Teacher Professional Identity as the Human Infrastructure of Multi-Tiered Systems of Support in Secondary Schools

Instructional Capacity and the Fragmentation of Adolescent Literacy Support

Many secondary educators report feeling underprepared to address the complex literacy needs of adolescent learners, particularly when students require support beyond general comprehension strategies and need more explicit instruction in the skills necessary to access grade-level text (Capin et al., 2024; Savitz et al., 2024). At the secondary level, literacy demands become increasingly specialized as students are expected to read, interpret, and apply discipline-specific texts across English language arts, science, social studies, mathematics, and other content areas (Drew & Thomas, 2022; Savitz et al., 2024). However, when students lack the foundational reading skills needed to access these texts, responsibility for literacy support is often shifted primarily to reading interventionists, special educators, or other specialized support personnel. This does not suggest that all secondary teachers should provide intensive reading intervention within core instruction. Rather, it highlights the need for coordinated systems in which general education teachers, interventionists, special educators, and support staff share responsibility for identifying literacy needs, reinforcing targeted skills, and aligning instructional responses across settings (Capin et al., 2024; Drew & Thomas, 2022; Polirstok & Hogan, 2024).

In this context, fragmented literacy instruction refers to the separation of literacy support into disconnected instructional spaces, where core classroom instruction, intervention services, and data-based decision-making operate independently rather than as part of a coherent MTSS framework (Gallagher et al., 2023). This fragmentation can weaken the connection between what students experience in intervention and what they are expected to do in general education classrooms. Research on secondary literacy and MTSS implementation emphasizes that intervention is more likely to support meaningful student outcomes when evidence-based reading practices are embedded within coordinated systems of assessment, instruction, progress monitoring, and professional collaboration (Capin et al., 2024; Polirstok & Hogan, 2024). When literacy support is viewed as the responsibility of only a few specialized staff members, the MTSS framework is less likely to function as an integrated system, and intervention strategies may have less influence on sustained student outcomes.

The consequences of these gaps are far-reaching. Students with underdeveloped literacy skills often struggle to engage meaningfully with academic texts, leading to increased risk of academic failure and disengagement (Rodriguez et al., 2022; Werth, 2023). Without targeted and coordinated literacy support, these students may be misidentified for special education services or relegated to lower academic tracks, exacerbating inequities (Stein, 2023). Furthermore, fragmented literacy implementation can erode teacher confidence and reduce investment in MTSS initiatives. As noted by Dawes et al. (2020), effective secondary MTSS depends on educator buy-in, strategic collaboration, and data-informed instructional responses, none of which can occur when literacy instruction is perceived as someone else's job. Thus, a shift toward collective ownership and shared accountability is essential, not because every teacher is expected to provide the same kind of reading instruction, but because sustainable MTSS implementation requires literacy support to be coordinated, reinforced, and understood across the secondary system.

Systemic and Instructional Constraints in Secondary MTSS Implementation

Although the MTSS framework is designed to deliver systematic, tiered support for all students, its application in secondary schools often encounters structural conditions that complicate coordinated implementation. Durrance (2022) emphasized that misaligned schedules, competing instructional priorities, and siloed departmental structures frequently obstruct coordination among educators. Unlike elementary settings, where a single teacher may oversee multiple subjects, secondary schools require collaboration across departments, which is often hindered by scheduling misalignment and limited shared planning time (Weingarten et al., 2019). As Weingarten et al. (2019) asserted, this lack of organizational coherence limits schools’ ability to align interventions across disciplines and contributes to inconsistent implementation. Furthermore, high student-to-teacher ratios and limited personnel trained in MTSS delivery can intensify implementation challenges, particularly when schools lack interventionists with sufficient literacy expertise.

In addition to structural barriers, instructional obstacles can limit sustained MTSS implementation at the secondary level. Dawes et al. (2020) found that professional development is often inadequate, lacking both the duration and relevance needed to foster long-term instructional shifts. Many secondary educators report limited preparation in adolescent literacy instruction and feel underprepared to implement interventions with fidelity, particularly when they are not literacy specialists themselves (Savitz et al., 2024). Stark et al. (2024) further suggested that teachers frequently experience initiative fatigue, especially when new practices are introduced without sufficient support or autonomy. This can lead to surface-level adoption of MTSS strategies, where implementation is driven more by external compliance than professional investment. Ultimately, these instructional constraints, coupled with logistical barriers, can weaken the coherence and sustainability of the MTSS framework in secondary schools.

Recent empirical studies reinforce the complexity of MTSS implementation while also clarifying what remains underexplored. Santiago et al. (2025), using implementation data from 225 schools, found that academic and behavioral MTSS measures reflected an overall implementation factor, yet that factor was not associated with school-level achievement. This finding suggests that measuring MTSS structures alone may not fully explain how implementation translates into meaningful educational outcomes. Similarly, Ormiston et al. (2025) found that practitioners using MTSS for school-based mental health reported uncertainty in identifying students for services and delivering Tier 2 and Tier 3 supports, particularly in relation to special education. Lawson et al. (2024) further demonstrated that teachers’ intentions to use Tier 1 and Tier 2 behavioral interventions did not consistently align with their self-reported use. Together, these studies show that recent MTSS research continues to document implementation variability, uncertainty, and gaps between intended and enacted practice. However, these findings also point to a continuing need to examine how educators understand, internalize, and enact MTSS in practice, particularly in secondary settings where implementation depends on coordination across roles, disciplines, and instructional contexts.

The Role of Professional Identity in Instructional Change

Research directly connecting TPI to MTSS remains limited, yet emerging scholarship has highlighted the importance of teacher identity in shaping how educators respond to instructional change. For the purposes of this study, TPI is conceptualized as teachers’ internalized perception of themselves as professionals, encompassing autonomy, instructional competence, and relational connectedness (Mylrea et al., 2019; Ryan & Deci, 2017). These dimensions are particularly relevant in the context of system-level change, where educators are expected to adapt their instructional practices within the complex work of MTSS implementation.

A growing body of literature suggests that when teachers perceive themselves as empowered and professionally capable, they are more likely to participate meaningfully in instructional change and sustain new practices over time (Kaplan, 2021). For instance, studies have found that teachers’ perceived autonomy is associated with increased motivation and job satisfaction, both of which can influence the depth of professional investment (Ingersoll & Tran, 2023). Likewise, relational trust among colleagues and school leaders has been shown to support stronger collaboration and commitment to shared instructional goals (Brown et al., 2021).

While these studies do not focus on MTSS specifically, they highlight the broader role of professional identity in facilitating or constraining implementation. Chisholm et al. (2019) emphasized that professional identity evolves in response to institutional culture, support structures, and opportunities for shared leadership. In school contexts where teacher voice is supported and expertise is recognized, educators are more likely to see themselves as active agents in change efforts rather than passive recipients of externally directed initiatives. This dynamic is important to consider in secondary MTSS implementation, which often requires sustained professional commitment, coordinated collaboration, and adaptive instructional practice.

Research Gaps and Study Significance

Recent MTSS research continues to emphasize systems-level concerns, including implementation structures, fidelity measures, intervention delivery, and barriers to enactment. Empirical studies have strengthened understanding of how MTSS implementation is shaped by coordination across academic and behavioral domains, uncertainty in service delivery, and gaps between teachers’ intended and reported use of tiered practices (Lawson et al., 2024; Ormiston et al., 2025; Santiago et al., 2025). Collectively, this research underscores the importance of coherent structures, shared expectations, usable intervention tools, and reliable systems for matching students to support. What remains less understood is how teachers experience these systems from within, particularly how their professional identities are associated with the ways they interpret, internalize, and sustain MTSS work.

This gap is especially important in secondary literacy contexts, where implementation demands require technical knowledge, instructional judgment, and sustained professional investment. Teachers must navigate multiple tiers of support, adapt instruction in real time, collaborate across roles, interpret student data, and respond to adolescent literacy needs within complex school structures. These demands require more than procedural knowledge or compliance with an intervention framework. They require educators to see themselves as capable, agentic, and relationally connected professionals whose instructional decisions matter within the larger system of support. Yet few studies prioritize the lived experiences of classroom educators or examine how autonomy, competence, and relatedness may relate to perceived MTSS implementation (Epler, 2019).

Taken together, the literature suggests that secondary MTSS implementation depends not only on the presence of intervention structures but also on the professional conditions that shape how educators participate in those structures. Prior research has documented barriers related to scheduling, collaboration, professional learning, intervention delivery, and implementation fidelity. However, less attention has been given to how teachers’ perceptions of autonomy, competence, and relatedness may influence the way they make sense of and sustain MTSS practices in daily instruction. The present study extends this line of inquiry by examining TPI in relation to literacy-focused secondary MTSS implementation, offering insight into a dimension of implementation that remains underdeveloped in the existing literature.

Autonomy as Instructional Alignment and Identity Ownership

The most prominent finding from the quantitative phase was the strength of the association between autonomy and perceived MTSS implementation. Regression analysis identified autonomy as the strongest statistically significant predictor of reported MTSS implementation, positioning autonomy as an important feature of how teachers described engaging with MTSS work. Within the context of SDT, autonomy refers not simply to freedom from external control but to an individual's perception of volition and alignment with personal values (Ryan & Deci, 2017). In this study, autonomy emerged not as abstract agency but as an instructional phenomenon in which teachers exercised autonomy by aligning their MTSS practices with their pedagogical beliefs, student needs, and professional responsibilities.

Qualitative participants described meaningful MTSS implementation as closely connected to their ability to adapt practices to the contours of their instructional contexts. Rather than treating MTSS as a prescriptive model, participants framed implementation as a process of aligning intervention decisions with student needs, pedagogical beliefs, and local realities. This finding echoes Vermote et al. (2024) and Mylrea et al. (2019), who suggest that sustained implementation improves when educators perceive ownership over implementation decisions.

Autonomy also appeared in participants’ descriptions of advocacy, problem-solving, and responsiveness within imperfect systems. This agency aligns with Cong-Lem's (2024) description of teacher agency as purposeful action in response to local constraints and opportunities. In this study, teachers who reported greater autonomy also described stronger confidence and investment in MTSS, challenging compliance-oriented approaches that minimize teacher discretion.

However, the findings also complicate an overly optimistic interpretation of autonomy. Autonomy appeared productive when it was paired with shared expectations, collaborative expertise, and usable intervention structures. Without those supports, autonomy risks becoming an individualized burden rather than a source of professional agency. This distinction is important in light of secondary MTSS research documenting persistent structural barriers, including misaligned schedules, limited intervention time, uneven access to trained personnel, and difficulty aligning supports across departments (Durrance, 2022; Weingarten et al., 2019). In this sense, the present study extends prior implementation research by suggesting that teacher autonomy may help educators navigate MTSS, but it cannot compensate for systems that leave teachers to create coherence on their own.

Competence as a Collaborative and Evolving Construct

While competence did not emerge as a statistically significant predictor in the regression model, its correlation with perceived MTSS implementation and prominence in participant narratives suggest a more nuanced role. Within SDT, competence refers to one's perceived ability to meet demands and achieve desired outcomes (Ryan & Deci, 2017). Yet participants did not frame competence as an isolated or fixed trait. Instead, they described it as a socially situated and continually evolving capacity shaped through collaboration, reflection, and iterative practice.

Teachers described their MTSS competence as growing over time and becoming situated within collegial relationships. Their understanding of Tier 2 intervention design, data interpretation, and instructional adaptation became clearer through sustained dialogue, co-planning, peer coaching, and cross-role teaming. These findings align with Hornstra et al. (2023), who argue that instructional competence develops within professional communities, and with Cong-Lem's (2024) review of teacher agency as shaped through collaborative learning and reflective cycles. In this study, competence emerged as dynamic professional capacity that teachers refined through shared problem-solving, collaborative reflection, and repeated application in practice rather than through isolated individual mastery.

The relationship between competence and MTSS implementation points to a layered explanation. Although competence correlated with participants’ perceived MTSS implementation, it did not remain a significant predictor in the regression model. This suggests that competence may matter most when activated through shared professional learning, common language, and coherent instructional tools. This nuance is especially important in secondary literacy contexts, where evidence-based reading practices may be unevenly understood or inconsistently observed in classroom instruction (Stark et al., 2024). Within this study, competence operated as distributed professional capacity, strengthened when collaborative structures were anchored in substantive literacy knowledge and usable MTSS routines.

Relatedness as Professional Reciprocity for Sustainable Implementation

The third key finding concerns the role of relatedness, which emerged as a statistically significant but less robust predictor in the regression model and appeared as a dominant theme in the qualitative data. SDT defines relatedness as the need to feel connected to others in meaningful and supportive ways (Ryan & Deci, 2017). In the context of MTSS, relatedness manifested not through superficial collegiality but through professional reciprocity, relationships characterized by mutual trust, shared accountability, and collective investment in student success.

Participants repeatedly emphasized that MTSS implementation was rooted in their relationships with colleagues. These relationships provided emotional support during moments of frustration, cognitive reinforcement during decision-making, and motivational anchoring during periods of fatigue. Teachers described how shared belief in the value of the work created a sense of solidarity that sustained their efforts, even when structural barriers persisted. These findings echo the concept of relational equity, wherein trust and respect are not only desirable workplace conditions but functional necessities for instructional innovation (Geduld, 2023).

Importantly, relatedness was not confined to formal collaboration structures such as professional learning communities or data teams. Teachers spoke of hallway conversations, spontaneous co-reflections, and shared texts as powerful relational spaces that sustained their commitment and instructional responsiveness within MTSS implementation. This distinction is important because participation in formal collaboration alone does not guarantee relational reciprocity. Instead, systems must cultivate the conditions under which authentic professional relationships can develop, including time, trust, and collective efficacy rather than relying primarily on accountability checklists or performance metrics.

Collectively, the findings related to relatedness challenge deficit-based narratives that place the burden of implementation challenges on individual teachers. Participants’ accounts suggest that MTSS implementation is experienced as a socially constructed endeavor, where trust, shared accountability, and collective investment shape how educators sustain the work. In this sense, relational capacity operates as more than a supportive condition. It becomes part of the human infrastructure through which MTSS is enacted.

Teacher Professional Identity as the Human Infrastructure of MTSS

Taken together, these findings advance a more holistic understanding of what is associated with teachers’ reported MTSS implementation in secondary schools. Autonomy reflects instructional ownership, competence develops through socially embedded learning, and relatedness sustains professional commitment through reciprocal trust and shared responsibility. These dimensions are not external supplements to implementation. Rather, they shape how educators interpret their roles, make instructional decisions, and maintain investment in tiered systems of support. Rather than treating professional identity as incidental, the findings suggest that TPI may be important for understanding the depth and sustainability of teachers’ reported engagement with MTSS.

This reconceptualization does not replace structural fidelity with professional identity. Rather, it clarifies the interdependence between technical and human infrastructure. Prior MTSS research has documented that implementation may falter when schools lack coherent schedules, intervention time, role clarity, trained personnel, or aligned systems for using data (Durrance, 2022; Weingarten et al., 2019). The present findings do not contradict that literature. Instead, they add explanatory depth by showing how teachers’ professional identity may shape the way educators experience and respond to those conditions. Strong TPI may support persistence, adaptation, and collaborative problem-solving, but it cannot fully offset structural incoherence. Conversely, technically sound MTSS systems may still become compliance-oriented if educators do not experience autonomy, competence, and relatedness within them. The contribution of this study, therefore, is not to privilege identity over structure but to argue that sustainable MTSS implementation depends on the interaction between both.

The implications of these findings extend beyond the secondary literacy context. Although this study is situated within a U.S. policy environment and a Minnesota sample, its emphasis on TPI may have conceptual relevance for other educational contexts where schools are working to implement tiered, inclusive, or data-informed systems of student support. The specific terminology, policy expectations, and resource structures may vary across systems. However, the underlying implementation challenges identified in this study, including teacher agency, instructional capacity, collaboration, and relational trust, are not geographically bound. In this way, the study offers a useful lens for considering how educator identity relates to system-level reform efforts in varied educational settings, particularly when interpreted in relation to local policy structures, school organization, resource conditions, and cultural expectations for teacher professionalism.

As policymakers and educational leaders work to scale evidence-based frameworks, the findings caution against treating either structural fidelity or teacher identity as sufficient on its own. Protocols, assessments, and intervention schedules may provide necessary infrastructure, but they may not lead to meaningful implementation if teachers experience the work as externally imposed, professionally isolating, or misaligned with student needs. Likewise, strong professional identity and commitment to students may be constrained by schedules, staffing, resources, or intervention designs that limit what teachers can enact. Leadership practices, policy design, and professional learning should therefore attend to the interaction between reform structures and teachers’ professional identities. In MTSS design, this means recognizing teacher expertise, cultivating agency, strengthening collaborative capacity, and creating conditions in which educators can sustain the work as part of their professional practice.