- Title
- A critical investigation of implementation science as a lens for scaling interventions in education
- Creator
- Ryan, Anthony Wayne
- Relation
- University of Newcastle Research Higher Degree Thesis
- Resource Type
- thesis
- Date
- 2024
- Description
- Research Doctorate - Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
- Description
- In the quest to improve student outcomes and reform education systems, the field of education has seen a proliferation of attempts to implement evidence-based practices (EBPs) at scale. However, scaling EBPs across a range of contexts in education is known to be profoundly difficult, and many interventions are either not sustained or fail to deliver the outcomes achieved in efficacy trials. The challenges encountered when scaling EBPs are not unique to the field of education. Indeed, in the health sciences, the field of implementation science (IS) was developed to study and guide effective implementation of interventions in “real world” settings. While this field has generated a vast collection of frameworks, models, and theories, IS has rarely been applied to scaling interventions in education settings that were not health based. For this thesis, three interrelated studies were conducted to comprehensively examine scaling of a professional development EBP, Quality Teaching Rounds (QTR), to determine the value of IS for scaling interventions in schools. The first study located the research in the field by conducting a scoping review of the extent and form of IS use in school settings. The second study examined the value of IS for scaling in schools by investigating the differential implementation of QTR in 119 New South Wales public schools. This study was critical to my larger project because scalability is ultimately about implementing in multiple schools. The third study took the form of a trial methodology for guiding implementation of QTR in one school in a challenging environment. This case study employed a limited range of IS tools to support implementation of QTR, based on insights from the two earlier studies. The scoping review revealed limited rigorous and consistent use to date of the theories, models, and frameworks developed in IS to study and guide scaling of interventions, that were not health based, in school settings. Despite the wide range of tools available, the review established that a small number of IS tools was sufficient to study the scenarios likely to be encountered in schools. Taking the IS tools identified in the scoping review into the quantitative study of QTR implementation assisted in the identification of key factors associated with successful implementation. In the final study, insights from the two earlier studies provided a clear framework to guide the implementation of QTR in a school using IS, despite the complexities associated with serving a community experiencing high levels of disadvantage. Together, the studies demonstrated the importance of comprehensively addressing the complexity involved in implementation and scaling and, relatedly, the salience of context. Failing to adequately consider these two aspects of implementation has seen replication adopted as the major approach to scaling for many EBPs. When contexts closely match the implementation sites of efficacy trials, replication can be effective with the benefits of reduced costs and management time through economies of scale. However, as often occurs with schools, contexts differ significantly between sites, which necessitates a more customised approach to implementation if success at scale is to be achieved. The mixed results obtained from efforts to scale EBPs in school settings to date are likely a reflection of prior attempts to directly use replication across varying contexts. I argue that, based on the complexity and contexts involved, a holistic approach to scaling and implementation is required to adequately account for the substantial number of variables that need to be considered. The vast array of potential factors affecting implementation, and how they change and interact over time, makes it very difficult to determine which factors will be the most important for each pairing of intervention and context a priori. Adopting a holistic approach recognises that variables act together as a group and allows a comprehensive picture of implementation and scaling to be developed. IS can assist in the adoption of a holistic approach to implementation and scaling by providing the tools and processes required to create a comprehensive conceptual framework and process for guiding and studying implementation. A unifying framework that combines the implementation domains of context, determinants, implementation outcomes, and intervention outcomes and an implementation process that incorporates the temporal aspects of implementation is needed. Combining a limited number of tools from IS, it was demonstrated in the school case study that it is possible to develop a holistic approach to implementation to guide whole school improvement in a challenging setting. I call for further testing and refinement of my proposed framework and process to assist with future scaling of EBPs in school settings.
- Subject
- implementation science; scaling interventions; school settings; evidence-based practices
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/1510555
- Identifier
- uon:56427
- Rights
- Copyright 2024 Anthony Wayne Ryan
- Language
- eng
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