Coaching Implementation Fidelity When Promoting Teachers’ Detection, Prevention, and Responding to Bullying

Purpose: Given students spend the majority of their time in the classroom, teachers play a critical role in preventing and intervening with bullying; however teachers often struggle to correctly identify bullying and intervene effectively, particularly when they are actively teaching in the classroom. The coaching literature suggest that ongoing, tailored supports are often needed to promote lasting and meaningful teacher behavior changes. The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of an 80 teacher randomized controlled trial of an adapted version of the Classroom Check-Up (CCU) coaching model to address bullying in the classroom. We will present data regarding implementation fidelity for this model, and discuss within the context of other CCU versions.

Method: Focus groups with students and teachers were conducted to assist with the initial conceptualization of the intervention, which adapted the CCU and was integrated with TeachLivE, an innovative and mobile mixed-reality simulator. The coaching process involved a teacher interview, data collection, feedback, goal setting, and three practice opportunities in the simulator. During the 2016-17 school year, 80 teachers were randomized within 5 middle schools and 40 received coaching. Coaches completed tracking logs of the activities conducted with each teacher and the fidelity to the coaching model. Coaches and teachers completed ratings of the coach-teacher alliance. Descriptive statistics were conducted to summarize the dosage and adherence to the model as well as perceptions of working relationship and benefits of the intervention.

Results: On average, the entire process took 8.63 hours for each coach and teacher dyad. This required 3.88 hours of active teacher time and 4.75 hours of additional coach time (e.g., observations and prep). Nearly every component of the interview, feedback, action planning, and simulator were implemented with 100% fidelity; the lowest fidelity was in planning for the simulator during goal setting (i.e., completed fully for 57% of teachers) and for practicing prevention strategies in the simulator (i.e., completed fully with 78% of teachers). Coaches rated high degrees of comfort in the classroom-based coaching and lower comfort in the first simulator (i.e., high comfort for 38% of teachers) that improved during the subsequent two sessions.

Conclusions: The dosage and ratings of alliance for this adaptation of the CCU were nearly identical to those reported in a study merging CCU with TeachLivE that more narrowly-addressed classroom management (see Pas, Johnson, et al., 2016) and slightly longer than an adaptation not including guided practice (see Pas, Larson, et al., 2016). It appears that the focus of the CCU can be expanded and still maintain feasibility.