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Data-Based Decision Making: Caveats and Concerns

| RTI Practices | Caveats and Concerns | School Examples |

School-based examples of data-based decision making, such as those presented in the School Examples section, are "real world" examples that represent current practices considered by most staff in their sites as "works in progress." In contrast, research studies may present a different picture of data-based decision making standards of quality (see Research Examples). Schools considering adopting a responsiveness-to-intervention model should consider the following points when undertaking data-based decision making in conjunction with their RTI process.

Data-based decision making is a difficult process that requires a strong infrastructure for all stages of implementation. For example, a school must decide which data are to be collected. A school must then develop a system to collect and record data. Finally, a school must determine how to analyze and evaluate the data to make decisions. Each school will determine its own system for creating decision points, and these will need to be continually evaluated. For example, a school may decide that all students who achieve a particular cut score on a screening measure will be placed into a Tier 2 intervention. The school will need to evaluate student outcomes that result from that decision rule.