Faculty Publications and Presentations

Document Type

Article

Disciplines

Curriculum and Instruction | Education | Educational Assessment, Evaluation, and Research

Comments

This article was published in the Journal of Advanced Academics 2015, Vol. 26(2) 96-111. Permission has been granted by the Sage Publications (sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav) to upload this contribution to Liberty University’s scholarly repository. All Rights Secured. No copy of this file may be sold or reprinted in whole or in part. To purchase the entire journal issue that contains this contribution, please visit the website of the publication.

Abstract

In an environment of accountability, the development of evidence-based practices is expected. To demonstrate that a practice is evidence based, quality indicators of rigorous methodology should be present including indications that teachers implementing an intervention have done so with fidelity to its design. Because evidence-based practices assume fidelity of implementation (FOI), failure to establish FOI limits the conclusions that can be drawn from any outcome evaluation. This study surveys the gifted education literature to ascertain the degree to which FOI has been assessed, reported, and tied to measured outcomes in curriculum intervention efficacy studies and outcome evaluations. Of the 11 curriculum intervention studies included in this survey, each addressed FOI. The nature and quality of the methods used, however, to measure FOI, as well as the degree to which fidelity data were reported, varied widely among these studies, which suggests the need for increased methodological rigor in gifted curriculum research.

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