Fidelity of implementation represents a crucial, and often overlooked, segment of the research to practice pipeline. Fidelity of implementation is the extent to which teacher's behaviors when delivering a program align with intentions of the intervention (O'Donnell, 2008, 34). It should not be an afterthought, but instead incorporated and developed throughout the research process. This thesis uses the Wesleyan Preschool Math Games guided play intervention to explore how education interventions can create and use fidelity of implementation measures developed from the program's underlying theory. Study 1 reports on the creation and testing of an assessment of teachers' preexisting beliefs around guided play. Adequate internal reliability (α=0.65) and correlations with another measure of teachers' beliefs provides psychometric validity for the measure. Study 2 examines the design and implementation of a weekly survey and an observation instrument to assess multiple facets of teachers' fidelity of implementation. Taken together, the measures indicate an adequate level of fidelity in some aspects and areas for improvement in future interventions. The creation of fidelity of implementation measures for the Wesleyan Preschool Math Games exemplify a strong connection between fidelity of implementation measures and the theory of the intervention, for fidelity to be considered from the conception of an intervention, and for fidelity to support an intentional relationship between the research and the implementer.
"},{"label":"Degree","value":["Bachelor of Arts with Departmental Honors"]},{"label":"Author-supplied Keywords","value":["Fidelity of implementation","Research to practice"]},{"label":"Administrative Note","value":"Drupal Node ID: 24195