The growing emphasis on the application of evidence based practice (EBP) together with an increasing pressure on Local Authorities (LAs) to demonstrate the efficacy and cost-effectiveness of the services that they fund has lead to the introduction of evaluative tools across many of the public services. Distance Travelled Tools (DTTs) are considered to be a useful measure of progress made over time in response to an intervention and can therefore be used to provide this kind of evidence. A semi-rural LA in England developed a DTT for use across the services for children and young people. The implementation of the tool as part of the work undertaken by practitioners represented a significant change in practice. In this study I explored the perceptions and experiences of mainstream primary and secondary school staff in the implementation of this DTT. Semi-structured interviews were undertaken with twenty members of staff from eight mainstream education settings (five primary and three secondary). I transcribed the interviews verbatim and analysed them using thematic analysis. The analysis revealed two super-ordinate themes, six themes and 25 sub-themes, which shed light on staff’s experiences of applying the DTT. The first super-ordinate theme relates to the perceptions of staff regarding their use of the DTT to their work, specifically: in supporting holistic working; in enabling staff to elicit, share and understand the perspectives of stakeholders; and to formulate and support next steps. The second super-ordinate theme relates to school staff’s experiences of implementing the tool, including: the issues associated with the tool’s format; specific motivators and difficulties associated with the process of implementation; and the utility of the tool as a means of providing evidence for the LA. In highlighting the experiences and perceptions of the tool’s users, this study has implications for the application of this type of tool in supporting the work undertaken by a range of practitioners who work with vulnerable pupils and their families. By exploring the perceived issues and benefits of implementing a DTT, this study also has implications for the work undertaken by Educational Psychologists to support organisational change associated with the implementation of new evaluative procedures and practices.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:639827 |
| Date | January 2014 |
| Creators | Braude, Shelley Rose |
| Publisher | University College London (University of London) |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Source | http://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/10021594/ |
Page generated in 0.0016 seconds