Methods Used to Document Procedural Fidelity in School-Based Intervention Research

There has been a paucity of guidance on the methodological details needed for measuring and sampling the independent variable or actual intervention occurrences in research and practice. Furthermore, the planning and support necessary to document the independent variable in both circumstances may be considerable. The current study extends prior research by reviewing the methods used to document procedural fidelity in school-based intervention research with student participants published between 2005 and 2012 in journals known for publishing school-related intervention studies. Two hundred sixty-six articles met the inclusion criteria and the majority (70 %) used fidelity data in the analysis of intervention effectiveness. By systematically examining contributions of school-based intervention researchers across targeted variables as well as qualities of interventions and settings, suggestions can be made for (a) planning measurement of fidelity across phases of the intervention, (b) sampling fidelity occurrences, (c) preventing intervention failure by providing needed supports, and (d) responding to patterns of fidelity required for intervention and outcome measurement in both research and practice.