Harmonizing Social, Emotional, and Behavioral Constructs in Prevention Science: Digging into the Weeds of Aligning Disparate Measures.

While integrative data analysis (IDA) presents great opportunity, it also necessitates a myriad of methodological decisions related to harmonizing disparate measures collected across multiple studies. There is a lack of step-by-step methodological guidance for harmonizing disparate measures of latent constructs differently conceptualized or operationalized across studies, such as social, emotional, and behavioral constructs often utilized in prevention science. The current paper addressed this gap by providing methodological guidance and a case illustration focused on harmonizing measures of disparately conceptualized and operationalized constructs. We do so by outlining a five-phased harmonization approach paired with an illustrative example of the approach as applied to harmonization of broadband latent emotional and behavioral health constructs assessed with different measures across studies. This approach builds on and expands upon procedures currently recommended in the IDA literature with parallels to best practices in test development procedures. The illustrative example of our phased approach is drawn from an IDA study of 11 randomized controlled trials of Coping Power (Lochman & Wells, 2004), an evidence-based preventive intervention. We demonstrate the harmonization of two constructs, internalizing and externalizing problems, as harmonized across the teacher-reported scales of the Achenbach System of Empirically Based Assessment (Achenbach, 1991a) and the Behavior Assessment System for Children (Reynolds & Kamphaus, 2004). Finally, we consider the potential strengths and limitations of this phased approach, underscoring areas for future methodological research and conclude with some recommendations.

Teachers Supporting Teachers: A Social Network Perspective on Collegial Stress Support and Emotional Wellbeing Among Elementary and Middle School Educators.

School mental health practitioners and researchers are increasingly concerned about educator job-related stress and its implications for teacher burnout, teaching efficacy, turnover, and student outcomes. Educators' collegial networks in their schools are natural resources for stress support, yet little is known about the extent to which educators seek support from their colleagues in managing their stress and whether these relationships promote their emotional wellbeing. Utilizing peer nomination and self-report data from 370 educators in 17 elementary and middle schools, we found patterns in whom educators nominated as a source of stress support. Specifically, educators more often nominated colleagues who worked in the same role, grade, and/or subject, and those similar in age and who had similar or more experience. Furthermore, men and educators of color more often nominated same-gender and same-race colleagues, respectively, whereas these trends were not observed for women or White educators. However, the prevalence of these characteristics among colleagues nominated as a source of stress support was not often significantly associated with educators' stress and burnout. Rather, educators' level of burnout was positively related to the burnout among those in their stress support networks. In addition, educators' stress and burnout were positively related to the stress and burnout of their colleagues with whom they spent the most time. These findings highlight how educators' perceptions of stress and burnout may be shared within their collegial networks and have implications for a role for colleagues in teacher stress-reduction and wellbeing-focused interventions.

Is it more effective or efficient to coach teachers in pairs or individually? A comparison of teacher and student outcomes and coaching costs.

A growing body of research documents the positive impacts of teacher coaching, but research contrasting the effectiveness of different coaching approaches is limited. This study contrasted paired coaching - delivered to two teachers simultaneously - with traditional coaching for individual in-service teachers. We examined the effects of these two approaches on observations of teachers' classroom management practices and student behavioral outcomes, relative to non-coached conditions, over the course of a single school year and at a 1-year follow-up. We also explored the relative time and cost efficiency of the two approaches. Two hundred fifty-two teachers from 18 elementary and middle schools participated in the randomized controlled trial. Hierarchical linear modeling was used to account for repeated measures nested within teachers and teachers within schools. Combined effects indicated improved global ratings by observers of teacher behavior management (∆ = 0.29) after a multiple comparison adjustment. Paired coaching was less effective than individual coaching at improving some observed student behaviors, although these did not remain significant after multiple comparison adjustments. Neither model demonstrated sustained effects after one year. Although the paired coaching was significantly more efficient for coach time, it represented just a modest overall cost savings per school. Results indicate a need for more research to identify feasible coaching approaches yielding sustainable effects.

Design and methodology for an integrative data analysis of coping power: Direct and indirect effects on adolescent suicidality.

As suicide rates have risen in the last decade, there has been greater emphasis on targeting early risk conditions for suicidality among youth and adolescents as a form of suicide "inoculation". Two particular needs that have been raised in this nascent literature are a) the dearth of examination of early intervention effects on distal suicide risk that target externalizing behaviors and b) the need to harmonize multiple existing intervention datasets for greater precision in modeling intervention effects on low base rate outcomes such as suicidal behaviors. This project, entitled "Integrative Data Analysis of Coping Power (CP): Effects on Adolescent Suicidality", funded by the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), will harmonize and analyze data from 11 randomized controlled trials of CP (total individual-level N = 3183, total school-level N = 189). CP is an empirically-supported, child- and family-focused preventive intervention that focuses on reducing externalizing more broadly among youth who exhibit early aggression, which makes it ideally suited to targeting externalizing pathways to suicidality. The project utilizes three measurement and data analysis frameworks that have emerged across multiple independent disciplines: integrative data analysis (IDA), random treatment effects multilevel modeling (RTE-MLM), and propensity score weighting (PSW). If successful, the project will a) provide initial evidence that CP would have gender-specific indirect effects on suicidality through reductions in externalizing for boys and reductions in internalizing for girls and b) identify optimal conditions under which CP is delivered (e.g., groups, individuals, online) across participants on reductions in suicidality and other key intermediate endpoints.