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Article History

Received: 10 January 2019

Accepted: 20 March 2019

First Online: 11 April 2019

Ethics approval and consent to participate

: The Ethics Committee for Psychological Research at the University of Tuebingen reviewed GEKOS and offered its favorable ethical opinion (Revision_1_ 2017_0825_78). We obtained informed consent for this study on five levels. First, the Regional Council of Tuebingen and the Ministry of Education and Cultural Affairs in the federal state of Baden-Wuerttemberg approved the implementation of the study. Second, during the recruitment process, we sent the study information and the ethical and political approval to all schools in Baden-Wuerttemberg. Third, the school principals agreed to conduct the study at their schools. Fourth, the participating teachers provided informed consent at the teacher training session (intervention group) or sent it by mail to the main researchers (control group). Fifth, the students and their parents gave their consent to complete the tests (T1–T3) and process analysis during the intervention. Consent to take part in the program is not required since it falls within the usual school curriculum. We code all study materials with student identification numbers to ensure participant anonymity. Therefore, these materials do not include identifying information. A single coding sheet that connects the identification number to the real name of the student exists; we store this sheet separately from the study material and destroy it after completion of the data collection (follow-up). We transmit and maintain all surveyed data in password-protected computer files. Only project leader and main researchers have access to the final trial set.

: Not applicable.

: The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

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