Evidence of Implementation: Conceptualizing and Measuring Fidelity in a Large-Scale Middle School Mathematics Efficacy Study

• In Event: Poster Session 12
  In Poster Session: Innovative Approaches and Strategies to Program Evaluation in Schools

Abstract

Evaluating the effectiveness of educational interventions involves attending to how participants implement programs. Measuring fidelity of implementation (FOI) allows researchers to disentangle the impact of program delivery from the impact of program theory. However, the field of intervention research offers little direction for developing fidelity measures and relating implementation to student outcomes (O’Donnell, 2008). This lack of guidance is particularly salient in unprescribed interventions where variable instructional sequences and procedures are permitted (Munter, Wilhelm, Cobb, & Cordray, 2014). In this paper, we conceptualize and measure FOI in a large-scale, unprescribed middle-school algebra intervention conducted by the National Center on Cognition and Mathematics Instruction (Math Center). This work contributes to the theory and methods for measuring FOI for complex interventions.

Authors

• Aleata Hubbard, WestEd

• Yvonne Kao, WestEd

• Sarah Warner, WestEd

• Jodi Davenport, WestEd