer's School Development Program was conducted in 23 middle schools in Prince George's County, Maryland. The school population is predominantly African American, with considerable internal variation in household socioeconomic standing. This study involved repeated measurement with more than 12,000 students and 2,000 staff a survey of more than 1,000parents, and extensive access to student records. It showed that Comer schools implemented some of the program's central elements better than control schools, but not all or even most of them. This shortfall in program implementation may have been responsible for students in the experimental schools not changing any more than controls. Quasiexperimental analyses showed that the program theory may be correct in many of its predictions about student changes in psychological and social outcomes, but not achievement. However, achievement gains were found in schools with a more explicit academic focus, suggesting that improving this focus should be as central to Comer's program theory as improving a school's social climate. Even more needed, though, are ways to improve program implementabtlity, the sine qua non for student change.

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