Home Visitors' Conceptions of Effective Practice in Home Visiting
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Authors
Rahn, Ellen
Issue Date
2020
Type
Thesis
Language
Keywords
Alternative Title
Abstract
A mixed-method design was used to investigate home visitor conceptions on effective home visiting during a video-based professional development intervention. Home visitors (N = 5) employed by an Early Head Start-Home Based Option (EHS-HBO) program each recorded 8-14 of their home visits and met individually with a researcher four times overall. First, the home visitors answered open-ended pre-interview questions about effective home visiting. Second, they viewed a video segment from one of their home visits and answered open-ended questions regarding how they conceptualized effective home visiting after seeing the video. Next, the researcher shared with participants the results of scoring each video using two measures, a home visitor quality measure and a parent-child interaction measure and asked open-ended questions regarding how they conceptualized effective home visiting after being presented with the data related to the video of the home visit. The post-interview included the same pre-interview questions and three new questions related to experiencing this intervention. Within-case analysis suggested the video- and data-based intervention may enhance home visitors’ conceptions and prompt reflective thinking. The content of these interviews was also explored in order to understand what home visitors understand to be effective practice. Findings indicate the emergence of three themes: (a) individualization and flexibility in practice; (b) responsiveness to families; and (c) didactic approach in the triad. The present findings indicate the utility of using video and data assessments for home visiting programs and support their use for the professional development of home visitors.Keywords: home visitors, observation measures, professional development, reflective practice and thinking, video