Violence Prevention Staff Interview

Attachment D
Violence Prevention Staff
Interview Guide

Violence Prevention Staff Interview Guide
I. OBJECTIVES
The main purpose of our interviews with the Violence Prevention staff is to gather information on
the implementation of the RiPP program. Our objectives include:
•
•
•
•
•

To briefly learn about the staff member’s background and violence prevention roles
To learn how staff in each school have implemented RiPP, including challenges faced
and “lessons learned”
To assess fidelity of implementation, and adaptations
To gather staff impressions on training and technical assistance received
To gather staff impressions on how well RiPP and Best Behavior have fit together, and
with other programs

II. INTRODUCTION
We are interested in the implementation of the Responding in Peaceful and Positive Ways—
or RiPP—program your school. We are talking to selected teachers from each grade level to
better understand your experiences, both positive and negative. We know you are very busy
and we really appreciate your time and help.
We value the information you will share with us and want to make sure we capture all of it, as
accurately as possible. We will both be taking notes and audiotaping this interview. If at any
time you would like to tell us something in private, we will be happy to turn off the recorder.
Information we collect will be summarized across all schools. We will not use your name or
quote you, or identify your school. Is that all OK with you?
Before we begin, do you have any questions?

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III. INTERVIEW TOPICS AND RELATED PROBES
A.

Background and role of respondent
Please tell me about your background, training, and experience.
1. How long have you been teaching? How long have you been teaching at this school?
2. What grade levels do you usually teach?
3. What role or roles do you play in your school’s violence prevention efforts? How many
different classes do you teach RiPP to? Are you involved in the School Management
Team? Are you involved in violence prevention in this school in any other ways?
4. Prior to RiPP, had you ever implemented violence prevention programs or curricula? If
yes, which programs? How many years? How often did you teach it during each year
(hours/week, sessions/week)?
5. Prior to RiPP, had you received any training or other professional development related
to violence prevention? If yes, what type of training? How many hours?

B.

RiPP implementation experiences, challenges, and impressions
Please tell me about your experiences teaching RiPP, so far.
1. How long have you been delivering the RiPP program? How many sessions have you
delivered, approximately? In what grade levels have you delivered RiPP?
2. How often do you teach the RiPP materials (# sessions/week)? How long does each
session generally last (minutes/session)? Is this amount of time usually enough to
cover all of the lesson or not enough?
3. About how many hours per week do you spend preparing for teaching RiPP in a typical
week?
4. How comfortable are you in teaching the RiPP materials?
5. What is going well?
6. What are the major challenges that you face in teaching the RiPP material and working
with the students?
7. How have you addressed those challenges? Are there any challenges that you have
not been able to address?
8. What lessons have you learned from your work with RiPP so far?
9. Do you plan to do anything differently next semester?
10. Generally, how engaged have students been with the RiPP lessons?

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11. Are there specific activities or topics that students have trouble with? How do you think
the program could be improved to address the students’ challenges?
12. In general, do you think the RiPP curriculum is appropriate for the students you are
teaching? If not, what aspects should be changed, and how?
13. In general, have you found RiPP activities and tasks to be developmentally appropriate
for the grade level(s) you teach?
14. Have you received any feedback related to RiPP from students or parents? Or from
others?
Use in follow-up years only
15. Is this your first or [second] [third] time teaching RiPP? If [second] [third] time, did you
teach the same or different grade level than the previous time? If a different grade, did
you find the lessons and activities repetitive from one grade level to the other? What
about students? Do you believe they found it repetitive from the previous years?

C.

Fidelity and adaptation
1.

What can you tell me about the RiPP philosophy and objectives? What would you
say are the critical elements? Also, please tell me about any challenges you
encountered in conveying those critical elements, and how you handled those
challenges.

2.

How much were you able to make use of the following RiPP approaches or
techniques in delivering the RiPP sessions? For each one, please tell me if you
never, sometimes, often, or always made use of the technique or approach.
Never
–

Sometimes
–

Often
–

Always
–

a.

Making RiPP real – tying it to students’
daily life ................................................................ a .............. b.............. c............. d

b.

Having students role play ..................................... a .............. b.............. c............. d

c.

Having students work in small groups ................. a .............. b.............. c............. d

d.

Emphasizing the importance of “self talk” ........... a .............. b.............. c............. d

e.

Using Review to begin sessions and Closure
to end them ......................................................... a .............. b.............. c............. d

3.

Also, please tell me about any challenges you encountered in using these
approaches, and how you handled those challenges.
•
Making RiPP real – tying it to students’ daily life
•
Having students role play
•
Having students work in small groups
•
Emphasizing the importance of “self talk”

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•

D.

Using Review to begin sessions and Closure to end them

4.

Did you encounter any difficulties in fitting all these elements into every lesson?
How often did you leave out any of them? Which ones? What were some of the
reasons for not including these elements?

5.

Have you covered the sessions in the recommended order? If not, how did you
change the order and why? How do you think the change in order affected the
delivery or effectiveness of the program?

6.

Did you change or adapt the content of the 16 RiPP lessons? Did you leave
anything out or add anything? If so, why? What? How?

7.

Did you change or adapt how you taught the lessons? If so, why? What? How? Did
you tend to teach the lessons in a didactic manner—that is, by means of lectures—or
interactively, engaging students in discussions?

8.

Are there any particular school or student characteristics—such as race/ethnicity
or special needs—that affected how you implemented or adapted RiPP? If so,
please tell us about them.

Training and technical assistance
Now, I would like to ask you about the training and technical assistance you have
received as part of the study.
1.

How much training have you received on delivering RiPP?

2.

Did the training adequately prepare you for the program? If not, what could have
been improved?

3.

What particular aspects of the training were the most useful? The least useful?

4.

Have you received technical assistance in delivering RiPP? If so, on what? From
whom? How often?

5.

Was the TA useful? If not, what could have been improved?

6.

What particular aspects of the TA were the most useful? The least useful?

7.

How often have you interacted with the site monitor since you began teaching RiPP?
Have you sought any TA from this person? How available was the site monitor when
you needed TA?

8.

Would additional training or support be helpful? What kinds might be helpful, and
why?

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E.

RiPP, Best Behavior, and other programs
The last questions are about your school’s other violence prevention efforts.

IV.

1.

Are you aware of the school’s involvement with implementing the Best Behavior
program?

2.

How have you been made aware of activities for this program (e.g., school-wide
communications, in-service, banners)?

3.

Have you been directly involved with any of the Best Behavior activities? How?

4.

Have you received any in-service training for activities related to Best Behavior such
as classroom management, school rules, or reward system?

5.

To what extent do the RiPP and Best Behavior programs work together? Do they
complement each other? Are there inconsistencies or conflicts? If there are
inconsistencies or conflicts, do you have suggestions for addressing them?

6.

How have they fit in with any other programs, especially violence prevention
programs, that the school is using or has recently used? Do they complement the
other programs? Are there inconsistencies or conflicts?

DEBRIEFING

Thank you again for your time—the information you have provided is very helpful. Is there
anything we have not talked about that you would like to mention? Is there anything about
implementing RiPP in your school that we did not cover?

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