Coaching Quality and Teachers' Implementation of the 4Rs Social-Emotional and Literacy Curriculum: Testing the Link between Two Levels of Intervention Fidelity
Author: Downer, Jason
Date: 2013-00-00
Type: Reports - Research
Subjects: Coaching (Performance),Social Development,Emotional Development,Literacy Education,Intervention,Fidelity,Curriculum,At Risk Students,Curriculum Implementation,Grade 3,Grade 4,Grade 5,Reading,Writing (Composition),Interpersonal Relationship,Conflict Resolution,Elementary School Students,Video Technology,Coding,Elementary School Teachers,Prompting,Quasiexperimental Design

Teacher-educators and policy-makers recognize that ongoing training and support for high quality implementation of curricula can be a vital component of systems that ensure the value of education experiences, particularly for students at-risk of school failure (Meisels, 2007; Pew Charitable Trusts, 2007; Pianta, 2005). In particular, there is growing consensus that one-on-one consultation approaches (also referred to as coaching, mentoring, staff development) that provide ongoing support and feedback may be the most direct, effective path to producing high quality implementation of curricula (Ingersoll &amp; Kralik, 2004; Landry et al., 2006; Pianta &amp; Allen, 2009). However, there is as much potential for variability in the quality of coaching as there is in a teacher's fidelity to a curriculum, which raises several questions about how these different levels of intervention fidelity are related to one another. The current study is embedded within the evaluation of an integrated SEL and literacy program in third through fifth grade classrooms called the 4Rs (Reading, Writing, Respect, and Resolution; Morningside Center for Teaching Social Responsibility, 2001). A recent randomized controlled evaluation of 4Rs indicated moderate to large, positive impacts on teacher practices and small, positive impacts on student outcomes (Brown, Jones, LaRusso &amp; Aber, 2010; Jones, Brown &amp; Aber, 2011). Despite the promise of these findings, there was considerable variability during implementation of the 4Rs Program in curriculum delivery, which may have attenuated intervention effects. Therefore, in the current study teachers using the 4Rs curriculum are supported with a standardized, video-based coaching program called MyTeachingPartner (MTP; Pianta et al., 2008). In past trials with a variety of curricula across prek and secondary classrooms, MTP yielded improvements on teacher implementation and teaching practices that were moderate to large (Pianta et al., 2008). As part of this evaluation of 4Rs+MTP, authors monitored the quality with which coaches implement the 2 main components of MTP: (1) on-line written prompts that ask teachers to analyze key interactions from their own videotaped 4Rs lessons, and (2) in-person conferences that deepen teachers analysis of their 4Rs practice and result in actionable improvement plans. In addition, videotaped footage of teachers' implementation of 4Rs are coded by independent observers for fidelity to the curriculum protocol. These data allow researchers to explore the following questions about patterns of variability in these 2 levels of implementation and how they relate to one another: (1) To what extent are the two measures of coaches' quality of implementation (prompt-writing, conferences) related to one another? (2) To what extent is there variability on these two measures within coaches, across their caseload of teachers? (3) To what extent does quality of coaching predict variation in teachers' implementation of the 4Rs curriculum, above and beyond a global measure of teaching quality (CLASS)? Researchers expect to learn how different measures of coaching implementation are associated with one another and to identify elements of coaching that may be particularly challenging to standardize. Implications will be drawn about how best to provide support to coaches in the field to maintain their fidelity to the coaching model and ensure a high quality coaching experience for teachers.