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Channels of Change: Contrasting Network Mechanisms in the Use of Interventions

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American Journal of Community Psychology

Abstract

This study informs community science, and seeks to narrow the research-to-practice gap, by examining how the interpersonal networks within a setting influence individuals’ use of interventions. More specifically, it explores the role of two network mechanisms—cohesion and structural similarity—in urban elementary school teachers’ use of interventions designed to improve academic and behavioral outcomes for students. Lagged regression models examine how position in advice giving networks influenced weekly use of the daily report card and peer assisted learning by kindergarten through fourth grade teachers in three schools. Results indicate that intervention use spreads among teachers with similar patterns of advice-giving relationships (i.e., via structural similarity), rather than from teachers who are sources of advice (i.e., via cohesion). These results are consistent with findings in other settings, and suggest that researchers wishing to increase the use of an intervention should select change agents based on their patterns of their relationships, rather than on their direct connections.

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Notes

  1. Links to Learning introduced two additional intervention strategies to classroom teachers: the Good Behavior Game and the Good News Note. The Good Behavior Game was not included in the current study because Links to Learning research staff played an extensive role in introducing and supporting its use in teachers’ classrooms, thus contaminating teachers’ implementation. The Good News Note was not included in current study due to its low rate of adoption and use by teachers during the study period.

  2. These attendance rates demonstrate that information about the daily report card and peer assisted learning strategies were conveyed to the majority of teachers at the same time. In this case, because there was an effective formal mechanism for delivering information about each strategy, the influence of interpersonal networks on information delivery was largely irrelevant (Step 1 of Burt’s (1999) model). Thus, this study focuses only on the influence of interpersonal networks on strategy use (Step 2 of Burt’s (1999) model).

  3. Only frequencies of use of advice-givers are counted in the calculation of COHtsw because information and social pressure are expected to travel in one direction from advice-giver to advice-receiver.

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Acknowledgments

This research was funded by an NIMH National Research Service Award (PI: J.W. Neal, 1F32 MH081426-01A1) and conducted within the context of a larger NIMH intervention study (PI: Atkins, R01 MH073749). The University of Illinois at Chicago’s Institutional Review Board (Research Protocol #2005-0133) and Michigan State University’s Institutional Review Board (Research Protocol #09-758) have approved the study. We would to thank the Links to Learning team, Giannina Fehler-Cabral, and all teachers and staff at the three schools where the data were collected.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, 48824-1116, USA

    Jennifer Watling Neal

  2. Department of Sociology, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, USA

    Zachary P. Neal

  3. Institute for Juvenile Research, Department of Psychiatry, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL, 60608, USA

    Marc S. Atkins & Stacy L. Frazier

  4. Institute for Health Research & Policy, School of Public Health, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA

    David B. Henry

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  1. Jennifer Watling Neal
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Correspondence to Jennifer Watling Neal.

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Neal, J.W., Neal, Z.P., Atkins, M.S. et al. Channels of Change: Contrasting Network Mechanisms in the Use of Interventions. Am J Community Psychol 47, 277–286 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10464-010-9403-0

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