Understanding Teachers' Concerns about Implementing Response to Intervention (RTI): Practical Implications for Educational Leaders.

The Concerns-Based Adoption Model (Hall & Hord, 2006) is one tool educational leaders can use to understand the process of change and teachers’ stage-related concerns when implementing innovations. This paper presents select findings from a comparative case study of two urban elementary schools in which changes in teachers’ reports of their level of concern regarding implementation of response to intervention were examined over time. The Stages of Concern Questionnaire (George, Hall, & Stiegelbauer, 2008) was administered to study participants twice: at the beginning and at the end of the school year. Running head: RESPONSE TO INTERVENTION 3 Background and Rationale Public policies that aim to improve the quality of education in our schools often bring change and the need to implement innovations not only at the organizational level but also at the individual teacher level. Observers of the change process (Fullan, 1985; Hall & Hord, 2006; Hord, Rutherford, Huling, & Hall, 2006) have long contended that educational leaders must understand that the adoption and successful implementation of any innovation begins at the individual level. The response to intervention (RTI) provision of the Individual with Disabilities Education Improvement Act (IDEA; 2004) is such a policy and innovation. The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB; 2002) codified the importance of using scientifically-based research as the foundation for education programs and for classroom instruction so that all children and youth might achieve academically. It underlined a national sense of urgency to change the status quo in education and ensure that classroom teachers use instructional practices and strategies that research has proven to be effective in meeting the needs of the country’s diverse student population. The reauthorization of IDEA (2004) incorporated the use of scientifically research-based interventions (SRBI) and brought RTI to the forefront as an alternative to the traditional approach of identifying students with learning disabilities. In addition to using aptitude-achievement discrepancy formulas, states and school districts may now use methods that determine whether a child responds to SRBI (i.e., responds to intervention) as part of the evaluation procedure. RTI is a multi-tiered assessment and intervention process that brings together the resources of general and special education to afford SRBI to all students, while incorporating prevention measures for students who might otherwise require increasingly more intensive interventions. Although there is no single best RTI model, the practice ordinarily involves Running head: RESPONSE TO INTERVENTION 4 teachers’ providing students with high quality instruction or interventions (i.e., scientific, research-based) matched to students’ needs. Teachers monitor students’ learning rates over time and levels of performance to make important decisions about instruction (Griffiths, Parson, Burns, VanDerHeyden, & Tilly, 2007). No matter the RTI model adopted, individual teachers, notably general educators, have primary responsibility for intervening in tiers one and two. To do so with success, teachers must embrace RTI, examine whether they are using research-based practices, and likely modify their teaching. The need to change current thinking and practice, as is necessary in implementing RTI, will likely elicit concerns, anxiety, and uncertainty. To support and promote fidelity of implementation of RTI, educational leaders would do well to assess and examine teachers’ concerns to identify appropriate actions or interventions to assist them. Many authors have provided guidance concerning how educational leaders should support teachers when implementing change (Fullan, 2008; Hall & Hord, 2006; Wagner et al., 2006). Yet, there seems to be little, if any research, specifically examining teachers’ concerns about implementing RTI. In this paper, we present select findings from two urban elementary schools in which changes in teachers’ reports of their level of concern regarding implementation of RTI in their classrooms were examined. The data were collected as part of a larger study that aimed to understand the relationship between teachers’ reports of their level of concern and their reports of the schools as professional learning communities. Teachers in each school completed the Stages of Concern Questionnaire (SoC-Q; George, Hall, & Stiegelbauer, 2008) twice, early fall 2008 and late spring 2009. Specifically, we will present and discuss the results of the Soc-Q and conclude with implications for education leaders. Running head: RESPONSE TO INTERVENTION 5 Theoretical Framework The theoretical framework guiding this aspect of the larger investigation was Hall and Hord’s (2006) Concerns-Based Adoption Model (CBAM). The CBAM is a practical, evidencebased (Anderson, 1997) model focused on describing, measuring, and explaining the process of change experienced by both individuals and groups of educators attempting to implement an innovation. The model, as described by Hord et al. (2006), places particular emphasis on the diverse and unique meanings that individuals assign to change and acknowledges that implementing any innovation is a highly personal experience. At the same time, it is understood generally that most individuals go through predictable stages, each of which is characterized by questions and concerns about the innovation as it unfolds. An innovation is something that is new to the individual and can comprise beliefs, understandings, behaviors, materials, instructional strategies, a curriculum, or a program. Concerns, according to Hall and Hord (2006), are not necessarily fears, anxieties, or worries, but rather “the composite representation of the feelings, preoccupation, thought, and consideration given to a particular issue or task” (p. 138). The CBAM (Hall & Hord 2006) encompasses several elements that serve to interact dynamically as change unfolds. They are the external environment (e.g., federal, state, and local policies), the culture of the organization, the resource system, the change facilitator, the consistent use of probes (i.e., ongoing diagnosis), and the systematic implementation of tailored interventions. The model also includes three diagnostic dimensions: (a) Stages of Concern (SoC), Levels of Use (LoU), and Innovation Configurations (IC). SoC comprises seven developmental stages of concern that cluster into three areas, self, task, and impact (Hord et al. 2006). LoU covers six characterizations of distinctly different observable, patterns of individual Running head: RESPONSE TO INTERVENTION 6 behavior related to using the innovation. Finally, IC, or IC Maps depict a continuum of ways in which individuals might operationalize the components and dimensions of an innovation. The change facilitator is the individual who has responsibility for overseeing the innovation, building a supportive context, and helping individuals (Hall & Hord, 2006). While this is quite often the principal, Hall and Hord (2006) suggest that the “optimal arrangement for an organization is to have a leadership team” (p. 269). In the CBAM, the team would use both informal and formal tools to gather diagnostic information about how they might use resources and intervene to support individuals as they implement the innovation. More specifically, diagnosis would include: administering the SoC Questionnaire (George et al., 2008) to understand individual concerns related to the change process, developing LoU (Hall, Dirksen, & George, 2008) profiles to determine what individuals or groups are doing related to the innovation, and constructing and using IC maps to document and assess fidelity of implementation (Hord, Stiegelbauer, Hall, & George, 2008). The focus of this paper is urban elementary school teachers’ concerns about scaling-up RTI and the SoC dimension of the CBAM (Hall & Hord, 2006) served to define the variables. Table 1 depicts the stages and typical expressions of concern related to an innovation. Running head: RESPONSE TO INTERVENTION 7