Much conversation at the national level has focused on the importance of maintaining a 1:500 school psychologist to student ratio when school psychologists are tasked with practicing within the comprehensive school psychologist role (National Association of School Psychologists [NASP], 2020b). Data on ratios is currently reported in most of the…

Compassion fatigue refers to the negative consequences associated with working with traumatized individuals. When a crisis occurs, school psychologists are often the first to respond to the mental health needs of the children, frequently exposing them to the intimate details of the crisis and increasing the risk of compassion fatigue. The aim of…

Social justice has become a common goal in school psychology, including in practice guidelines. However, there is a paucity of research reflecting a representative sample of US practitioners providing input on key social justice competency areas and how frequently they employ these competencies. Utilizing a national sample of 145 practitioners,…

We are in the midst of a youth mental health crisis. Yet, many children and adolescents who need services do not have access to high-quality mental health care. This is especially true for low-income and economically marginalized families and youth of color. Schools offer an ideal setting in which children and adolescents can access services;…

In this exploratory study, we adapted items from a previously developed measure of job satisfaction, the Measure of Job Satisfaction (MJS), an instrument first developed for use with community nurses in the UK, to create a brief, 15-item instrument (Job Satisfaction--Brief) applicable to practitioners of school psychology from Pennsylvania (N =…

How can school psychologists effectively address and respond to the myriad needs of students in our nation's schools? As these needs are ever-growing and diversifying, should the profession of school psychology consider mirroring this diversification through the promotion of specialized skill sets? Such efforts would echo the development of…

This study explored school psychologists' practices in the areas of developing behavior intervention plans (BIPs), conducting functional behavior assessments (FBAs), and behavioral consultation. Practitioners were asked to rate their level of confidence in the implementation with fidelity of the last BIP they developed. Relationships between these…

Surveys of trainers in school psychology have been administered to examine training competencies and content delivered to school psychology trainees. Surveys of practitioners working with school psychology trainees are limited as discussed by Lewis et al. (2005). The purpose of this exploratory study is to seek to understand the perceptions of…

Although research suggests that school psychologists are generally satisfied with their experiences in the field, scholars have yet to examine how exposure to racial microaggressions, or subtle race-based insults, may impact satisfaction. The purpose of the current study was to examine the relation between exposure to microaggressions and…

Clinical reasoning is a complex process whereby psychologists review a large amount of data to generate diagnostic conclusions. Limited research has studied clinical reasoning specific to psychoeducational assessment. In this study, we used a think-aloud protocol to examine trainees' and licensed practitioners' clinical reasoning as they completed…

In our previous article, Concentrations in School Psychology: Can specialization empower the evolution of the profession? (Starling, Elias & Coleman 2019), we reflected on how school psychologists can effectively address and respond to the myriad needs of our nation's ever-changing schools. In this article, we revisit training, specifically in…

Understanding the existing discrepancy between school psychologist engagement in systems-level consultation and the ascribed importance of such practice is likely multifaceted. Barriers, such as time spent in assessment, limited training in consultation, and high caseloads, are known to reduce the possibilities and opportunities for school…

School psychologists often have reason to suspect that students may not be putting forth full effort during diagnostic tests, or that questionnaire or rating scale data are not credible. However, such suspicions must be tested carefully to yield data-based conclusions. Structured, empirically supported methods for assessing the "response…

As school psychologists help teachers plan and implement classroom behavior management interventions, teacher perspectives on these interventions are vital to consider. To better understand teacher perspectives on a well-established, effective intervention, this study analyzed teacher responses to the Good Behavior Game (GBG; Barrish et al.,…

Given the shortage of school psychologists, especially in rural areas, school psychology programs are beginning to emerge that provide students with the opportunity to attend classes through distance education (DE) methods (i.e., virtually). Despite many school psychology students and faculty holding negative perceptions of DE methods, the use of…