Emailed implementation supports to promote treatment integrity: Comparing the effectiveness and acceptability of prompts and performance feedback

Effects of the Good Behavior Game on Students’ Academic Engagement in Remote Classrooms During the COVID-19 Pandemic

This multiple-baseline design study examined the effects of the Good Behavior Game (GBG) on class-wide academic engagement in online general education classrooms. Teachers in three third- through fifth-grade classrooms implemented the GBG remotely during the COVID-19 pandemic. Treatment integrity was supported using aspects of implementation planning and by providing emailed performance feedback. Teachers’ perceived usability and students’ perceived acceptability of the GBG were assessed. Visual analysis results indicated two clear demonstrations of an effect, but experimental control was limited by smaller and delayed effects in one classroom. Statistical analyses of the data suggest that implementing the GBG was associated with moderate to strong, statistically significant improvements in students’ academic engagement in all three classrooms. Teachers reported that the GBG was usable in their online classrooms, and students reported finding the intervention acceptable to participate in remotely. These results provide initial support for further examining the effectiveness and social validity of using the GBG to improve elementary students’ academic engagement during remote instruction.

Strategies for Enhancing the Implementation of Universal Mental Health Prevention Programs in Schools: A Systematic Review

A number of school-based mental health prevention programs have been found to be effective in research trials, but little is known about how to support implementation in real-life settings. To address this translational problem, this systematic review aims to identify effective strategies for enhancing the implementation of mental health prevention programs for children in schools. Four electronic databases were searched for empirical, peer-reviewed articles in English from January 2000 to October 2021 reporting the effects of implementation strategies for school-based universal mental health programs. Twenty-one articles were included in the narrative synthesis and assessed for quality using the Mixed Methods Appraisal Tool. Twenty-two strategies were found to be effective at improving program fidelity or adoption. The strategies with the strongest positive evidence base were those that involved monitoring and provision of feedback, engaging principals as program leaders, improving teachers' buy-in and organising school personnel implementation meetings. We recommend school-based practitioners trial strategies with positive findings from this review as part of their continuous quality improvement. This review highlights the pressing need for large-scale, randomised controlled trials to develop and trial more robust strategies to enhance adoption, as the five implementation studies found to measure adoption used qualitative methods limited by small samples sizes and case study designs.

Longitudinal Effects of a Motivationally Focused Strategy to Increase the Yield of Training and Consultation on Teachers' Adoption and Fidelity of a Universal Program

Group-based didactic training is a cornerstone implementation strategy used to support the adoption and delivery of evidence-based prevention programs (EBPP) by teachers in schools, but it is often insufficient to drive successful implementation. Beliefs and Attitudes for Successful Implementation in Schools for Teachers (BASIS-T) is a theory-based, motivational implementation strategy designed to increase the yield of EBPP training and consultation. The purpose of this study was to examine the longitudinal effects of BASIS-T on hypothesized mechanisms of behavior change (e.g., attitudes toward EBPP, self-efficacy, intentions to implement) and implementation and student outcomes associated with a well-established universal prevention program-the good behavior game (GBG). This pilot trial included 82 elementary school teachers from nine public elementary schools who were randomly assigned at the school-level to the BASIS-T (n = 43) or active comparison (n = 39) condition, with both conditions receiving training and consultation of the good behavior game by a third-party purveyor. Analyses included mixed-effects and multilevel growth modeling of adoption, mechanisms of behavior change, and student behavior outcomes. Meaningful effects were found favoring BASIS-T on immediate adoption of the GBG within the first month of school (74% vs. 40%) and self-efficacy (p < 0.05). These findings advance our understanding of the type of implementation strategies that complement pre-implementation training and post-training consultation in schools by identifying the importance of task self-efficacy as a mechanism of behavior change related to adoption for prevention programming.

Supplementary Information

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s12310-022-09536-z.

Examination of a Tiered Training Model to Increase School Psychology Graduate Students' Behavior Specific Praise

Several strategies (e.g., performance feedback, video models, tactile prompting) have been found to be effective for improving preservice teachers’ use of foundational behavior management skills. However, there is limited research examining these training strategies for promoting preservice clinicians’ use of evidence-based behavior management skills. Furthermore, when these strategies are utilized, personnel receiving training often respond differentially. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of a tiered training model that incorporated performance feedback, video models, and tactile prompts to increase school psychology graduate students’ rates of behavior specific praise during one-to-one sessions with child clients. Results indicated that rates of behavior specific praise increased and maintained across time. Findings, limitations, and directions for future research are discussed.

Using the Performance Diagnostic Checklist to evaluate and promote paraeducators' treatment fidelity

Paraeducators, who increasingly serve as implementers for students in special education, can struggle with intervention fidelity. Special educators, often responsible for providing paraeducators with support, receive limited supervision training. From organizational behavior management, the Performance Diagnostic Checklist-Human Services (PDC-HS) is a checklist to detect reasons for poor workplace performance and identify aligned support. Utilizing a multiple baseline design, this study evaluated the impact of PDC-HS indicated implementation support on the intervention fidelity of five paraeducators implementing six behavior intervention plans for students receiving special education services. The PDC-HS indicated that all paraeducators would benefit from behavior skills training and visuals of the plans, in addition to other specific supports for individual paraeducators (e.g., prompts, feedback). These implementation supports were effective in improving intervention fidelity for four paraeducators, whereas one paraeducator (across two students) did not respond to these supports. Changes in student outcomes (i.e., academic engagement, disruptive behavior) were inconsistent, suggesting that the behavior intervention plans may have needed to be revised. Usability data suggested that the PDC-HS and indicated supports were generally acceptable, but revisions may be warranted. The implications of this study for school-based implementation support research are discussed.

Teaching Undergraduate Clinicians Empirically Supported Practices for Preschool Vocabulary Instruction

Purpose To incorporate evidence-based practice into clinical settings, there is a need for efficient, effective ways to share information from research to speech-language pathologists (SLPs) and to students preparing to become SLPs. The purpose of this study was to implement and evaluate a method for teaching undergraduate student clinicians to use empirically supported practices in vocabulary instruction during shared storybook reading with preschoolers. Method Undergraduate students enrolled in a semester-long preschool practicum participated in the study. In Study 1, 11 students participated in a multiple-baseline, single-case design. In Study 2, an additional 10 students were included in a quasi-experimental group design. All students completed prerecorded, online teaching modules that taught empirically supported practices for teaching vocabulary during shared storybook reading. Half of the students received weekly e-mails with performance feedback. Targeted practices included selection of appropriate vocabulary targets, explicit teaching, and use of interactive teaching strategies. Results In Study 1, treatment effects were observed for targeted practices for many of the student clinicians. In Study 2, group comparisons indicated an effect of e-mail performance feedback for 1 of 3 outcomes with a large effect size. Conclusion Prerecorded teaching modules may be an efficient, effective way to teach specific empirically supported practices to undergraduate student clinicians. E-mail feedback might improve use of taught practices for some students or for some practices. Future studies can examine the potential of these types of teaching modules for other outcomes or with groups of practicing SLPs.