The purpose of this grant proposal is to develop a toolkit to support school teams in the development and implementation of culturally responsive Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS). The toolkit is necessary to help school teams address lingering disparities in discipline and to improve school climate. Exclusionary discipline, such as out of school suspensions and expulsion, disproportionately affects ethnically and racially diverse students, and has a devastating effect on student outcomes, including academic achievement, attendance, and graduation. Ethnically and racially diverse students are also more likely to be given a disciplinary consequence for behaviors that require a subjective interpretation of the student’s behavior, which can be influenced by implicit bias. In schools that have implemented PBIS, exclusionary discipline has been shown to decrease overall, but disproportionate discipline persists. The development of a culturally responsive toolkit will support the efforts of school PBIS teams to decrease disproportionate discipline outcomes. The toolkit will assist school teams with the cultural adaptation of core features of PBIS by providing a process for addressing contextual fit of the school and soliciting feedback from the school community. The methodological approach for this project includes both qualitative and quantitative processes. An expert panel will be convened to address the complexities of implementation and cultural adaptation within the context of PBIS. The culturally responsive PBIS toolkit will consist of a comprehensive series of recommended practices, contextual considerations, evaluation tools, and resources, to be used concurrently with analysis of schoolwide data. The toolkit will be piloted in schools in the Pacific Northwest and then disseminated.

Behavior Intervention Plans (BIPs) are used in public schools for students with disabilities, replacing target behaviors with socially appropriate behaviors using positive behavior support strategies. However, research suggests that BIPs are often poorly written or fail to be implemented as intended. One reason for the ineffectiveness of BIPs may be that the interventionist (e.g., classroom teacher or other staff member responsible for implementing the plan) and the context of his/her classroom is not considered when plans are written by specialists (e.g., school psychologist, special education teacher, etc.). The purpose of this study was to evaluate BIPs written and used for students in public schools in the intermountain west for their contextual fit, using a researcher-developed measure of contextual fit based on key concepts previously established in research and modeled after the Behavior Support Plan-Quality Evaluation, Second Edition (BSP-QE II). With the coding guide created by our research team, we coded previously collected BIPs for practicality, the skill level and competency required for the interventionist to implement, and the consideration of cultural values for both the interventionist and the student who would receive the intervention. In addition, a previous research study by a graduate student at the same university had previously coded BIPs from the four school districts in Utah for technical adequacy using the BSP-QE II and, using the results from that study, we ran a Pearson correlation to determine whether there was a statistically significant relationship between BIP quality and contextual fit. Ultimately, our study found that BIPs often failed to include all elements for contextual fit to reasonably be considered established, particularly in the cultural values of those who would implement or receive the plan. In addition, we found a moderate, positive relationship between BIP technical adequacy and contextual fit. Implications for practitioners and ideas for future research are also discussed, including: ensuring that BIPs are developed in teams that include the interventionist, creating BIP templates that are culturally and contextually appropriate, and the possibility of research that documents actual interventionist participation in BIP team meetings as a comparison to the results of our scoring guide of BIP contextual fit.

An extensive body of empirical evidence indicates that function-based behavior support plans are likely to be more effective and efficient in school settings than plans that are not function-based. Designing technically adequate behavior support plans, however, is not sufficient to ensure that these plans will be implemented with fidelity by school staff. The contextual “fit” of support plan procedures with the values, skills, resources and administrative support of implementing personnel also affects the likelihood of implementation. In this dissertation a single-subject concurrent multiple baseline design across participants was used to examine the efficacy of the Contextual Fit Enhancement Protocol (CF Intervention). The CF Intervention was designed to improve the contextual fit of support plans for four elementary school students with problem behaviors. This CF Intervention was designed based on the assumption that when procedures included in a plan match the values, skills, administrative support and resources of the people responsible for implementation the plans will be implemented with higher fidelity and will be more likely to produce desired student outcomes. Results from the study indicate that after implementation of the CF Intervention, support plans that were already technically adequate improved in contextual fit: instructional staff (a) had a better understanding of behavioral procedures being used, (b) received specific, systematic feedback about its implementation, (c) perceived high levels of administrative support, and (d) perceived a collective commitment to improve current plans. Following implementation of the CF Intervention, substantial increases in implementation fidelity and decreases in student problem behavior were observed. In addition, teacher participants rated the CF Intervention process as effective and efficient. Limitations and implications for future research, practice, and training are discussed.

The population consisting of young people with Behavioral/Emotional/Learning challenges typically experiences poorer outcomes related to employment, in part due to lower performance levels. Effective strategies, which have a positive impact on work performance for this population, are needed. Goal setting has been used to bring about behavior change, or increase 'motivation', in many fields of study. Goal setting can be conceptualized as an establishing operation (EO), which increases the reinforcing value of goal achievement, and thereby increases the probability of the occurrence of behaviors related to reaching the goal, i.e., task completion. This study empirically examined the impact of a goal setting procedure on work-related behaviors through the use of a singlecase experimental design, to detect the individual results of the goal setting intervention, which included the manipulation of environmental events to explain behavior change, or 'motivation'. It was hypothesized that the goal setting procedure would have a positive impact on work performance for these young people with challenges in a work-type setting. Results showed that the goal setting procedure did have a positive impact on the work performance of both participants, especially when additional prompts were included in the goal setting procedure. Although goal setting may serve as an EO, the goal setting procedure, which included additional elements such as prompts and feedback, seemed to be more effective.

As more schools turn to School-Wide Positive Behavior Supports (SWPBS) for help with academic and problem behaviors in their schools, the need to adequately evaluate these programs on a socially relevant level increases. The present study employs social validation measures to evaluate Utah's Academic, Behavioral & Coaching Initiative (ABC-UBI), a Positive Behavior Support (PBS) initiative, on socially relevant issues. Participants from across the state of Utah who were active consumers of ABC-UBI's program, were polled for their opinion on the acceptability of the treatment goals, procedures and outcomes of the program. The results outlined several areas of much needed improvement including, but not limited to the amount of paperwork required for successful implementation and the usability of program procedures. Social validity continues to be an important construct to consider when evaluating programs for social relevancy.