Examining the functioning of implementation support teams in social-emotional learning and positive culture and climate program implementation

An evolving understanding of how children learn has helped to highlight the need for school- wide social-emotional learning (SEL) and related programs to provide students with the skills needed to achieve social and academic success. Research suggests that structural supports, such as an implementation support team, should be established to facilitate and monitor the implementation of such programs. Despite this clear need for effective implementation supports, few committees have the background and resources needed to monitor and improve their own functioning and effectiveness. The purpose of this study was to examine the properties and utility of a tool called the School Culture and Climate Committee Functioning Assessment (SCCCFA). This assessment was designed to help school implementation support teams use a guiding framework of best practices in effective team functioning to reflect on, monitor, and improve their own practices. The SCCCFA was developed and piloted across 10 elementary and middle schools in an urban public school district in New Jersey over one school year. Properties of the assessment were explored, such as the internal consistency of subscales and the extent to which they were related. Additionally, respondent perceptions of the assessment structure and feasibility of completion were used to inform modifications to the tool. Aggregate responses to the SCCCFA across multiple time points were analyzed to explore possible correlations between the following constructs; committee leadership and committee functioning, active participation on committees and perceived change, perceived functioning and time, and possible correlations between perceptions of committee effectiveness and overall implementation effectiveness identified by external indicators. Cronbach’s alpha of each subscale, correlations between subscales, and factor analyses of items in the SCCCFA were promising. Positive change over time and correlations between perceptions of functioning and active participation on committees were not observed. A discriminant function analyses yielded potential profile indicators of effective committee functioning connected to higher levels of positive SEL program implementation. The discussion considers a comparison of the results with previous literature, future research directions, alternate hypotheses, and implications for the practice of school psychology.Psy.D.Includes bibliographical referencesby Brian Eicher