Protocol for a hybrid type 3 effectiveness-implementation trial of a pragmatic individual-level implementation strategy for supporting school-based prevention programming.

BACKGROUND: For approximately one in five children who have social, emotional, and behavioral (SEB) challenges, accessible evidence-based prevention practices (EBPPs) are critical. In the USA, schools are the primary setting for children's SEB service delivery. Still, EBPPs are rarely adopted and implemented by front-line educators (e.g., teachers) with sufficient fidelity to see effects. Given that individual behavior change is ultimately required for successful implementation, focusing on individual-level processes holds promise as a parsimonious approach to enhance impact. Beliefs and Attitudes for Successful Implementation in Schools for Teachers (BASIS-T) is a pragmatic, multifaceted pre-implementation strategy targeting volitional and motivational mechanisms of educators' behavior change to enhance implementation and student SEB outcomes. This study protocol describes a hybrid type 3 effectiveness-implementation trial designed to evaluate the main effects, mediators, and moderators of the BASIS-T implementation strategy as applied to Positive Greetings at the Door, a universal school-based EBPP previously demonstrated to reduce student disruptive behavior and increase academic engagement. METHODS: This project uses a blocked randomized cohort design with an active comparison control (ACC) condition. We will recruit and include approximately 276 teachers from 46 schools randomly assigned to BASIS-T or ACC conditions. Aim 1 will evaluate the main effects of BASIS-T on proximal implementation mechanisms (attitudes, subjective norms, self-efficacy, intentions to implement, and maintenance self-efficacy), implementation outcomes (adoption, reach, fidelity, and sustainment), and child outcomes (SEB, attendance, discipline, achievement). Aim 2 will examine how, for whom, under what conditions, and how efficiently BASIS-T works, specifically by testing whether the effects of BASIS-T on child outcomes are (a) mediated via its putative mechanisms of behavior change, (b) moderated by teacher factors or school contextual factors, and (c) cost-effective. DISCUSSION: This study will provide a rigorous test of BASIS-T-a pragmatic, theory-driven, and generalizable implementation strategy designed to target theoretically-derived motivational mechanisms-to increase the yield of standard EBPP training and support strategies. TRIAL REGISTRATION: ClinicalTrials.gov ID: NCT05989568. Registered on May 30, 2023.

Redefining Individual Growth and Development Indicators: Phonological Awareness.

Learning to read is one of the most important indicators of academic achievement. The development of early literacy skills during the preschool years is associated with improved reading outcomes in later grades. One of these skill areas, phonological awareness, shows particular importance because of its strong link to later reading success. Presented here are two studies that describe the development and revision of four measures of phonological awareness skills: Individual Growth and Development Indicators Sound Blending, Syllable Sameness, Rhyming, and Alliteration 2.0. The authors discuss the measure development process, revision, and utility within an early childhood Response to Intervention framework.