University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA.
Eval Health Prof. 2024 Jun;47(2):219-229. doi: 10.1177/01632787241247853.
Despite the millions of dollars awarded annually by the United States Department of Education to build implementation capacity through technical assistance (TA), data on TA effectiveness are severely lacking. Foundational to the operationalization and consistent research on TA effectiveness is the development and use of standardized TA core competencies, practices, and structures. Despite advances toward a consistent definition of TA, a gap still exists in understanding how these competencies are used within an operationalized set of TA practices to produce targeted outcomes at both individual and organizational levels to facilitate implementation of evidence-based practices. The current article describes key insights derived from the evaluation of an operationalized set of TA practices used by a nationally funded TA center, the State Implementation & Scaling Up of Evidence Based Practices (SISEP) Center. The TA provided by the Center supports the uptake of evidence-based practices in K-12 education for students with disabilities. Lessons learned include: (1) the need to understand the complexities and dependencies of operationalizing TA both longitudinally and at multiple levels of the system (state, regional, local); (2) the relative importance of building general and innovation-specific capacity for implementation success; (3) the value of using a co-design and participatory approach for effective TA delivery; (4) the need to develop TA providers' educational and implementation fluency across areas and levels of the system receiving TA; and (5) the need to ensure coordination and alignment of TA providers from different centers. Gaining an understanding into optimal TA practices will not only provide clarity of definition fundamental to TA research, but it will also inform the conceptual framing and practice of TA.
尽管美国教育部每年拨款数百万美元通过技术援助（TA）来建立实施能力，但关于 TA 有效性的数据却严重缺乏。TA 有效性的操作化和持续研究的基础是制定和使用标准化的 TA 核心能力、实践和结构。尽管在 TA 的一致定义方面取得了进展，但在理解这些能力如何在操作化的 TA 实践集中使用，以在个人和组织层面产生有针对性的结果，从而促进循证实践的实施方面，仍然存在差距。本文描述了从对一个国家级资助的 TA 中心（State Implementation & Scaling Up of Evidence Based Practices [SISEP] 中心）使用的一组操作化的 TA 实践的评估中得出的关键见解。该中心提供的 TA 支持在残疾学生的 K-12 教育中采用循证实践。所吸取的经验教训包括：（1）需要了解在多个系统层面（州、地区、地方）纵向操作化 TA 的复杂性和依赖性；（2）为实施成功建立通用和创新特定能力的相对重要性；（3）使用共同设计和参与式方法进行有效 TA 交付的价值；（4）需要在接受 TA 的系统各个领域和层面培养 TA 提供者的教育和实施能力；（5）需要确保来自不同中心的 TA 提供者之间的协调和一致性。深入了解最佳 TA 实践不仅将为 TA 研究提供基本定义的清晰度，而且还将为 TA 的概念框架和实践提供信息。
