Introduction to Implementation Science
Each year, our schools establish outcome goals for academic proficiency, school climate, and college- and career- readiness, as well as strategies that help them meet these goals. While these outcome goals provide important insights into how our schools are performing, we also need insights into how well our schools are implementing their strategies in order to achieve these goals. Implementation science offers us a researched-based framework that helps pinpoint specific successes and challenges within the implementation process that may influence the effectiveness of new interventions and initiatives. Drawing from implementation science, we will take a deliberate approach to examining the implementation of school improvement strategies.
| Factor | Description | Mediators |
|---|---|---|
| Acceptability | Level of satisfaction with various parts of an intervention | Evidence strength; adaptability; stakeholder engagement; opinion leaders |
| Adoption | The spectrum of uptake, from intention to action, to try out an intervention | Complexity; tension for change; incentives; goals & feedback; self-efficacy |
| Appropriateness | The perceived relevance or fit of an intervention to an individual, organization, or setting | Intervention source; relative advantage; adaptability; culture; compatibility |
| Feasibility | The extent to which an intervention can be successfully carried out | Adaptability; infrastructure; planning; self-efficacy |
| Fidelity | The degree to which an intervention is implemented in the way that it was designed | Networks & communication; planning; internal and external change agents |
| Penetration | The extent to which an intervention is actually used or delivered within an organization | Organizational priorities; pressure from peers/policies; learning climate |
| Sustainability | The extent to which administrators or an organization is able to maintain broad use of the intervention | Cosmopolitanism; leadership engagement; networks & communication |
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