Teacher-level factors are theoretically linked to student outcomes in data-based instruction (DBI; Lembke et al., 2018). Professional development and ongoing support can increase teachers’ knowledge, skills, and beliefs related to DBI, as well as their instructional fidelity (McMaster et al., 2020). However, less is known about how each of these teacher-level factors influences student progress during an intervention. The purpose of this study was to examine the association between several important teacher-level factors—teachers’ writing instruction fidelity, knowledge and skills related to DBI, explicit writing orientation, and writing instruction self-efficacy—and students’ writing growth. Participants included 49 elementary teachers and their 118 students struggling with early writing skills. Using hierarchical linear modeling, we found a significant positive relation between DBI knowledge and skills and student writing growth, but no relation between writing instruction fidelity, writing orientation, or self-efficacy and student writing growth. Implications for writing instruction fidelity measurement in DBI and professional development related to teachers’ DBI knowledge and skills are discussed.
The purpose of this study was to examine the technical features of slopes produced from the curriculum-based measurement in writing (CBM-W) word dictation task. Seventy-nine elementary students with intensive learning needs responded to weekly word dictation probes across 20 weeks; responses were scored for correct letter sequences (CLS). Scores showed evidence of high reliability and sensitivity to growth in a short period. Linear mixed modeling revealed that students gained an average of 0.91 CLS for each additional week of instruction. Initial writing levels and growth rates did not significantly differ depending on students’ demographic characteristics. Based on these findings, we illustrate how word dictation slopes can be used as indicators of writing growth for students with intensive learning needs.
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