Motivational interviewing (MI) is applied in a variety of clinical and coaching models to promote behavior change, with increasing interest in its potential to optimize school-based implementation fidelity. Yet there has been less consideration of fidelity indicators for MI-embedded coaching and links to outcomes. We leveraged secondary data from…

Though emerging research supports the effectiveness of school-based coaching models utilizing motivational interviewing (MI), an examination of the specific drivers behind these effects is notably lacking in the prevention field. This study leveraged sequential analysis to examine how teachers' verbalization of change talk (i.e., language in…

The present study reports findings from a school-level randomized controlled trial (RCT) of the Double Check cultural responsivity and student engagement model. Consistent with the focus of this special issue on the conceptual and methodological advances for understanding contextual, identity, and cultural effects in intervention research, we…

Disparities in exclusionary discipline practices are well-documented; however, variation in Black students' disciplinary experiences across different racial and ethnic school compositions remains understudied. Utilizing a state-wide dataset (N = 769,050 students in J = 1296 schools), we examined student- and school-level factors that contribute to…

The current study provided voice to nominated exemplar classroom teachers in identifying malleable, discrete aspects of the classroom environment, teacher behavior and practices that define culturally responsive instruction. Interview data from a sample of 13 teachers was analyzed using a consensual qualitative research approach. Results provided…

Propensity score matching and weighting methods are often used in observational effectiveness studies to reduce imbalance between treated and untreated groups on a set of potential confounders. However, much of the prior methodological literature on matching and weighting has yet to examine performance for scenarios with a majority of treated…

High quality teacher-student interactions are critical for the healthy social-emotional, behavioral, and academic development of middle school students. However, few studies have explored patterns of teacher-student interactions in middle school classrooms or the relation between teacher-, classroom-, and school-level factors and patterns of…

A growing body of research documents the positive impacts of teacher coaching, but research contrasting the effectiveness of different coaching approaches is limited. This study contrasted paired coaching -- delivered to two teachers simultaneously -- with traditional coaching for individual in-service teachers. We examined the effects of these…

School mental health practitioners and researchers are increasingly concerned about educator job-related stress and its implications for teacher burnout, teaching efficacy, turnover, and student outcomes. Educators' collegial networks in their schools are natural resources for stress support, yet little is known about the extent to which educators…

Despite research linking teachers' occupational health to student outcomes, the processes through which these associations exist are unknown. In a sample of 516 teachers, four latent profiles of occupational health were identified, indicated by job stress, occupational burnout, and teaching self-efficacy: lowest occupational health (17%),…

Power in multilevel models remains an area of interest to both methodologists and substantive researchers. In two-level designs, the total sample is a function of both the number of level-2 (e.g., schools) clusters and the average number of level-1 (e.g., classrooms) units per cluster. Traditional multilevel power calculations rely on either the…

Multilevel structural equation (MSEM) models allow researchers to model latent factor structures at multiple levels simultaneously by decomposing within- and between-group variation. Yet the extent to which the sampling ratio (i.e., proportion of cases sampled from each group) influences the results of MSEM models remains unknown. This paper…

Students who experience teacher caring and high expectations (i.e., warm demand) are typically more engaged and successful at school. Yet, relative to White students, students of color tend to report lower levels of school social belonging and more distant relationships with their White teachers. Leveraging data from 179 6th-9th grade Measures of…

Scholars have developed culturally responsive frameworks and interventions to support educators as they aim to create inclusive and equitable classroom environments. Despite the number of frameworks on the topic, research on culturally responsive practices (CRPs) is limited by the lack of clear definitions or evidence on the effectiveness of…

National data have shown for decades that Black students experience more frequent and severe disciplinary actions that remove them from school (e.g., suspension), compared to their White peers. Despite extensive research documenting the sequelae associated with suspension (e.g., school drop-out and delinquency), there has been relatively scant…