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CATEGORY/THEME: Developing and Testing of Interventions
ABSTRACT BODY:
Introduction: Evidence-based programs designed to improve the behavioral outcomes of at risk children in early childhood settings are not easy to implement. Various teacher and classroom factors are hypothesized to influence the delivery of evidence-based programs; one important factor that may influence delivery, defined as treatment adherence and teacher competence (Sanetti & Kratochwill, 2009; McLeod et al., 2013), is teacher education level (Williford et al., 2015). This poster examines whether teachers’ education level is associated with teacher adherence and competence of a Tier 2 intervention, BEST in CLASS, delivered in early childhood classrooms.
Methods: Data were collected on 232 children with chronic problem behavior and 92 teachers who participated in a 4-year multisite randomized controlled trial of BEST in CLASS. Teachers reported their highest education level at pre-treatment, which ranged from a High School Diploma to a Doctoral degree. The BEST in CLASS Adherence and Competence Scale (BiCACS) was used to assess teacher delivery of core BEST in CLASS components on two dimensions: Adherence and Competence. Each dimension is rated on a 7-point Likert-type scale. The BiCACS has demonstrated promising score reliability and validity (Sutherland et al., 2014). Treatment integrity data were collected at six time points during the 16-week implementation of BEST in CLASS by trained observers. Inter-rater reliability of the Adherence and Competence scale was 0.74 and 0.54, respectively. Analyses were conducted using latent growth curve modeling in Mplus 7.4.
Results: Teachers with Master’s degrees or above had higher Adherence, (d = 1.246) at the beginning of the intervention than teachers with associates or high school degrees. The regression coefficients for Education variables were significant and positive indicating that teachers with Associates or High School degrees had lower competence, (d= .776) at the beginning of the intervention than teachers with Bachelor degrees or teachers with Master’s degrees or higher. The regression coefficient for the status latent variable was significant and negative, indicating that teachers exhibiting lower competence at the beginning of the intervention tended to exhibit faster growth in competence (d = -0.728).
Conclusion: Teachers with less education may deliver evidence-based programs with lower treatment adherence and competence. Thus, when implementing evidence-based programs in early childhood settings teacher education level may need to be taken into consideration.