Digital Dissemination of Behavior-Specific Praise Training and Self-Monitoring

Introduction

Closing the research-to-practice gap in early education requires the dissemination of evidence-based practices (EBPs), such as behavior specific praise (BSP), to all centers, independent of funding or location. Improving teacher’s use of BSP requires professional development (PD) that includes performance feedback. Feedback is commonly provided by an expert, limiting its availability for rural or poorly-funded centers. Self-monitoring may serve as an inexpensive widely available alternative to feedback from experts. This study evaluated a digital, easier-to-disseminate PD for improving teacher’s BSP using self-monitoring.

Methods

A PD package was developed by the author and Emailed to the director of a university nursery school in Appalachia. The package included a brief digital presentation instructing participants how and why to use BSP and self-monitoring, a director’s handbook describing how early educators could use the instructional materials, a workbook for use during the digital presentation, and data collection sheets for participants to track their BSP use. Hand-held golf counters were delivered to the director in person, though future training materials will include instructions on how to obtain hand-held counters. Data on participants’ use of BSP were collected through direct observation during teacher-led instruction of 4- and 5-year-old children. Effectiveness of the PD package was evaluated via a quasi-experimental pre-post design. After one week of baseline observations were collected by two trained observers (total IOA = 95%), the director instructed 13 participants (mean age = 21.63, 100% female) to use the PD package and use hand-held golf counters to self-monitor their use of BSP over two weeks. No instruction was provided by the researcher other than to inform the director that enough baseline data had been collected and that they may start to use the PD package. Participants’ satisfaction with the PD package was collected at the end of the three-week study via an online survey using a Likert-Scale format (1 = Strongly Disagree, to 5 = Strongly Agree).

Results

Hierarchical linear modelling was used to account for nesting in the data caused by repeated observations of participants and revealed a statistically significant 380% increase in participants’ average use of BSP from pre- to post-intervention (from 0.56 to 2.16 BSPs per 5-minute observation). On average, participants agreed and strongly agreed that the intervention was easy to use (M=3.89), worth the effort (M=4.22), and worth recommending to other teachers (M=4.61).

Discussion

The current study examined if a digital PD package could be used to improve pre-service preschool teachers’ use of BSP through self-monitoring. This intervention required no instructional interactions between an expert and the nursery school director, nor pre-service teachers, making it potentially accessible and used by anyone with an internet connection. This treatment package may serve as a dissemination model for other EBPs (e.g., rule setting, opportunities to respond, planned ignoring, etc.) for early educators in a variety of locations and independent of funding.