Exploring Relationships among Organizational Factors, Teachers’ Attitudes toward Evidence-Based Practices, and Implementation of Universal Prevention Programs

Abstract

Decades of research have produced a wide range of evidence-based programs and practices (EBPs) for use in schools. However, the existence of EBPs alone is insufficient to produce changes in student outcomes, as promoting positive student outcomes depends on successful implementation. Research has identified numerous factors that either enable or obstruct the successful implementation of EBPs, including outer context (e.g., policy), inner context (e.g., leadership and climate), and innovation-specific (e.g., the complexity of an intervention) factors. Despite the influence of these factors, successful implementation ultimately resides with the decisions and behaviors of individual implementers (e.g., teachers). Attitudes toward EBPs have garnered significant attention across service sectors as an important factor that is linked to successful implementation. However, there is limited research that has examined the relationship among individual-level factors, such as attitudes toward EBPs, and school organizational factors, such as leadership and climate. Moreover, there is emerging findings highlighting the importance of assessing both general and implementation-specific organizational characteristics and how they interact to explain important implementation-relevant variables and outcomes. In light of these existing voids in the literature, the purpose of this study was to examine teachers' attitudes toward EBP in relation to general and implementation-specific leadership and climate hypothesized to influence the uptake and implementation of EBPs by teachers in school settings.