Moving Beyond “Buy-In” : Helping Team Members Adopt Individualized Student Practices

1. Moving Beyond “Buy-In”:Helping Team Members Adopt Individualized Student Practices Linda M. Bambara Sharon Lohrmann Stacy Nonnemacher Ailsa Goh

2. Buy-In:(n.) Commitment to achieving a shared goal Successful change begins with acquiring employees’ buy-in to the change process …(MSN Encarta) But, what does buy-in really mean?

3. Buy-in and commitment to change is a dynamic process Conclusions drawn from sustainability research: • Knowing that a practice results in good outcomes is insufficient for implementation (Gersten, Chard, & Baker 2000). • Teachers’ beliefs, feelings of self-efficacy, attitudes, and perceptions affect the extent to which teachers try new strategies and persist using them when confronted with challenges (Klinger, Ahwee, Pilonieta, Merendez, 2003). • Sustained use of innovative, research based practices seem directly related to practices that teachers view as being helpful in working with difficult-to- teach students (Gersten et al., 2000). • Teachers can benefit from on-going sources of support that helps them to think deeply about their practice (Vaughn, Klinger, & Hughes 2000).

4. PBS Teaming as a Source of Support? PBS teaming can provide an important source of on-going support for team members (Bambara, Nonnemacher, Kern et al., in press; Lohrmann & Bambara 2006) • Emphasis is on technical aspects of FBA and support plan process • Know little about the social processes involved in PBS teaming that can help team members change perspectives and adopt PBS practices.

5. Purpose To understand, from the perspectives of team facilitators: • the beliefs, perceptions, and emotional reactions of team members that interfere with the adoption of individualized PBS (IPBS) practices. • strategies used by team facilitators or processes inherent within teaming that are believed to facilitate the adoption of IPBS practices

6. Participants 19 participants across 10 states • 7 external facilitators (external consultants) • 13 internal facilitators (district employed) • behavior specialists, school psychologists, educational specialists • across schools; 1 within school (building principal) • SWPBS context • varied, 4 no SWPBS in place • Mean 6.5 years (r= 2-16) experience • School Level • 15 k-12 • 2 Elem.- M.S. • 2 H.S. • Disability Focus • 9 specific disability focus (DD, EBD) • 10 varied, including general education students • 17 females, 2 males; 18 MS/MA or higher

7. Procedures Purposeful Sampling • Nominators: State Level Consultants • Criteria: • Minimum 2 years experience • Well trained (degree, intensive training) • Lead school based teams using collaborative approach • representation across school level, disability, inclusive of SWPBS • Screening/demographic interviews

8. Procedures Interviews • Semi-structured, open-ended • 1-2 interviews; about 90 minutes • Interview Guide • Context (role, school context, process for collaboration) • Belief/Attitudinal Barriers and Struggles • Strategies and Processes Inherent in Teaming • Audio taped and transcribed

9. Data Analysis Consensual Qualitative Research (CQR) (Hill, Thompson, & Williams, 1997) • Research Team (primary authors plus assistants) • Rotating Roles (interviewers, primary coders, auditors) • Multiple Stages of Data Analysis (audited, consensual agreement) Stage 1: Domain Code Development Stage 2: Domaining (Coding) Stage 3: Abstracting Stage 4: Cross Analysis and Recoding Stage 5: Final Thematic Analysis

10. Findings What beliefs/attitudes appear to interfere with the adoption of IPBS?

11. Beliefs about attribution and efficacy • It’s (problem behavior) is out of my control • family related • inherent to the child (bad) or disability • Nothing Works! I’ve tried and failed. • Beliefs about personal capacity and willingness to change • It’s not my responsibility • I’m not sure I can do it (lack confidence) • I don’t have the time • This is too overwhelming • Knee jerk reaction: I don’t have time for this

12. Beliefs about behavior intervention • Student is better served elsewhere (exclusion) • Bad behavior should be punished • difficulty grasping prevention as an intervention • No special treatment! • child should do what is expected; follow same rules and respond like everyone else • individualized interventions are “unfair” to other students; I have other students too • Quick fix interventions; not a process • expectation that interventions should result in immediate change • frustrated by the steps and length (time) of the process

13. What emotional responses of team members appear to impede the IPBS process?

14. An “emotional roller coaster”… Range of emotions: • Anger • Frustration/discouraged • Fear/Anxiety • Taking it Personally (It’s about me) • Student is purposefully doing it to me. • Why me? • I’m doing something wrong; afraid to be judged by others

15. How prevalent are the interfering beliefs and emotions? Are there points in the PBS process that are most problematic?

16. Prevalence? • Impeding beliefs/emotional reactions are common to all teams • How prevalent may depend on a number of factors • prior training/experiences of team members • contextual features of the school • SWPBS (universal features in place) • Administrator support • Teacher resources/competing demands

17. Problem Points? Out of my control Nothing Works I can’t do this Frustration/Anger Referral/ Initial Teaming Prevention difficulty I can’t do this Don’t have time Process frustration Planning/ Implementation Quick Fix Frustration Nothing Works Monitoring/ Adjustment

18. Facilitator Goals Student Centered • Make improvements for the child Team Centered • Enhance team member capacity • confidence, skills and mind set to “think PBS” and “shift views” • Enhance teaming capacity • work as a team; shared responsibility and thinking

19. Use a Consistent Meeting Framework to Guide Discussion Use a consistent structure (e.g., agenda, action plan) that guides meetings to keep members accountable, facilitate ownership, and focused on outcomes Use structured problem solving and visual illustrations (e.g., line of inquiry, data) to help team members shift out they think about/perceive problem behavior and contributing variables Strategies to Support Adoption of PBS

20. Use Techniques That Help Team Members Shift Their Thinking and Reframe Their Beliefs Relate to personal experiences, academic instruction Questioning/problem solving structure Give examples/solutions for consideration/share stories of success Offer alternative explanations Focus on student outcomes Use data to show patterns, progress, and challenge assumptions Strategies to Support Adoption of PBS

21. Support Team Members to Implement PBS Practices AND to Feel Good About the Process Ensure contextual fit by building off strengths, negotiating, and divvying up the work Encourage camaraderie/celebrate Acknowledge and reassure team members Provide training Model and coach strategy implementation Give help quickly and consistently Strategies to Support Change in Beliefs

22. Team members having first hand success with the strategies and the student See/feel improvements with the student Strategies are doable Things get better Transformations can happen quickly “the AHA moment” or move along a continuum that reveal change over time Success the Ultimate Strategy for Adoption of PBS

23. Insist on compliance – “You have to do it, it’s in the IEP” Work around the team member / go forward without them Make a change Move student to another class Change teacher on the team Change facilitator When All Else Fails…

24. Limitations • focused only on the perspectives of team facilitators • may be a discrepancy between perceptions and what actually works • findings may not be generalizable outside of the facilitators experiences Plus Side • remarkable consistency across facilitators • many of the big ideas are consistent with previous research on sustaining research based practices in school settings

25. Congruent Research • Staff tend to attribute causes of problem behavior to factors believed to be beyond their control, whether perceived as being internal or external to the individual(Lambrechts, Petry, & Mays, 2008) • Strategies used in consultative/collaborative problem solving (i.e., questioning, use of data, examples) change team members’ understanding and attack of the problem (Knotek, Rosenfield, Gravois, & Babinski, 2003). • On-going professional development and the establishment of professional communities appear key for sustainability (Gersten, Chard, & Baker, 2000).

26. Take Away Messages • implementing IPBS practices is infinitely more complex than knowledge of effective assessment and intervention strategies • teaming is not just about what to for the student, it’s about team members too • facilitators should anticipate that impeding beliefs and attitudes will occur and occur at anytime in the PBS process • strategies for change consist of guiding team members to think differently while providing on-going support needed for team members to experience success