The Reliability And User‐Feasibility Of Materials And Procedures For Monitoring The Implementation Integrity Of A Reading Intervention
Published online on March 04, 2014
Abstract
Within the realm of school‐based interventions, implementation integrity is important for practical, legal, and ethical purposes. Unfortunately, evidence suggests that proper monitoring of implementation integrity is often absent from both research and practice. School psychology practitioners and researchers have reported that a major barrier to monitoring integrity is a lack of procedural guidance, and currently there is little research that has examined the psychometric reliability of monitoring procedures and materials. Therefore, the purpose of this two‐part study was to examine (a) the extent to which relatively novice educators could self‐learn and successfully use an implementation integrity monitoring system designed to evaluate a structured reading intervention program, and (b) the inter‐observer reliability of two individuals using the system to evaluate the same interventionist. Overall findings suggested that it is feasible for most individuals to learn the implementation integrity monitoring system (and associated materials) and the system can be used reliably across multiple observers. Implications of these findings are discussed, including how the procedures and materials might be adapted for other intervention programs to assist researchers and practitioners with monitoring implementation integrity.