Bridging the research to practice gap : a developmental evaluation of response to intervention

D.Ed. University of Hawaii at Manoa 2014.Includes bibliographical references.Response to Intervention (RTI) is a research-based model of service delivery that incorporates best practices for data based decision making, intervention delivery, and progress monitoring in a multi-tier system of supports. Response to Intervention embodies proactive approaches to addressing students' needs including early intervention strategies that are known to prevent and mitigate the potential risk of academic failure. The critical link between RTI's promising outcomes and putting RTI into practice is effective implementation. In the research literature, very little attention has been paid to how schools and practitioners adapt best practice models, like RTI, to their local contexts. Developmental evaluation is an emerging approach that engages stakeholders in reality testing about what is working and what is not working with implementation under the conditions of complexity. In this study, a developmental evaluation was paired with an action research approach to capture the stories of five first grade teachers as they implemented RTI models in their classrooms. Interviews were conducted with three of the teachers who participated in the action research in order to gather a more detailed account of their experience with implementation. The action research and interviews answered the following questions: 1) How do first grade teachers develop classroom intervention models as part of the response to intervention implementation plan? 2) What do teachers perceive as working and not working with implementation of RTI best practices? The teachers were provided coaching on how to implement these procedures in the professional learning community (PLC) setting. By the end of the our four-month long action research phase, the teachers in this study were able to successfully implement grouping procedures for intervention and procedures for progress monitoring. The teachers also used the progress data generated to make timely instructional decisions--a critical component of RTI that was never successfully developed during prior implementation attempts. There was a consensus among the teachers interviewed that the time provided in PLC to collaborate was a critical factor in supporting their ability to implement the RTI components successfully