Why Feeling Valued and Satisfied in Teaching Make a Difference in Deciding How to Foster Better Program Implementation

As more interventions are taken from controlled clinical trials and put in real world settings, a common challenge is determining whether a school is ready to implement the intervention (Domitrovich et al., 2008). Common obstacles are school climate factors such as the perceived need for an intervention, teacher qualification levels, and finances (Durlack, 2008). We examined how general school climate moderated the influence of implementation support conditions on increasing the implementation quality of HealthWise (HW), a substance use and sexual risk prevention intervention in South African high schools in low-income areas. Using a factorial design, 56 schools were assigned to one or more of 3 types of teacher support: enhanced training (ET), support and supervision (SS), and enhanced school environment (ESE). As few teachers attended ET, SS and ESE were used as moderators and ET attendance was used as an outcome.

School climate was measured by the number of students, school safety, school fees, and characteristics of teachers in the school (e.g., age & qualification). Implementation quality of HW (program implementation, teacher buy-in, and receptiveness to SS and ESE support) was rated at the end of 8^th grade by HW staff.

Latent Profile Analysis identified 3 profiles of school climate. Thirty-five percent of schools were characterized by younger teachers with less experience in teaching health and life skills, 60% of schools were characterized by having higher economic resources as a result of school fees and 5% of schools were characterized by a burgeoning student population, being in a less safe area, and having teachers who did not want more training, but were more qualified.

ANCOVAs indicated that SS schools characterized by young/inexperienced teachers were more receptive to the ESE supports (F = 8.68; p < .01) and were more receptive of ET assistance, when offered (F = 4.49; p < .05). Teachers in schools with young/inexperienced teachers attended more ET than teachers in schools with greater resources. SS schools whose latent profile was characterized by having more students, being in less safe areas, and having training resistant teachers with higher qualifications had lower levels of buy-in of the HW program (F = 3.36; p < .05) and were rated marginally significantly worse in overall implementation (F = 3.12; p < .1) than schools not receiving SS in the same latent profile.

Findings suggest schools with predominantly young and unexperienced teachers are receptive to additional supports, while relatively poor, unsafe, and large schools less desiring of training are not. Overall, it is important to consider whole school climate in determining what types of support to provide to enhance implementation quality of an evidence based program.