I am currently finishing up my certification in applied behavior analysis at the UofM and running into a road block between research/evidence based interventions and how to apply them in the classroom. When I attempt to design behavior interventions that have "high fidelity" (i.e., strong validity and reliability in implementation through a research design) for application in the classroom, I realize that there is no way I could practically track the data or ensure 100% of the time that the intervention is being followed according to the plan; this leaves me in a kind of limbo wondering if behavior spikes are due to events that happen outside of school or low reliability in the plan.
I am sure we come across this all the time in education; we recieve an intervention/program with strong research base. But, we can't implement it completely at school as the research suggests. Is this just when we "take what we can get" out of the intervention?
I am not sure if researchers take into account the full day of a student. Sometimes their studies are done in controlled environments in order for them to "see" what they want to see in their study. Is is possible that some of the interventions you are talking about might only be applicable with certain students in certain classrooms in certain buildings. During a normal school day their is so much stimuli and change during the day, I am not sure researchers are able to duplicate this same scenarios when they compile their data. My suggestions would be to use as much as the interventions the best you can with what your students and school offers.
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