Poster #183 - Leveraging a Community-University Partnership to Develop an Early Childhood Consultation Intervention

• In Event: 2-055 - Poster Session 06
  In Poster Session: PS 06 Section - School Readiness/Childcare

Integrative Statement

Socioemotional learning (SEL) is linked to improved educational, mental health, and behavioral outcomes in children. Preschool is an opportune time to teach children socioemotional skills. However, preschool teachers struggle to implement evidence-based SEL programs at a high enough dose and with sufficient implementation quality in order for them to be effective, especially in low-income, racial/ethnic minority communities. The current study was conducted in the context of an ongoing community-university partnership between the research team and several preschool programs that serve low-income families. The partnership is currently working together to develop an early childhood consultation intervention focused on improving preschool teachers’ implementation of an SEL curriculum. As one element of this work, the current mixed methods study investigates locally-relevant factors impeding the implementation of evidence-based SEL programs in low-income preschools throughout the blinded community.

This study gathered qualitative and quantitative data concurrently and utilized an elaborative mixed methods design, in which the depth of the results of the qualitative analysis was used to corroborate the breadth of the findings from the quantitative analysis. First, 33 key stakeholders (preschool teachers, preschool administrators, and parents of preschoolers) participated in 9 focus groups held at local preschools. Key topics discussed included a) teacher and preschool barriers and facilitators to implementing evidence-based practices with high treatment fidelity, and b) strategies for addressing those barriers. Focus groups were coded using descriptive coding (interrater reliability = 90%) and resulted in 14 a priori and 12 a posteriori codes. Second, an administrative dataset containing deidentified Classroom Assessment Scoring System (CLASS; Pianta, LaParo, & Hamre, 2004) data was obtained. The CLASS is a well-established observational instrument designed to assess classroom quality with three subscales; the emotional support subscale was used in the current study. The CLASS data were collected as part of a state-mandated effort to monitor and improve the quality of preschools with publically-funded seats. Descriptive statistics were calculated to understand the current status of emotional support in local preschool classrooms.

As hypothesized, findings from the qualitative study revealed both implementer and organizational factors that influence SEL program implementation (see Table 1). Common implementer factors that arose during analyses included “teacher buy-in or investment,” “alignment with school culture,” “parental acceptance and communication,” “accommodating individual student needs,” and “maintaining student engagement.” In addition, results revealed “time,” “academic emphasis,” “lack of training or understanding,” and “lack of support from leadership” as common organizational factors to consider. The quantitative analysis revealed that observational ratings of emotional support, including climate and teacher sensitivity, were of moderate to high quality overall (Ms = 4.94-5.58, SDs = .61-.97).

Together, the qualitative and quantitative data in this study provide insight into the particular barriers to treatment fidelity present in low-income preschools in the blinded community. The benefits and challenges of leveraging community-university partnerships to gather data before developing stakeholder-informed interventions will be discussed.

Authors

• Courtney N. Baker, Tulane University
  Presenting Author

• Megan Saybe, Tulane University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Stephanie Moberg, Tulane University
  Non-Presenting Author