There is currently an intense focus across our nation on reading and literacy, particularly an increased focus on preventing reading difficulties. This attention comes from diverse constituencies, including policy-makers, researchers, parents, specialists of all varieties (e.g., speech-language pathologists, reading specialists, psychologists),…

Latino children living in the United States are not faring well in an educational system that increasingly is turning to "high-stakes" exams to make important decisions in the lives of students. While some argue that these exams have the potential to equalize educational opportunity, we review information that challenges this view. In this article…

Personal and reflective writing assignments in psychology courses may prompt self-disclosure that presents ethical dilemmas. The literature discusses responsibilities of the psychologist in instances such as disclosure of suicidal ideation or threats of harming others within the context of the therapist-client relationship, but significantly less…

In their comments regarding Goodman, Liang, Helms, Latta, Sparks, and Weintraub's article "Training Counseling Psychologists as Social Justice Agents: Feminist and Multicultural Principles in Action," Kiselica, Palmer, Thompson and Shermis, and Watts offered a number of useful suggestions for elaborating on social justice theory,…

Adolescents are in crisis in school, home, and in the community. With an increasing array of problems, from alcohol and drug addiction to teenage pregnancy, the nation's youth are facing difficult challenges. In particular, family problems experienced by adolescents alone can seem daunting, with such issues as divorce, abuse, and discord changing…

Religion and spirituality are important aspects of multicultural competency for therapists to consider given the religious culture in America. Researchers have found that more than 90% of Americans claim either a Protestant or Catholic religious affiliation (Keller, 2000), 40% of Americans attend religious services on a weekly basis, and more than…

The authors describe the development of the California Brief Multicultural Competence Scale (CBMCS). The 21-item CBMCS was derived from principal component analysis, item content validated by a panel of experts, and confirmatory factor analyses. Several studies provided internal consistency, subscale intercorrelations, criterion-related…

Classroom climate, though difficult to define and assess, affects student learning especially in the elementary schools. Much of the current research focuses on the primary architect of classroom climate--the teacher. There is little doubt that teacher behaviors determine the overall climate of the classroom, but peer actions and reactions also…

Projective techniques continue to be widely used by school psychologists despite frequent criticisms of their use. This article reviews contemporary validity issues in the use of projective techniques with children and adolescents, including incremental validity, treatment validity, and problems associated with professional judgment and…

Since the report of the National Committee of Inquiry into Higher education (1997) on university teaching in the UK, there has been increasing emphasis on the professionalization of university teaching. Following the expansion of higher education, and widening student diversity there is even more of a need for teachers to teach well. Pedagogical…

Mathematics lecturers have long expressed concern about their students poor mathematical background and the effect this has on performance in first mathematics courses at university level. This article explores a similar concern about students' numeracy in a statistics course for psychologists.

Many psychological tests have arbitrary metrics but are appropriate for testing psychological theories. Metric arbitrariness is a concern, however, when researchers wish to draw inferences about the true, absolute standing of a group or individual on the latent psychological dimension being measured. The authors illustrate this in the context of 2…

Although the efficacy and acceptability of conjoint behaviour consultation (CBC) is well documented in the US, this method of intervention has not been widely studied in Canada. Thus, this study was designed to examine the perceptions of school psychologists and parents in Canada regarding the acceptability of CBC, as well as how consultant…

School psychologists have consistently been found to have high levels of job satisfaction. The purpose of this study was to identify the current level of job satisfaction for practicing school psychologists and examine the changes over the past 22 years. Surveys were sent to 500 randomly selected members of the National Association of School…

Early approach to research in industrial and organizational (I/O) psychology was oriented towards quantitative techniques as a result of influences from the social sciences. As the focus of I/O psychology expands from psychological test development to other personnel functions, there has been an inclusion of qualitative methods in I/O psychology…