The Complexity of Procedural Fidelity in Precision Teaching: A Qualitative Analysis
Precision Teaching tolerates small slips, but dropping any core step wrecks the system.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Diffley et al. (2025) interviewed seasoned Precision Teachers.
They asked where you can bend the rules and where you must not.
The team coded every answer to map the must-do parts of PT.
What they found
Veterans say PT is a system, not a menu.
You can miss a beat here and there, but you cannot drop a whole step.
Skipping any piece breaks the data story and hides true growth.
How this fits with other research
Zitter et al. (2023) saw the same with ESDM: higher fidelity meant more child gains.
Halbur et al. (2024) proved that small sheet tweaks keep therapists on script.
Hineline (2005) adds the craft view: let the non-critical parts look nice and varied, but keep the core tight.
Together these papers say flexibility lives only outside the must-do core.
Why it matters
You can relax a little on timing or wording, yet you must hit every PT step.
Use a quick checklist before each session: chart, count, time, review.
If a step slips, fix it right then; do not wait. This keeps your data clean and your learner moving.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Abstract Precision Teaching (PT) is a system that involves precisely defining and measuring the frequency of behavior to facilitate timely and effective data-based decisions to accelerate behavioral repertoires (Evans et al., Behavior Analysis in Practice, 14(3), 559–576 2021). When combined with instruction and practice approaches, PT has demonstrated efficacy in accelerating learning in academic skills. However, its use in public schools is minimal. One reason for this may be the limited amount of research exploring teacher-implemented PT and how PT fits within the context of busy classrooms. Procedural fidelity is an important concept to consider when procedures are implemented in complex and uncontrolled environments. The present study employed qualitative methods to explore expert practitioners’ and researchers’ perspectives on procedural fidelity, fidelity errors, and their perceived impact when implementing PT. The data were thematically analyzed and are discussed with regard to three overarching themes and their subthemes: (a) The Complexity of Procedural Fidelity in PT, (b) Maintaining Fidelity without Losing Flexibility, and (c) It’s a System. This study is an initial exploration of expert perspectives on procedural fidelity in PT, which can help inform future quantitative evaluations of the impact of fidelity errors on participant outcomes. Findings suggest that participants believed PT is a flexible system tolerant of some fidelity errors but that no component of the system should be omitted completely. Implications of these findings for research and practice are discussed alongside the strengths and limitations of this study.
Behavior Analysis in Practice, 2025 · doi:10.1007/s40617-025-01050-3