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Curriculum Implementation: A Conceptual 
Framework 
Investigating teachers’ implementation of a 
new curriculum is important to determine the 
effectiveness of a program in actual use and how 
close the program is implemented according to 
its original design or intention (Dobson & Shaw, 
1988; Dusenbury et al., 2003; Ormundson et al., 
2012). Efficacy studies of curriculum 
intervention often define, conceptualize, and 
measure fidelity to the extent to which 
participants understand and use the concepts in a 
curriculum as specified by curriculum 
developers (Gross & Merchlinsky, 2002; 
Johnson, 2000). O’Donnell’s (2008) extensive 

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GATEways to Teacher Education 
A journal of the Georgia Association of Teacher Educators 
VOLUME 14, ISSUE 1 
PAGE 25 
review of the literature from K-12 schools and 
public health settings identified levels of fidelity 
during implementation that impact effectiveness. 
Fidelity of implementation was found to have 
multiple but similar definitions of fidelity for K-
12 core curriculum interventions with frequent 
measures connected to instructional quality.
In a review of the literature concerned with 
fidelity of implementation in K-12 settings, 
O’Donnell (2008) identified four constructs that 
overlap: teaching, curriculum potential, 
curriculum-in-use or perceived curriculum, and 
adaptation. According to O’Donnell (2008), 
while fidelity of implementation is a relatively 
recent construct in K-12 curriculum intervention 
research, fidelity of implementation has been 
defined as the determination of how well an 
intervention is implemented in comparison with 
the original program design during an efficacy 
and/or effectiveness study. Measures of fidelity 
should indicate how an intervention is 
maintained consistently across multiple groups 
over time “or describe the parameters under 
which variations in the implementation may 
occur” (p. 54). K-12 curriculum implementation 
was found to encompass adherence and integrity 
to efficacy – “focusing on whether a program is 
implemented at all and to what degree” (p. 41) – 
and effectiveness – “interpreting evidence of 
effectiveness of the program for generalizability 
. . . and observing the implementation of the 
program in the field” (p. 42). Explicated as 
guiding questions, the four constructs below 
inform issues concerning fidelity of curriculum 
implementation and provide a framework for 
answering the first research question: 
1. Teaching: How does one distinguish 
good teaching and fidelity of 
implementation to good teaching 
practices prompted by the curriculum 
material? 
2. Curriculum profile: What are the critical 
components of the curriculum? What 
ranges of variations are acceptable?
What does it mean to implement the 
program with fidelity as defined by 
school administrators and county 
supervisors? 
3. Curriculum-in-use or perceived 
curriculum: How are the curriculum and 
the perceived curriculum viewed and 
implemented by teachers? How are 
curriculum materials and instruction 
mutually supportive and reinforcing? 
4. Adaptation: Does the curriculum 
promote variation and adaptation of 
curriculum implementation (O’Donnell, 
2008)? 
Taken together, these four constructs provide a 
framework through which to evaluate the 
implementation of a new curriculum.