A Mixed Methods Examination of Decision-Making During Program Exploration and Implementation in Schools.

Schools are a critical setting to promote healthy youth development through the provision of evidence-based programs (EBPs), yet preventive EBPs in schools are underutilized. The Exploration, Preparation, Implementation, Sustainment (EPIS) framework highlights numerous factors that may influence program adoption during the Exploration phase and progress monitoring during the Implementation phase. However, no research has systematically and simultaneously identified the factors that influence school administrators' decision-making during these important processes. We conducted semi-structured interviews with 24 school administrators in the Midwestern region of the U.S. to understand how they weigh various considerations that inform their adoption and progress monitoring of prevention programs. Results indicated that school administrators consider five separate factors during the adoption decision, prioritized in the following order: need for the program, school community buy-in, contextual fit, resources, and program characteristics (including the evidence-base). Further, administrators consider five indicators to monitor program performance, prioritized as follows: intervention fidelity, quantitative and qualitative data that determine if the identified need was met, school community buy-in, resource consumption, and program characteristics. Implications for prevention scientists and suggestions for future research are discussed.

What interventions are cost-effective? A systematic review of cost-effectiveness analyses of school-based programs from 2000 to 2020.

The extent to which evidence-based practices (EBPs) are considered cost-effective influences educators' adoption decisions. However, what it means to be cost-effective and how to interpret cost-effectiveness ratios may be unclear. This systematic review of cost-effectiveness analyses of EBPs in schools illuminates the many sources of variability in published estimates. Studies were limited to peer-reviewed, school-based studies conducted in the United States between 2000 and 2020. Seven studies examining eight programs were identified and then coded for program descriptions, outcomes, research designs, and cost-effectiveness methodology. Secondary analyses illustrated how published estimates can be adjusted to reduce methodological variability and increase the utility of comparisons. The small number of studies highlights the need for research to evaluate the cost-effectiveness of more EBPs. Implications for research and practice are discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Sticking with Programs That Do Not Work: The Role of Escalation of Commitment in Schools.

Schools are the most common site to implement evidence-based prevention programs and practices (EBPs) to improve behavioral and mental health outcomes among children and adolescents. Research has highlighted the critical role of school administrators in the adoption, implementation, and evaluation of such EBPs, focusing on the factors they should consider during the adoption decision and the behaviors needed for successful implementation. However, scholars have only recently begun to focus on the de-adoption or de-implementation of low-value programs and practices to make room for evidence-based alternatives. This study introduces escalation of commitment as a theoretical framework for understanding why school administrators may stick with ineffective programs and practices. Escalation of commitment is a robust decision-making bias in which people feel compelled to continue with a course of action even when performance indicators suggest it is not going well. Using grounded theory methodology, we conducted semi-structured interviews with 24 building- and district-level school administrators in the Midwestern United States. Results suggested that escalation of commitment occurs when administrators attribute the underlying causes of poor program performance not to the program itself but instead to issues related to implementation, leadership, or the limitations of the performance indicators themselves. We also identified a variety of psychological, organizational, and external determinants that accentuate administrators' continuance of ineffective prevention programs. Based on our findings, we highlight several contributions to theory and practice.

Deliberate practice of consultation communication skills: A randomized controlled trial.

Consultation is a key competency area for school psychologists, though much is unknown about how school psychologists develop the competency to consult. Deliberate practice (DP) is a promising approach to enhance use of communication skills, thereby supporting consultation competence. DP training included multiple opportunities for video-recorded consultation practice in response to a consultee's request for assistance, self-reflection on skill application, and corrective supervisory feedback. In this randomized controlled trial, 109 school psychology graduate students across 45 training programs received either consultation training as usual delivered through their first consultation course (control group; n = 61) or a supplemental DP training intervention in addition to their first consultation course (treatment group; n = 48). Students who completed the DP training significantly increased their use of communication skills during a simulated practice opportunity, while the control group participants did not. Students in the DP condition also reported significantly greater self-efficacy than students in the control group, although students in both groups reported significantly greater self-efficacy over time. DP participants also reported high levels of training satisfaction. Implications of these findings for the design and delivery of consultation training and supervision are discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Language used in school psychological evaluation reports as predictors of SLD identification within a response to intervention model.

Despite decades of research, much is still unknown regarding how specific learning disability (SLD) identification decisions are made, particularly how language related to sociodemographic and psychosocial factors may impact decision-making. This study employed the Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC) method to examine the language used in school psychological reports to better understand how sociodemographic (i.e., race, socioeconomic background, and gender) and psychosocial factors (e.g., positive and negative emotion, student effort, and student social processes) related to SLD identification within a Response to Intervention (RtI) identification method. The reports of students identified as SLD contained significantly more achievement-related language (e.g., hardworking, motivated, exerting effort) compared to students who were not identified as SLD, and achievement-related language was associated with SLD identification above and beyond RtI evaluation data (i.e., academic achievement and slope). Implications for research and practice are discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

An examination of the relationships between specific learning disabilities identification and growth rate, achievement, cognitive ability, and student demographics.

Students with specific learning disabilities (SLDs) represent a large proportion of those receiving special education services in U.S. schools, but the relationship between student-level variables and SLD identification is still not well understood. The purpose of this study was to examine the extent to which data collected as part of a comprehensive psychoeducational evaluation were associated with SLD identification status. Logistic regression analyses were used to examine how response to intervention (RtI) slope (i.e., growth rate), academic achievement, global cognitive ability, and demographic variables (i.e., race/ethnicity, gender, and free/reduced-price lunch [FRL] status) were related to SLD identification. Academic achievement (B = -0.13, OR = 0.88), race/ethnicity (B = -1.35, OR = 0.26; 0 = white student, 1 = student of color), and FRL (B = 0.94, OR = 2.57) were related to SLD status, but global cognitive ability and RtI slope were not, even though the RtI method was reported to be used during the special education decision-making process. Implications for practice, particularly related to the use of RtI, are discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

A cost-effectiveness analysis of classwide math intervention.

Given limited resources, schools are encouraged to consider not only what works, but also at what cost. Cost-effectiveness analysis offers a formal methodology to conceptualize and calculate the ratio of the costs to implement an intervention to its effects (i.e., incremental cost-effectiveness ratios). This study used the ingredients method to analyze secondary data from a randomized controlled trial (N = 537 fourth- and fifth-grade students) to calculate the cost-effectiveness of a classwide math intervention, and provides an overview of cost-effectiveness analysis for readers unfamiliar with the formal methodology. For fourth-graders, the incremental cost-effectiveness ratio was $169.07, indicating it cost $169.07 per student for a 1 standard deviation increase in scaled scores on the state assessment. For fifth-graders, there was no statistically significant effect on the state assessment, but there were improvements in curriculum-based measurement (CBM) scores with incremental cost-effectiveness ratios ranging from $65.08 to $469.12, depending on the type of CBM probe and implementation context. Additionally, using number-needed-to-treat (i.e., the number of participants who must be provided with the intervention to prevent one failure on the state assessment), the cost was $126.90 to prevent failure on the state assessment for one fourth-grade student receiving special education services or for one student who scored below the 25th percentile on the prior year's state assessment. Implications and directions for future research are discussed.

A Cost Analysis of Traditional Professional Development and Coaching Structures in Schools.

Current achievement data indicate a public health concern, whereby the majority of students are not proficient in reading or math. Teacher professional development is frequently the preventive mechanism schools utilize to improve instruction, student achievement, and subsequent long-term economic and health-related outcomes. This study used the ingredients method to examine the costs associated with two common structures of professional development: traditional workshops and coaching. Results suggested that the cost per educator per contact hour ranged from $138.29 to $158.45 for workshops and was $169.43 for coaching, in 2017-2018 US dollars. The distribution of costs indicated that local districts incurred the majority of the costs for traditional workshops (i.e., range of 74.76% to 81.03%), whereas regional providers incurred the majority of the costs for coaching (i.e., 58.75%). Marginal costs, or the costs for one additional participant at one traditional workshop, ranged from $663.64 to $1132.78 and were $441.32 for coaching an additional peer teacher within one school building. Marginal costs increased to $2060.21 when coaching an additional peer teacher in an additional building. Implications for practice and suggestions for future research are discussed.

Performance feedback during writing instruction: A cost-effectiveness analysis.

Students in K-12 settings experience poor writing outcomes, with less than 30% of students writing at the proficient level. Coupled with the pressure to improve academic outcomes with limited resources, schools are in dire need of efficient, universally provided instructional activities that promote writing skills. Performance feedback on writing fluency was designed to be a brief, low-resource universally provided instructional activity to facilitate writing development and has demonstrated moderate to large effects on formative writing measures. The current study was conducted to directly evaluate the extent to which performance feedback on writing fluency is cost-effective. This study uses the ingredients method to estimate the costs of providing performance feedback on writing fluency and calculates incremental cost-effectiveness ratios based on secondary data from a randomized controlled trial. Results suggest that performance feedback is more cost-effective than comprehensive systems reform initiatives and comparable to other universally provided interventions, and therefore should be considered a cost-effective approach to improve writing fluency for all students. Results provide school psychologists with concrete examples of how to support prevention and intervention activities aimed to improve student writing outcomes. Limitations and suggestions for future research are also discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Coding communication in consultation: Accurate, reliable, and efficient analysis.

Given the importance of consultation in school psychology practice, more research is needed to examine the types of interpersonal communication through which consultation is effective. This study revisited Erchul and Schulte (1990), which investigated the amount of transcription and coding of consultation sessions required for reliable and accurate estimates of particular consultation communication variables. Using Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count, this study examined tone, interrogatives, clout, affect, and use of the 1st-person plural pronoun within the instructional consultation, assessment, and teaming process. Results partially aligned with Erchul and Schulte in that tone, interrogatives, and clout could be reliably and accurately assessed by analyzing 1 complete consultation session or segments of 2 sessions. Affect and pronoun use could not be reliably and accurately measured by sampling segments of consultation sessions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).