Approaches to Increasing Treatment Integrity (Wing Institute Paper)

Student achievement scores in the United States remain stagnant despite constant reform. New initiatives arise promising hope, only to disappoint after being adopted, implemented, and quickly found wanting. The cycle of reform followed by failure has had a demoralizing effect on schools, making new reform efforts more problematic. These efforts frequently fail because implementing new practices is far more challenging than expected and require that greater attention be paid to implementation. A fundamental factor leading to failure is inattention to treatment integrity. When innovations are not implemented as designed, it should not be a surprise that anticipated benefits are not forthcoming. The question is, what strategies can educators employ to increase the likelihood that practices will be implemented as designed?

Strategies designed to increase treatment integrity fall into two categories: antecedent-based strategies and consequence-based strategies. Antecedent-based strategies involve any setting event or environmental factor that happens prior to implementing the new practice and that increases the likelihood of success as well as eliminates setting events or environmental considerations that decrease the likelihood of success. Consequence-based strategies are designed to impact actions that happen after implementation of the new practice and that are likely to increase or decrease treatment integrity.

Citation: Detrich, R., States, J. & Keyworth, R. (2017). Approaches to Increasing Treatment Integrity. Oakland, Ca. The Wing Institute

Link: https://www.winginstitute.org/treatment-integrity-strategies