Multi-Tiered Systems of Support: A Pilot Study of Teacher Interpretation and Application of Graphed Behavioral Data

Abstract

Students with or at-risk of High Incidence Disabilities (HID) experience negative short and long-term outcomes. To intervene, many schools have elected to implement evidence-based practices within Multi-Tiered Systems of Support (MTSS), such as Response to Intervention (RTI). MTSS target the academic and behavioral progress of students deemed ‘at risk’ for HID with increasingly intensive interventions. School psychologists often lead the MTSS process by providing consultation and coaching teachers on the front lines who are responsible for collecting and interpreting behavioral data. However, limited research has explored teacher ability, confidence, and perceived usefulness to engage in this role. As such, the purpose of this study was to explore pre-service and in-service teachers’ ability, confidence, willingness, and perceived usefulness to interpret and apply behavioral data before and after a brief behavior analytic training and the factors that influenced each outcome. One hundred and one participants completed a survey, and 24 participants attended the training. Results indicated that, prior to training, teachers were somewhat able to find relevant information for decision making in the graphed data but were challenged to interpret the effects of intervention or make decisions based on the data. After training, teacher ability increased in all aspects related to using data for decision making with the exception of data application. In addition, teacher confidence and willingness to interpret and apply graphed behavioral data increased. These data suggest the benefits of a brief training that could be implemented by school psychologists to increase teacher data use and application.