Designing and Applying Project Fidelity Assessment for a Teacher Implemented Middle School Instructional Improvement Pilot Intervention

This article argues that intervention pilot test evaluations have focused insufficient attention on the measurement of project fidelity and the subsequent use of fidelity results for (a) interpreting variations in project outcomes and (b) understanding the rationale for teachers' deviations fro...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inCanadian journal of program evaluation Vol. 24; no. 1; pp. 133 - 156
Main Authors Skolits, Gary J, Richards, Jennifer
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Ottawa Canadian Evaluation Society 01.03.2009
Subjects
Academic Achievement
Educational Improvement
Educational Research
Educational Researchers
Effect Size
Evaluation
Evaluation Methods
Grade 7
Instructional Improvement
Intervention
Language Arts
Mathematics Instruction
Measurement
Middle Schools
Outcomes of Education
Pedagogical Content Knowledge
Pilot Projects
Pretests Posttests
Professional Development
Project evaluation
Protocol
Reliability
Sciences
Social Studies
Studies
Teachers
Validity
United States > US
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Summary:This article argues that intervention pilot test evaluations have focused insufficient attention on the measurement of project fidelity and the subsequent use of fidelity results for (a) interpreting variations in project outcomes and (b) understanding the rationale for teachers' deviations from implementation protocols. The authors report on the establishment and application of an evaluation methodology for measuring and analyzing implementation fidelity for a middle school instructional improvement pilot project. The authors found that the highest implementation fidelity scores were not correlated with the most desirable project outcomes, as lower fidelity scores--in the 70-79% range--produced the most favourable gains on pre-post student outcomes. Moreover, application of the fidelity evaluation methodology provided insight into teacher deviation from implementation protocols; such deviation from the implementation protocols typically reflected meaningful professional classroom judgements. (Contains 4 tables.)
ISSN:0834-1516
1496-7308
DOI:10.3138/cjpe.024.005