Teacher Acceptability of Treatment Plan Implementation Monitoring and Feedback Methods

Abstract

Treatment plan implementation (TPI) monitoring and feedback methods have increased TPI levels in single subject designs (e.g., DiGennaro, Martens, & McIntyre, 2005) and a randomized field trial (e.g., Noell, Witt, Slider, Connell, Gatti, et al., 2005). However, when procedures like these are innovative and require significant changes in regular practices, the level of teacher satisfaction is an important consideration (Eckert & Hintze, 2000), and the extent to which teachers view various monitoring and feedback methods as acceptable is unknown. The purposes of this research were to examine teachers’ acceptability ratings of specific TPI monitoring and feedback methods, differences in acceptability ratings between teachers with certain characteristics, and other TPI support methods that teachers identify. In this study, teachers completed a survey that assesses acceptability of specific monitoring and feedback methods, gathers information on various teacher characteristics, and provides teachers with an opportunity to write about other potential methods of TPI support. Results from this study suggested that there are significant differences between acceptability ratings regarding the personnel involved, frequency, communication format, and procedures of TPI monitoring and feedback methods. There was also a significant effect of primary teaching assignment on acceptability of TPI monitoring methods. Finally, teachers identified a variety of other potentially helpful TPI support methods.