Implementing the Responsive Classroom Approach: Patterns in Coaching, Context, and Teacher Capacity

Introduction: The positive effects of social and emotional learning (SEL) programs hinge on high fidelity of implementation (FOI; Durlak et al., 2011). However, there is much less clarity about the coaching, context, and teacher capacity needed to attain high FOI. The present study was conducted in the context of a partnership among program developers, practitioners, and researchers in a mid-Atlantic school division. We examine variability in coaching in relation to an SEL intervention, the Responsive Classroom^® (RC) approach. Specifically, we draw from the ecological implementation framework developed by Domitrovich and colleagues (2008) to examine the strategic and relational support that coaches provided to teachers in schools implementing RC with high- and low-fidelity. Further, we consider school context and teacher capacity as factors that relate to coaching.

Methods: Data were collected in the final year of the Responsive Classroom Efficacy Study, a three-year randomized controlled trial that examined the impact of the RC approach on improving classroom quality and student achievement in grades 3-5. The present mixed-methods study employed concurrent data collection and sequential, exploratory data analysis. First, a FOI composite score was calculated based on three data sources for fifth grade teachers in 13 treatments schools. The highest- and lowest-three FOI schools were selected for this sub-study.

Coach summary reports were submitted following training visits to these schools and were coded to reflect potential influences on coaching (pooled kappas > .90). Reports were subsequently coded for styles of coaching, followed by the tallying of code. We then examined school characteristics provided by the school division. Additional descriptive statistics were compiled from teacher reports of individual professional characteristics, as well as opinions of school contexts and the RC implementation process.

 

Results: Indications of strategic and relational styles of coaching emerged during the coding of coach summary reports. There was not a systemic association between the use of relational or strategic support in high- versus low-FOI schools. However, we found other associations between the use of coaching styles and school context. A subsequent examination of teacher survey data also indicated relationships between teacher capacity and coaching styles.

 

Discussion: Results of the present study suggest that associations between types of coaching styles and school context, as well as coaching styles and teacher capacity, warrant further investigation. Future collaboration between researchers, program developers, and program coaches has the potential to inform ways to adapt coaching support based on site-specific individual, group, and contextual characteristics.