Teacher perspectives on intervention sustainability: implications for school leadership

ABSTRACT

Sustainable use of academic classroom interventions is a cause for concern in the field of special education. This study examined factors that encouraged and/or deterred sustainable use of classroom interventions. Furthermore, data were collected on factors that assist teachers to implement new interventions with high perceived fidelity. A total of 174 special education teachers from two school districts completed a survey to provide feedback on interventions they had been trained on in the last two academic years. Results for both districts had several similarities. A majority of teachers sustained interventions that they perceived improved student academic outcomes and were easy to implement. Teachers identified lack of planning time followed by the need for regular training as the most important factors contributing to their perceived implementation fidelity. However, a majority of interventions teachers provided feedback on were not evidence-based practices.

KEYWORDS:

• Evidence-based practice
• sustainability
• classroom intervention
• professional development
• research-to-practice gap
• teacher perspectives

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Erratum

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

Johny Daniel http://orcid.org/0000-0002-5057-9933

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by the Peabody College at Vanderbilt University for graduate students.