Making Ecobehavioral Assessment Tools Web-Based in Support of Response to Intervention

ABSTRACT

Federal general and special education policies (e.g., No Child Left Behind and Individuals with Disabilities Information Education Act) present school districts with the opportunity to use a student’s responsiveness to intervention (RTI) as a means of making (a) special education eligibility determinations and of (b) differentiating instructional intervention practices (e.g., school-wide, 3 tier prevention models). Students’ response to instructional intervention is exactly the foci of Ecobehavioral Assessment Tools, first developed in 1990’s and such classroom observational tools have been widely in special education research and practice supported by software operating on notebook computers that is now obsolete. While the instruments themselves and data analyses strategies displaying students’ response to intervention are still state of the art, the hardware and software technology supporting access and use of these instruments and information is not.  The purpose of this project is to advance these components of existing tools making access and utilization direct and straight forward. The technology approach selected for this project will be to combine advances in hardware (Personal Digital Assistant – PDAs computers), software, (Pocket Windows) and dynamic web-pages with on demand data processing and reporting tools available to school psychologists and special educators.  Several current innovations support proof of concept. For example, combining web and PDA supported systems has been demonstrated highly successful by the Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS), a system producing progress monitoring data for millions of students in schools around the country.

The ecobehavioral assessment tools are based on the premise that academic and student behaviors are a function of specific classroom, instructional events such activity, task, teacher behavior and student engagement in either academic or inappropriate responding.  These measures are available in the Ecobehavioral Assessment Systems Software (EBASS:  Greenwood et al., 1993).  EBASS is a suite of observation instruments for use in preschool (ESCAPE) and primary/secondary grade level programs including general and special education (MS-CISSAR). Findings have shown how to promote student engagement in academic responding through accommodations and adaptations of instruction and how to reduce the occurrence of inappropriate behaviors through a data-based decision-making process. These findings have been replicated by other investigators using the authors’ ecobehavioral conceptual framework, interventions, and/or measures (e.g., Agar & Shapiro, 1995; Marston et al., 1995; Logan et al., 1997).

The inclusion of these observation tools in research and schools is now more relevant now than ever before. And, newer instruments (e.g., ESCRIBE for use with English Language Learners—Arreaga et al., 1994), advancements of hand-held devices and strategies for using this information in student IEP’s and functional behavioral assessments have emerged. What is needed are improved computer and information technology, access to these tools, and training for LEA practitioners to adapt instruction and interventions within a RTI model to powerfully affect student outcomes and behavior.

The present aim of the present application is to develop and refine ecobehavioral assessment tools for accessibility and usability by general and special educators, school psychologists, and others.  Benefits include:  (a) large scale professional development and training (b) access to information, procedures, training, and materials, (c) the implementation of a web-based system, and services that include a common archive for accumulating a large and rigorously managed, national database on the academic and behavioral interventions of at-risk children and children with disabilities.

Proposed is a two-year Phase 1 – Steppingstones project to develop and refine this ecobehavioral technological approach in a RTI conceptual framework. General and special educators, school psychologists, and service providers will have supports for (a) accountability:  data entry, management, analysis, interpretation, and reporting of intervention results, (b) implementation:  training and certification assessors’ qualified to administer the measures, (c) technical assistance: tracking data, interventions, and outcomes, support use, and communication, and (c) dissemination: peer-reviewed publications reporting conceptual frameworks and findings. The project’s design incorporates state of the art web-based authoring software, multimedia design, and development guided by RTI models and universal designs.  Steps in the project plan, design, prototype, test, and refine the website and its components based upon an integrated formative evaluation plan informed by user testing/implementation results.