Do As I Say, Not As I Do: An Examination of the Correspondence Between Direct and Indirect Adherence Assessments of Cover-Copy-Interventions

Although substantial research has examined school professionals’ treatment fidelity, few studies have directly investigated students’ intervention adherence. To date, no studies have explored students’ self-assessments of their intervention adherence. This study examined the correspondence between 88 third-grade students’ assessments of their adherence to a class-wide Cover-Copy-Compare spelling intervention and their permanent products. Additionally, it investigated whether outcomes on self-adherence assessments and permanent product reviews predicted their post-intervention spelling performance. Results indicated that students displayed high levels of adherence based on both self-adherence assessments and permanent product reviews. Furthermore, in the final model, students’ self-adherence assessments and pre-intervention spelling performance emerged as significant predictors of post-intervention spelling performance. Conversely, permanent product reviews did not significantly predict post-intervention spelling performance. These findings support the use of student self-assessments in the context of self-managed interventions, which have specific implications for the conceptualization of treatment integrity in future research.Impact StatementExamining how students adhere to interventions helps distinguish whether challenges stem from the design of the intervention or from how it was implemented, enabling more accurate interpretation of the outcomes. Student self-adherence assessments provide a practical and accessible means of evaluating fidelity in self-regulated interventions and may offer predictive value for outcomes beyond traditional treatment integrity measures.