Implementation and Sustainability of Positive Behavior Support in Elementary Schools

TLDR: In this article, the authors investigated what factors led to the successful implementation of Positive Behavior Support (PBS) in elementary schools and investigated the impact of the characteristics and types of communication networks on diffusion.

Abstract: Positive Behavior Support (PBS) is a school-wide discipline program designed to increase appropriate social behavior of students and create safe teaching and learning environments. A number of studies provide data demonstrating PBS is an evidencebased practice. It is not clear, however, why PBS is successfully implemented and sustained over time in some schools and not in others. The purpose of this study was to investigate what factors led to the successful implementation of PBS three years post training in elementary schools. Rogers’ (2003) Theory of Diffusion of Innovations was applied to view the impact of the characteristics and types of communication networks on diffusion. The components of the implementation process specifically examined were: a) levels of implementation of the features, b) school personnel’s perceptions of the characteristics of PBS, and c) types of communication networks. A mixed-methods approach was used. A four-step selection process was developed to categorize 16 southwestern public elementary schools into high and low implementer groups. Two demographically similar schools were chosen from each implementation group for case-studies. Interviews, surveys, school and classroom observations, and reviews of archival records were