Examining the Dynamic Nature of Acceptability in a Performance Feedback Writing Intervention

Acceptability, or the perception that an intervention is appropriate, fair, and reasonable, is a critical construct to assess when implementing interventions (Kazdin, 1981). Despite original conceptualizations of acceptability as dynamic, or changing throughout intervention implementation (Foster & Mash, 1999; Schwartz & Baer, 1991), repeated acceptability assessments have been conducted up to only 9.26% of the time in intervention research (Silva et al., 2019). Studies that have previously conducted repeated assessments did not descriptively report or analyze differences in acceptability across sessions (e.g., DuBois et al., 2016; Raggi et al., 2009). No study to date has conducted dynamic assessments of acceptability with elementary school students receiving an intervention and analyzed the stability of acceptability ratings across sessions. The purpose of the present study was to address this gap in the literature by implementing a six-week performance feedback writing intervention with fourth-grade students while assessing acceptability after each session. Related outcomes (e.g., writing productivity and intervention comprehension) were also investigated as additional aims of the study. Results suggested that acceptability and comprehension did not significantly vary throughout intervention implementation. There was a statistically significant relationship between writing productivity and acceptability for each student throughout the intervention, further supporting the established relationship between intervention effectiveness and acceptability (e.g., Eckert et al., 2017; 2021). Taken together, these results do not support the prior claim that acceptability changes throughout intervention implementation. Additional research is necessary with other interventions and populations to increase the generalizability of these claims and further our conceptual understanding of acceptability as a construct.