Teacher Acceptance of Interventions Implemented for Students with Learning Disabilities.

Ninety teachers of students with learning disabilities were asked their opinions on one of three research-based interventions for learning disabilities: Cooperative Learning, Story Retelling and School-Home Notes (Rathvon, 1999). The purpose of the study was to measure teacher acceptance ratings of these interventions and whether teacher demographic information affected acceptance. Results indicated that teachers were more accepting of Story Retelling and Cooperative Learning interventions than School-Home Notes intervention. Analysis of the demographic variables revealed a moderate, statistically significant negative correlation between years working and acceptance of School-Home Notes. Limitations of the study and future directions for research are discussed. Teacher Acceptance 3 Teacher Acceptance of Interventions Implemented for Students with Learning Disabilities One of the major roles of a school psychologist is to help design quality interventions for teachers to use in a classroom (Upah & Tilly, 2002). A major factor that affects an intervention’s success is teacher acceptance. Rathvon (1999) described acceptability as an important factor in whether a teacher will use an intervention. It is critical for school psychologists, who develop interventions, to understand how much a teacher believes in an intervention. The degree of the teacher’s belief in an intervention’s success is formed when it is consistent with the consultee’s theoretical and educational beliefs, if the intervention is efficient, and if the teacher believes it is worth his or her time and effort to implement. Rathvon has argued that if the teacher is not convinced the time to implement an intervention is worthwhile, he or she may not accept the intervention. If the school psychologist can understand the teacher’s theoretical beliefs and find interventions that match these beliefs, the intervention has a better chance of being successful. Factors that Impact Teacher Acceptance Teachers determine an intervention’s effectiveness based on personal experience, advice given by other teachers, or having observed the intervention in a classroom. These experiences support teachers’ choices of which interventions will be effective for them. Without these experiences, a teacher may be less inclined to use an intervention. As a school psychologist, it is important to ask which interventions the teacher has tried with other students in previous situations. Teacher Acceptance 4 There are many reasons why a teacher may believe in an intervention and find it acceptable. Interventions are more likely to be accepted when described in a pragmatic and logical way. Background knowledge on behaviors, experience with the interventions, and understanding the amount of involvement required all impact acceptability of interventions (Elliot, 1988). Clearly communicating the reasons why an intervention would be effective also improves the acceptance of an intervention to teachers. Positive intervention treatments are more acceptable to teachers than negative ones. Fairbanks and Stinnett (1997) examined teachers’, school psychologists’, and school social workers’ ratings of treatment acceptability. All three groups are involved in referring, implementing and evaluating behavioral interventions for students in school settings. The Fairbanks and Stinnett study included a vignette describing a third grade boy who was labeled one of three different ways: Learning Disability (LD), Behavioral Disordered (BD), and Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD). After reading the vignette, one of two different behavioral intervention techniques was described. The positive intervention consisted of verbal praise and a token economy given to increase the frequency of appropriate behaviors. The negative intervention included a time out from the reinforcement program and verbal praise (Fairbanks and Stinnett, 1997). The results of the Fairbanks and Stinnett study suggest that positive interventions rated more acceptable than negative based interventions. There were no significant variances in acceptance rates among teachers, school psychologists and school social workers. There was, however, significant variance on the views of the negative interventions. Teachers’ acceptability ratings were significantly higher than ratings of both school psychologists and school social workers on both positive and negative Teacher Acceptance 5 interventions. School psychologists’ acceptability ratings were higher than ratings of school social workers (Fairbanks and Stinnett, 1997). The study showed people in the education field responsible for choosing interventions were sensitive to using intervention techniques that would not adversely affect the child. It was also found that educators strive to help a child get the most out of education services without using stressful or invasive techniques. Besides these assumptions, the authors found the labels given to the student did not affect or bias the choice of intervention. It has also been suggested that there will be more acceptance of an intervention when it is viewed as fair, reasonable, non-intrusive and within an acceptable range for use (Stinnett, Crawford, Gillespie, Cruce & Langford, 2001). These authors found that treatment acceptability was affected by high school location. Participants from rural high schools judged treatments more acceptable than participants from urban high schools. The authors concluded this may have occurred because participants who graduated from urban high schools had more opportunities and experiences with diverse people and behavior functioning range. Selection of Interventions The interventions chosen for this current study were selected because they have been deemed effective in helping children who need assistance in the classroom (Rathvon, 1999). The purpose of the study was to determine which of the three interventions is most accepted by teachers. The first intervention chosen, School-Home Notes, aims to keep the communication open with notes between school and home on how the student is doing in school. This intervention requires a small allotment of time to implement, but it can improve school-home collaboration in monitoring students’ Teacher Acceptance 6 homework (Rathvon). The next intervention selected was Story Retelling. This intervention which requires students to read a story, pick out the important ideas, complete an outline of the story and then retell the story to a peer. Research has found story retelling results in greater ability to recall information from text at a later date for both literal and inferential questions. Story Retelling improves comprehension while exercising the student’s verbal rehearsal ability (Rathvon). In a study by Gambrell, Pfeiffer and Wilson (2001), story recall was found to be favorable and significant in the ability of the retelling treatment group to answer both immediate and delayed information. The third intervention selected was Cooperative Learning. Cooperative Learning consists of group members playing an active role in working together for the same shared goal. Each member is relied upon to be responsible, positively interdependent, accountable, and a communicative and reflective member of the group. Research on Cooperative Learning has shown it to be effective in improving learning for students with learning disabilities (Johnson & Johnson, 1999). Research Questions Teacher acceptance is needed for an intervention to work. It is important to continue to investigate teachers’ opinions of interventions and understand why a teacher would choose to accept an intervention. Reasons for teacher acceptance were explored in this study in order to further understand which interventions were most accepted by teachers for use with students with learning disabilities. This study addressed the following research questions: Teacher Acceptance 7 a) Which of the following intervention approaches will teachers of students with disabilities view as most acceptable: Story Retelling, Cooperative Learning and School-Home Notes? b) Do the number of years of educational experience, gender or other demographic characteristics affect acceptance rates of intervention? It was hypothesized that the study would help educators understand what makes an intervention acceptable. Investigating teacher acceptance of interventions also helps researchers and school psychologists understand which interventions should continue to be recommended to teachers in the future. Method Participants For the study, 300 questionnaires were sent to randomly selected teachers of students with disabilities throughout the state of Wisconsin. One hundred questionnaires were returned which resulted in a 33% return rate. Of the returned questionnaires, eighty-four percent of the questionnaires were completed by females, 9 % males and 7% unknown (declined to comment). The respondent’s ethnicity consisted of 90% Caucasian, 1% African-American, 1% Asian-American and 8% unknown (declined to comment). Location of employment for the participants included: rural area (49%), suburban area (25%), urban area (17%) and 9% unknown (declined to comment). The participants years of teaching experience included: ‘0 to 3’ (3%), ‘4 to7’ (15%), ‘8 to 11’ (17%), ‘12 to 15’ (8%), ‘16 to 19’ (9%), ‘20 or more’ years (42%) and 6% unknown (declined to