Evidence-based drug prevention programs in schools are not always delivered to students as they were designed and evaluated by researchers. Few studies have examined the relationship between a program’s adherence to a developer’s original intentions and program outcomes. In this paper, the authors examine a substance abuse prevention program—Take Charge of Your Life—delivered by local Drug Abuse Resistance Education (D.A.R.E.) officer instructors. Data were collected by independent observers and from student surveys completed over a five-year period. The researchers focused their investigation on the instructors’ coverage of prescribed content and their adherence to appropriate instructional strategy.

Key Findings:

• Median scores indicated that instructors were stronger in adhering to appropriate content coverage than in using the correct instructional strategies, in particular those  that were highly interactive.
• The greater the adherence to the curricula and the prescribed engagement of the students, the more likely the program was to achieve its desired impact.

Researchers in this field of implementation fidelity have no standardized definitions or data collection methodologies to follow. The authors conclude by recommending that these standards be developed to help us understand how evidence-based programs are being delivered in the ‘real’ world.