PBS Teaming as a Source of Support? PBS teaming can provid

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Moving Beyond Buy-InHelping Team Members
Adopt Individualized Student Practices

• Linda M. Bambara
• Sharon Lohrmann
• Stacy Nonnemacher
• Ailsa Goh

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• 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?

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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).

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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.

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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Findings

• What beliefs/attitudes appear to interfere with
  the adoption of IPBS?

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

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• 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

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What emotional responses of team members appear
to impede the IPBS process?
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• An emotional roller coaster
• Range of emotions
• Anger
• Frustration/discouraged
• Fear/Anxiety
• Taking it Personally (Its about me)
• Student is purposefully doing it to me.
• Why me?
• Im doing something wrong afraid to be judged by
  others

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How prevalent are the interfering beliefs and
emotions?

• Are there points in the PBS process that are most
  problematic?

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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

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Problem Points?
Out of my control Nothing Works I cant do
this Frustration/Anger
Referral/ Initial Teaming
Prevention difficulty I cant do this Dont have
time Process frustration
Planning/ Implementation
Quick Fix Frustration Nothing Works
Monitoring/ Adjustment
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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

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Strategies to Support Adoption of PBS

• 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

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Strategies to Support Adoption of PBS

• 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

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Strategies to Support Change in Beliefs

• 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

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Success the Ultimate Strategy for Adoption of PBS

• 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

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When All Else Fails

• Insist on compliance You have to do it, its
  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

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• 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

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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).

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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, its 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