Abstract
Background: Employee behaviors that strategically support implementation (i.e., implementation citizenship behavior) are hypothesized to promote the successful adoption and high-fidelity use of evidence-based practices (EBPs). Implementation citizenship behaviors may vary across contexts, including schools where children and youth are most likely to access and receive mental and behavioral health services. Extension and validation of pragmatic measures are needed to advance nascent research on—and ultimately inform how to leverage best—school-based implementation citizenship behavior. The current study expanded the Implementation Citizenship Behavior Scale (ICBS) to create and validate the School Implementation Citizenship Behavior Scale (SICBS) in a sample of elementary school personnel implementing one of two widely used and evidence-based prevention programs to support children’s mental and behavioral health.
Methods: A sample of 441 public school teachers from 52 elementary schools in the Midwest and Western United States of America completed a survey that included the SICBS, expanded to include two new subscales (taking initiative, advocacy), and additional measures to assess convergent and divergent validity. SICBS was refined and validated via (1) examination of item characteristics curves to reduce items and develop a pragmatic instrument, (2) confirmatory factor analyses to evaluate the hypothesized measurement structure, and (3) assessment of convergent and divergent validity.
Results: The original two ICBS subscales (helping others, keeping informed) were retained, and two new three-item subscales resulted from item reduction analyses (taking initiative, advocacy). The hypothesized second-order factor model was well fit to the data (CFI = .99, TLI = .99, RMSEA = .11), all first- (λs = .85-.96) and second-order factor loadings (λs = .93-.95) were high. All four SICBS subscales demonstrated acceptable reliability (αs = .88-.92). Convergent validity was evidenced by moderate correlations with organizational citizenship behavior items (rs = .42-.49). Divergent validity was demonstrated by weak correlations with teachers’ beliefs about teaching (rs = .31-.38) and null correlations with most school demographics.
Conclusion: Results support the structural, convergent, and divergent validity of the 12-item, 4-factor SICBS. The SICBS provides a deeper understanding of individual implementer actions that may serve as implementation mechanisms or outcomes.