Teacher Attitudes Toward Evidence-Based Practices: Confirmatory and Predictive Analyses of the School-Adapted Evidence-Based Practice Attitude Scale

Abstract

Educational researchers have developed a host of evidence-based practices (EBPs) to prevent and address social, emotional, and behavioral (SEB) problems from emerging and to promote success-enabling factors in school. Despite the availability of EBPs, schools are confronted with an implementation gap that limits the impact of EBPs on student outcomes. Evidence suggests that individual-level characteristics of implementers influence the adoption and delivery of EBPs. One individual-level factor, attitudes toward implementing EBPs (ATE), has garnered significant attention across service sectors linked to implementation. This study provides validity evidence of a school-adapted measure of the Evidence-Based Practice Attitudes Scale (S-EBPAS) among a sample of 441 elementary school teachers across 52 schools. Prior research has indicated that the EBPAS provides a reliable and valid assessment of attitudes toward EBPs, though it has not been validated among a sample of school teachers. The current study sought to confirm whether original EBPAS factor structure holds when adapted and administered for use in schools, as well as gather convergent and divergent validity evidence. Results indicated that, while the initial CFA model did not fit the data, an exploratory factor analysis revealed that a three-factor model fit the sample best, and it may demonstrate stronger alignment with attitude theory than the original EBPAS. Also, the S-EBPAS and its subscales demonstrated a moderate-to-high amount of construct validity evidence, and that the S-EBPAS demonstrated minimal predictive validity evidence with fidelity of implementation across the two different universal EBPs. Implications and future directions for research and practice are discussed.