Science IDEAS Online

Science IDEAS Achievement Grades & Implementation Fidelity

Related References

Florida-Assigned School Achievement Grades for Science IDEAS Schools

The table in the Related References shows the levels of achievement for Science IDEAS schools assigned each year by the Florida Department of Education. These school grades are based primarily on the achievement of students from different demographic strata of the state-administered Florida Comprehensive Assessment Tests (FCAT) focusing primarily on reading and mathematics. FCAT science is assessed only in grades 5 and 8.

Fidelity of Implementation for the Science IDEAS Model Across the Multi-Year NSF/IERI Project

Fidelity of implementation is a critical element of any school-based instructional intervention. Within a scale-up context, the implementation fidelity is directly relevant to the question of whether the instructional model is feasible for use in school settings. In the Science IDEAS project, this concern was the focus of teacher professional development, classroom support, and principal leadership initiatives.

The effectiveness of this focus is documented in the implementation fidelity findings summarized in the table in the Related References. These reported implementation fidelity results were obtained through a combination of teacher surveys and structured classroom visits by project staff at specified times during the school year. Reliability of the observations was established by having two staff members observe a sample of classrooms as part of the fidelity assessment process. An important component was to develop the capacity of principles to implement a fidelity assessment process in their schools, although principal data are not included in the table below. However, this effort resulted a strong correlation between the fidelity ratings of project staff and school principals.


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