 Dr. Hill Walker is a professor of Special Education, Co-Director of the Institute on Violence and Destructive Behavior, and Director of the Center on Human Development, in the College of Education at the University of Oregon. He has a longstanding interest in behavioral assessment and in the development of effective intervention procedures for use in school settings with a range of behavior disorders. He has been engaged in applied research during his entire career, dating from 1966. His research interests include social skills assessment, curriculum development and intervention, longitudinal studies of aggression and antisocial behavior, and the development of early screening procedures for detecting students who are at-risk for social-behavioral adjustment problems and/or later school drop-out.
Dr. Walker is the co-author, along with Herbert Severson, of Systematic Screening for Behavior Disorders (SSBD) (Sopris West, 1990); author of The Acting Out Child: Coping With Classroom Disruption (2nd ed., Sopris West, 1995); co-author, with Phillip Strain and Michael Guralnick, of Children's Social Behavior: Development, Assessment and Modification (Academic Press, 1986); co-author, with Geoffrey Colvin and Elizabeth Ramsey, of Antisocial Behavior in School: Strategies and Best Practices (Brooks/Cole, 1995); co-editor, with Michael Epstein, of Making Schools Safer and Violence Free: Critical Issues, Solutions, and Recommended Practices (PRO-ED, 2000); and co-editor, with Mark Shinn and Gary Stoner, of Interventions for Academic and Behavior Problems II: Preventive and Remedial Approaches (National Association of School Psychologists, 2002). His most recent books are the 2nd edition of Antisocial Behavior in School: Evidence-Based Practices (Wadsworth/Thomson Learning, 2004) co-authored with Elizabeth Ramsey and Frank Gresham; and Safe and Healthy Schools: Practical Prevention Strategies (Guilford, 2005) co-authored with Jeffrey Sprague. |
| Abstract: In the past decade, schools have come under increasing pressures to adopt evidence-based practices due primarily to federal legislation (e.g. the NCLB Act), greater demands for accountability and impact stemming from federal investments in research, and public concerns about the safety and security of students in school settings. It is now common to see lists of evidence-based programs, considered to be either promising or proven, compiled by such entities as the What Works Clearing House, Practice Guides sponsored by the Institute of Education Sciences, and Programs to Prevent School Violence developed by the American Psychological Association and the National School Safety Office. This presentation will focus on the emergence of evidence-based practices in education and discuss what they are, where we have been with respect to their use, where are we currently and where we need to go in order to adopt and use them effectively. Specific topics that will be addressed are as follows: 1) definitions of evidence based practices and the efficacy versus effectiveness distinction, 2) key characteristics of evidence based approaches, 3) criteria used to validate and classify intervention and practice approaches, 4) single case versus randomized control trials in determining efficacy-effectiveness, 5) examples of evidence-based interventions, and 6) resources and access information. |