Structural, cultural and instructional predictors essential to sustained implementation fidelity in schools: The School-Wide Positive Behavior Support Model (SWPBS)

Optimal intervention effects require adequate implementation fidelity, and high sustained implementation fidelity is hypothesized a pre-requisite for long-term positive intervention effects. However, implementing interventions with high fidelity seems particularly difficult in schools. The purpose of the this prospective longitudinal study was to add to the current knowledge by testing the predictive effects of school structural, cultural, instructional and community-level factors to longer-term fidelity in a sample of 65 representative primary schools in Norway (Grades 1–7) implementing the evidence-based School-Wide Positive Behavior Support model (SWPBS). Results from the Automatic Linear Modeling analysis which included more than 300 predictor variables, showed that the 10 most important predictors were all related to the schools inner context, in particular to the cultural characteristics of the schools, teachers' disciplinary practices, and prior fidelity. The findings are discussed in relation to prior and future research, and practical implications are coined.