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When students require support to improve outcomes in a variety of domains, educators provide youth with school-based intervention. When educators require support to improve their professional practice, school leaders and support personnel (e.g., school psychologists) provide teachers with professional development (PD), consultation, and coaching. This multi-study article describes how the Assessment of Culturally and Contextually Relevant Supports (ACCReS) was developed with the purpose of assessment driving intervention for teachers in need of support to engage in culturally responsive practice. Items for the ACCReS were created via a multi-step process including review by both expert and practitioner panels. Then, results of an exploratory factor analysis with a national sample of U.S. teachers ( N = 500) in Study 1 yielded three subscales. A confirmatory factor analysis conducted with a separate sample of teachers ( N = 400) in Study 2 produced adequate model fit. In Study 3, analyses with another final sample of teachers ( N = 99) indicated preliminary evidence of convergent validity between the ACCReS and two measures of teacher self-efficacy of culturally responsive practice. Data from the ACCReS can shape the content of educator intervention (e.g., PD) and promote more equitable student outcomes for youth.

For decades, racially and ethnically minoritized youth have been subject to unequal distributions of access and opportunity in school, leading to inequities in academic outcomes. Educators require knowledge and skills to provide relevant instruction and create a more supportive, effective classroom environment. This systematic review includes 24 qualitative and quantitative studies in which researchers investigated a culturally responsive classroom intervention or practice to promote academic outcomes for racially and ethnically minoritized youth. Within these studies, authors described several approaches to promote academic success: (a) developing authentic partnerships with families, (b) using effective pedagogy with students’ culture infused, and (c) accessing rigorous professional development. In addition, studies were assessed for methodological quality, and qualitative works met design standards more often than the quantitative studies reviewed. Implications include the need for additional research to inform comprehensive support for educators to design effective instructional environments for all students, especially those who have historically encountered systemic barriers in school.

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.

School discipline disproportionality has long been documented in educational research, primarily impacting Black/African American and non-White Hispanic/Latinx students. In response, federal policymakers have encouraged educators to change their disciplinary practice, emphasizing that more proactive support is critical to promoting students’ social and behavioral outcomes in school. Results from a literature review conducted nearly a decade ago indicated that there was, at that point, a paucity of empirical research related to considering students’ culture (e.g., race, ethnicity) and supporting school behavior. The purpose of this study is to replicate and expand the previous review to summarize the characteristics of the most recent school-based quantitative research addressing interventions to promote social and behavioral outcomes for racially and ethnically minoritized youth. We screened 1687 articles for inclusion in the review. Upon coding 32 eligible research studies, we found that intervention and implementer characteristics within these studies varied, but noted strong intervention effects in studies that included established evidence-based practices, adapted interventions, as well as new practices piloted with student participants. Results inform recommendations to continue to study interventions that promote positive social and behavioral outcomes for racially and ethnically minoritized students to disrupt a long history of subjection to exclusionary discipline disproportionately.

The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has led to many students receiving remote instruction. As educators support students’ learning and behavior from a distance, school psychologists can utilize the...

Understanding how to intensify an intervention is critical to implementing response-to-intervention (RtI), a tiered, problem-solving framework to deliver evidence-based interventions per student needs. Research and practice guidelines provide conflicting recommendations for delivering math interventions (i.e., treatment intensity) within RtI. The present study used an adapted alternating treatment design to examine the impact of varying the session length, or number of minutes per intervention session, on student outcomes (i.e., digits correct per min, DCPM). Four female first-grade students identified in the frustrational range (i.e., less than 14 DCPM) for subtraction computation received a packaged intervention (i.e., Cover-Copy-Compare and Schema-Based Word Problem Instruction). The math intervention during the shortest (i.e., 10-min) session length led to similar improvements compared to two of the recommended session length conditions (i.e., 20–40 min) for three out of four students. Following the 5-week intervention, all four students reached an instructional level (i.e., 14–31 DCPM) for the intervention targets, similarly, across all three session length conditions. Implications for research on treatment intensity, math interventions, and RtI are discussed.

Many students with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) receive behavioral interventions to improve academic and prosocial functioning and remediate current skill deficits. Sufficient treatment integrity is necessary for these interventions to be successful. However, a literature review of studies that evaluated behavioral intervention for students with ASD from 1993 to 2003 found that only 18% of studies included an operational definition of the intervention and measured treatment integrity. The purpose of the present study was to update this review and incorporate recent advances in implementation science (e.g., dimensions, implementation support). Of the 130 studies reviewed, treatment integrity was assessed in 43% of studies. When treatment integrity data were included, it was most often adherence data that were assessed through observation or self-report. Implications for future research and practice are discussed.

Treatment fidelity assessment is critical to evaluating the extent to which interventions, such as the Good Behavior Game, are implemented as intended and impact student outcomes. The assessment methods by which treatment fidelity data are collected vary, with direct observation being the most popular and widely recommended. The current study presents an exploratory analysis of the differences between fidelity estimates collected through direct observation versus permanent product across three dimensions of treatment fidelity: adherence, quality, and exposure. Findings indicate that direct observation may allow for a more complete estimate of adherence when compared with permanent product, if implementation occurs within the observation window. Quality was only captured via direct observation. Direct observation may not produce adequate estimates of exposure depending on implementation timing. Implications for treatment fidelity assessment are reviewed.

To prevent academic failure and promote long-term success, response-to-intervention (RtI) is designed to systematically increase the intensity of delivering research-based interventions. Interventions within an RtI framework must not only be effective but also be implemented with treatment fidelity and delivered with the appropriate level of treatment intensity to improve student mathematics achievement. The purpose of this systematic review was to explore the mathematics intervention research for students at risk of mathematics failure by examining intervention characteristics related to treatment fidelity and intensity. Results from 66 math intervention studies conducted from 2004 to 2015 were summarized. The majority of studies monitored treatment fidelity and provided details of some aspects of treatment intensity (i.e., dose, group size). However, interventionists’ characteristics, implementation characteristics, and treatment design were less frequently reviewed. Implications for future research and educational practices are discussed.

Although high levels of intervention implementation are more likely to lead to improved student outcomes, educators struggle to maintain high implementation levels over time. School psychologists m...

In order for interventions to produce the desired outcome, it is necessary that they be implemented as researched and designed. School-based practitioners, however, should not assume that interventions will always be implemented as intended by teachers and other school personnel. The chapter begins by defining intervention integrity, or the degree to which an intervention is implemented as designed. Next, the chapter provides an overview of methods for the assessment of intervention integrity. Critical steps discussed include operationalization of intervention steps, determining relevant dimensions of integrity, selecting an assessment method, and developing a rating scheme. Methods for collection and evaluation of integrity data are discussed, as well as strategies for promoting intervention integrity.

Teachers struggle to maintain high levels of treatment integrity, which are associated with efficient improvements in student outcomes. To address this challenge, school psychologists can provide implementation support, such as prompts or performance feedback, to increase teachers' treatment integrity when it is low. Implementation prompts are an emerging implementation support having been investigated in one previous study, but are feasible and require little time to provide. Performance feedback is an evidence-based practice, but requires more time for school psychologists to coordinate and deliver. The current study sought to compare the emailed delivery of prompts and performance feedback directly. Three elementary school teachers from a diverse setting participated with their students in this experimental multiple baseline single-case design research study. Teachers were trained to implement a classwide group contingency intervention and, when treatment integrity was low, received prompts and then performance feedback. Direct observation of treatment integrity and classwide behavior indicated that performance feedback was slightly more effective at increasing treatment integrity, but implementation prompts were modestly effective, took less time to provide, and were viewed as more acceptable by teachers. Furthermore, student outcomes (academic engagement and disruptive behavior) were relatively stable across the emailed prompts and performance feedback phases, suggesting the supports were similarly effective. Future research might further investigate these findings and continue to build the research base for implementation supports to promote treatment integrity.