A Supportive Beliefs Intervention to Facilitate the Implementation of Evidence-Based Practices Within a Multi-Tiered System of Supports

The current study represents a preliminary examination of school-level beliefs and attitudes as they relate to the implementation of universal evidence-based practices (EBPs) within a multi-tiered system of support (MTSS) targeting student’s social, emotional, and behavioral problems. This study was organized around three primary objectives: (a) assess coaches’ perceptions of the utility and importance of targeting educator beliefs to improve adoption and use of EBPs, (b) demonstrate the association between educator beliefs and degree of MTSS implementation, and (c) conduct a preliminary pre–posttest of a supportive belief intervention (SBI) to enhance educators’ beliefs and examine whether changes in beliefs were associated with improved implementation. To accomplish these objectives, data were collected from 62 elementary schools across five school districts involved in a collaborative consultative partnership to design and implement a school-wide MTSS framework. Collectively, the results provided preliminary support for the importance of beliefs: (a) coaches reported beliefs were critical to implementation and facilitative of their roles working with teachers, (b) educator beliefs predicted initial implementation fidelity on a global measure of MTSS practices and specific measure of school-wide positive behavior interventions and supports, and (c) the SBI was associated with significant changes in educator beliefs and these changes were associated with improved implementation. The implications, limitations, and future directions of this research are discussed.