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A Comprehensive Examination of Preschool Teachers’ Implementation Fidelity When Using a Supplemental Language and Literacy Curriculum

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Abstract

Background

Recent curriculum studies raise a number of questions concerning teachers’ implementation fidelity, including the extent to which fidelity to multiple curriculum components is achieved and measured and the extent to which fidelity serves as a mechanism for impacting children’s learning.

Objective

Within the context of a language and literacy curriculum supplement designed for use at scale, we investigated (1) teachers’ fidelity across the multiple dimensions identified in the literature (e.g., Dane and Schneider in Clin Psychol Rev 18(1):23–45, 1998) and interrelations among these dimensions and (2) associations between measures of fidelity and the language and literacy gains made by children.

Method

We examined the fidelity of 74 preschool teachers implementing Read It Again!. Multiple measures of adherence, exposure, quality of delivery, and participant responsiveness were collected across the year of implementation, and children’s (n = 295) language and literacy gains were directly measured.

Results

Descriptive statistics demonstrated generally high implementation fidelity across all dimensions. Correlational analyses showed few interrelations among fidelity measures and few associations with child gains.

Conclusions

Findings suggest that teachers can exhibit fidelity to multi-componential language and literacy curricula designed for wide-scale use. Findings also support fidelity as a multidimensional construct and suggest that researchers utilize multiple measures to capture both within- and between-teacher variation in fidelity, while also pursuing additional studies to better understand the measurement and functioning of fidelity to inform future work.

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Acknowledgments

This research was supported by Grant R305A080459 from the Institute of Education Sciences. The opinions expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent views of the Institute or the U.S. Department of Education. We would like to thank the research team and the many administrators, teachers, and children without whom this study would not have been possible.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest. Although two of the authors are also developers of Read It Again!, the supplemental curriculum is made freely available on the internet and is not commercially published; the developers thus have no financial ties to the curriculum.

Ethical Standards

The research was conducted in a manner that complied with Human Subjects Protections, as approved by investigators’ respective Internal Review Boards. All participants provided informed consent.

Author information

Author notes

  1. Anita McGinty

    Present address: Core Knowledge Foundation, Charlottesville, VA, USA

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Teaching and Learning & Crane Center for Early Childhood Research and Policy, The Ohio State University, 201 Arps Hall, 1945 North High Street, Columbus, OH, 43210, USA

    Shayne B. Piasta & Laura M. Justice

  2. Curry School of Education and Center for Advanced Study of Teaching and Learning, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, USA

    Anita McGinty

  3. Department of Psychology, Portland State University, Portland, OR, USA

    Andrew Mashburn

  4. Crane Center for Early Childhood Research and Policy, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, USA

    Laura Slocum

Authors
  1. Shayne B. Piasta
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  2. Laura M. Justice
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  3. Anita McGinty
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  4. Andrew Mashburn
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  5. Laura Slocum
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Shayne B. Piasta.

Additional information

Laura Justice and Anita McGinty are developers of the Read It Again! supplemental curriculum utilized in this study.

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Piasta, S.B., Justice, L.M., McGinty, A. et al. A Comprehensive Examination of Preschool Teachers’ Implementation Fidelity When Using a Supplemental Language and Literacy Curriculum. Child Youth Care Forum 44, 731–755 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10566-015-9305-2

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