Intervention Fidelity Conditionally Mediates the Association Between Educators' Beliefs and Student Outcomes in SWPBIS: A School-Level Moderated Mediation Analysis

Existing literature has established the effectiveness of school-wide positive behavioral interventions and supports (SWPBIS) for improving school-level student behavioral and academic outcomes. But the real-world implementation of SWPBIS is often inadequate, which leads to lackluster outcomes. Researchers have identified amendable implementer-level factors (e.g., educators' supportive beliefs about SWPBIS) to promote the successful delivery of SWPBIS. However, it remains unknown how educators' beliefs function at the school level to influence their implementation behaviors. This school-level study piloted a school-wide Supportive Belief Intervention (SBI; an implementation strategy used before teacher training to promote supportive beliefs about SWPBIS) and examined its mechanism of change on improving implementation and student outcomes. In partnership with an urban school district, the authors delivered the SBI and SWPBIS training to 81 school teams serving a diverse student population. Baseline school-level educators' beliefs were assessed at the start of the academic year (AY; before the SBI). Posttest beliefs, intervention fidelity of Tier 1 SWPBIS, rates of student reading proficiency and suspension were assessed at the end of the AY (6 months after the SBI). Conditional process analyses with nonparametric bootstrapping (mediational and 1st stage moderated mediational models) revealed that, at the school level, (a) improved educators' supportive beliefs were associated with enhanced intervention fidelity of SWPBIS and then better corollary student outcomes (increased reading proficiency and reduced suspension rates); but (b) student socioeconomic status moderated the size of the mediation effect. Implications for research and practices about the implementation of SWPBIS and school context were discussed.