Case conceptualization is a foundational skill for effective assessment practice in school psychology; however, it is often underemphasized in graduate training, particularly in relation to data integration and interpretation. This study examined the use of collaborative, cross-cohort case conceptualization groups as a training approach to support school psychology graduate students’ assessment-related self-efficacy. Participants included second-year practicum students and third-year interns enrolled in a graduate school psychology program who participated in structured case conceptualization groups over one academic year. Using a concurrent triangulation mixed-methods design, students completed pre- and post-intervention surveys assessing confidence in test selection, data interpretation, integration of assessment data, and development of recommendations, along with open-ended reflections. Quantitative results indicated significant increases across all areas of perceived assessment confidence following participation in the groups. Qualitative findings supported these results and revealed developmental shifts in students’ professional language, problem-solving approaches, and emerging professional identities. Practicum students moved from broad enthusiasm to more specific discussions of assessment practice, while interns described growth in facilitation, consultation, and professional reasoning. Findings indicate that collaborative case conceptualization groups are a promising instructional strategy for strengthening assessment-related self-efficacy and supporting cross-cohort learning in school psychology training programs.
Resilience, work engagement, and professional quality of life have been widely studied among mental health professionals; however, evidence regarding school psychologists in Greece is lacking. School psychologists operate in demanding educational settings characterized by high workloads and limited resources, yet their well-being remains largely understudied. The present study examined, for the first time, the interrelations between resilience, professional quality of life, and work engagement among school psychologists working in Greece. A total of 355 participants (91.5
Parents play a critical role in helping their children cope with school bullying, and their responses to such incidents can have significant consequences—either exacerbating or mitigating the impact of the bullying. It is therefore important to understand the factors that shape parents’ responses to their children’s experiences of school bullying victimization. The current study examines parents’ own history of school bullying victimization as a predictor of their intentions to use various coping strategies in response to their children's victimization. Specifically, the study investigates whether parent–teacher interaction mediates this relationship and whether parental resilience serves as a moderator. Using a quantitative approach, a questionnaire was administered to 1,172 parents of school-aged children. In line with the hypotheses, parents’ history of bullying victimization was negatively associated with their intention to provide support to their child—a strategy considered adaptive—and positively associated with their intention to use maladaptive coping strategies, including retaliation, avoidance, and self-blame. Furthermore, parent–teacher interaction mediated the association, and parental resilience moderated it. These findings may inform the development of more effective, parent-focused anti-bullying interventions.
Although research supports using repeated reading interventions to improve reading fluency for in-person administrations, this study examines the effects of a remotely administered (i.e., video conference) repeated reading intervention on reading fluency. We used a non-concurrent single-case research design with five elementary-aged students who exhibited reading fluency scores below the 25th percentile at pretest. Regarding participant demographics, four participants received special education services, and one was served entirely through general education. The first and second authors trained graduate students to implement the intervention. Overall, participants made gains in reading fluency with a large effect size (PAND = 0.8). In addition, we found high levels of procedural fidelity. Participants’ parents reported high levels of acceptability and feasibility of the remotely administered intervention and felt optimistic about continuing the intervention procedures after the study ended. This project provides initial support for remote repeated reading. Future research may wish to examine larger sample sizes and deploy a randomized control design.
Autism identification has long demonstrated disparities across gender in and out of schools. Though rating scales are often used in the identification and diagnosis of autism, many have not been evaluated for their psychometric properties specific to girls. The Autism Spectrum Rating Scales (ASRS; Goldstein Naglieri, 2013) is one such measure. This study evaluated the construct validity and differential item functioning of the ASRS across gender. Parents of children (n = 806) without disabilities aged 6–18 completed the ASRS. Of the children rated, 41.9
Disruptive student behavior has negative implications for students’ overall academic success and therefore must be addressed. Students are often the recipients of covert behavioral interventions, rather than being included as intentional co-collaborators. Despite this, student involvement and choice have been found to increase students’ appropriate behaviors and their engagement in interventions. The purpose of the current study was to empower students with emotional and behavioral disorders by meaningfully including them in their intervention process, have them test-drive behavioral interventions, and provide them with agency via choice. A single-case experimental design was used to determine whether there was a functional relationship between the evidence-based interventions and student behavioral outcomes. The study used an alternating treatment phase that allowed students to test-drive three interventions (i.e., Check-In/Check-Out, response cost, and token economy) and was followed by a withdrawal design after the students’ chosen intervention was implemented. Results indicated that students’ behavioral outcomes benefitted from each of the interventions and that students and teachers valued the test-driving and choice processes. Implications, limitations, and directions for future research exploring student test-driving and choice are discussed.
Team-Initiated Problem-Solving (TIPS) is a data-driven, evidence-based decision-making process that supports problem solving during school-based data team meetings. TIPS Online is a professional development course that teaches the components of TIPS without in-person training. Four teams participated in a single case concurrent multiple baseline study over two academic years. Team meetings were video recorded and coded before and after members completed TIPS Online. Data were collected on two independent variables, Meeting Foundations and Problem Solving, both are used in combination to operate the meetings and identify and solve student level behavioral concerns. The findings indicate generally high level of meeting foundations through the study and improvements in problem solving after receiving the online training. Limitations are discussed.
This study focuses on the adaptation and initial validation of the Assessment of Culturally and Contextually Relevant Supports (ACCReS) scale, originally developed in the United States, in the Colombian context. Recognizing the need to promote culturally responsive teaching in Colombia, this research seeks to bridge the gap between global and local approaches to equity in education. The ACCReS scale was translated into Spanish, reviewed for contextual relevance, and administered to a sample of 306 Colombian teachers. Exploratory factor analysis identified two primary dimensions: Equitable Classroom Practices (ECP) and Accessing Information and Support (AIS), diverging from the three-factor model observed in the U.S. context. While internal consistency was strong for both dimensions, the third factor from the U.S. version, Consideration of Culture and Context (CCC), did not distinctly emerge, reflecting unique cultural and institutional factors in Colombian education. Findings underscore the potential of the ACCReS scale to evaluate and inform culturally responsive practices in Colombia, while highlighting the need for further adaptation and research to address local educational challenges. These results offer a foundation for improving teacher training and fostering inclusive learning environments.
Multilingual (ML) students represent a growing portion of the U.S. public school population, yet school psychologists often lack the linguistic resources needed to provide translated psychoeducational materials. Machine translation (MT) tools such as Google Translate (GT) and ChatGPT-4o (GPT) offer potential solutions, but their effectiveness for translating psychoeducational reports remains underexamined. This study evaluated the fluency, accuracy, and error patterns of English-to-Spanish translations generated by GT, GPT, and a professional human translator (HT) using a fictional psychoeducational report summary. Two bilingual graduate students rated 71 translated sentences using fluency and accuracy rubrics, with disagreements resolved by a bilingual school psychologist. Results indicated no significant differences in fluency across systems. Accuracy differed significantly across systems overall, although follow-up pairwise comparisons were not statistically significant after correction. Analyses also revealed significant differences in the total number of errors produced across translations, but no significant differences in the distribution of specific error types. Across systems, errors included mistranslations, grammatical errors, untranslated words, and critical inaccuracies that affected interpretability. Overall, no translation method produced a perfect translation. However, results remain preliminary and require further study. Implications for school psychologists include the need to improve the readability of psychoeducational reports and ensure that translators’ workflows are supported by appropriate training and oversight.
This exploratory study examined the impact of the newly developed Mindful Breathing Program (MBP), a grassroots mindfulness-based intervention, on the social-emotional well-being of students and teachers in a K–12 public school district in the United States. Pre- and post-intervention measures assessed students’ levels of mindfulness, affect, social-emotional functioning, and prosocial behavior, as well as teachers’ mindfulness traits and embodiment of mindfulness in instructional practice. Results indicated that students demonstrated increases in mindfulness, positive affect, and prosocial behaviors, along with reductions in negative affect, emotional symptoms, hyperactivity/inattention, and conduct problems. Teachers also showed significant gains in acting with awareness, describing and accepting inner experiences, nonreactivity, and mindful engagement in teaching, as well as increased self-efficacy for managing stress, supporting student behavior, and using responsive instruction. Overall, findings suggest that participation in MBP supports self-regulation, emotional balance, and well-being among both students and educators. Findings are discussed in terms of emphasizing contextual fit, relational connection, and local stakeholder engagement for developing and using mindfulness-based programs such as MBP.
Universal screening for social-emotional and behavioral (SEB) skills should be conducted in kindergarten to allow for provision of early intervention, which may mitigate future difficulties. Various measures can be used for this purpose, such as the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ), however, more research is needed in kindergarten and with Emergent Bilingual (EB) students. The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between demographic variables and teacher SDQ ratings and determine the percentages of students identified as at risk. Data were drawn from a universal screening project conducted at an early childhood campus (n= 272) and included ethnicity, EB status, gender, and SDQ Total score. Results revealed that EB status significantly predicted SDQ scores after controlling for ethnicity and gender and using the Slightly Raised/Slightly Lowered cut point resulted in anticipated distributions of risk status. Results of this study indicate EB status alone significantly predicted performance on the SDQ, and more research regarding possible explanations for this is needed. Continued examination of universal screening measures is needed to ensure accurate identification of risk and allocation of resources for all students.
Effective classroom management is critical to student and teacher success, yet many educators feel unprepared to manage classrooms effectively. Traditional workshop-style professional development is often informational but fails to produce lasting behavior change. In contrast, school-based consultation supports evidence-based practice use but may be too resource-intensive for some settings. Developing consultation approaches that are both effective and feasible is needed. This study used a combined concurrent multiple baseline, A-B-C single-case design to evaluate the impact of brief, data-based performance feedback and performance feedback with self-monitoring within a school-based consultation framework on the classroom management practices of four general education teachers. Visual and empirical analyses showed improved practices across all participants from baseline to intervention. Teachers rated this brief, consultation-based performance feedback approach as usable and acceptable, supporting its potential for practical, school-based professional development.
Concussion is a commonly occurring health-related condition in childhood, especially among youth athletes, that may require school-based management. Given their background and role, school psychologists are well-positioned to support students who have experienced a head injury; however, research suggests that school psychologists lack the confidence to lead a school concussion management team. This study examined sources of school psychologists’ concussion‑related knowledge, their self‑rated competence to engage in concussion‑management activities, and factors that may predict perceived competence. Results revealed that the school psychologists surveyed in this study primarily acquired concussion knowledge through independent professional development activities (e.g., readings) followed by formal workshops. Self-ratings of perceived competence were not high across the seven concussion management activities. Depending on the concussion management activity, concussion knowledge, previous formal professional development, or years of experience emerged as the leading predictors of perceived competence. Findings underscore the need for additional training and structured protocols for school psychologists involved in concussion management.
Planning for, monitoring, and evaluating social and emotional learning (SEL) program implementation can be as important to student outcomes as program selection, yet it is often overlooked in research and practice. SEL implementation data can be used to enhance both implementation and outcomes and guide ongoing monitoring and future implementations. Evaluation of implementation activities enables practitioners to make more informed decisions about program selection and use, assess program effectiveness, evaluate cultural and contextual relevance, and determine the sufficiency of training and technical support. The Social Emotional Learning Implementation Tracking (SELIT) tool was developed to assist busy practitioners in the pursuit of thoughtful implementation dimensions including adaptations, dosage, adherence, quality, and student engagement. Implementation is discussed as a multi-faceted, crucial component to effective SEL. Recommendations for the use of the SELIT are provided. This article provides an open-access tool created to support SEL implementation planning, monitoring, and evaluation in the classroom or other instructional setting. The development of the Social Emotional Learning Tracking Tool (SELIT) was informed by original research and a synthesis of SEL implementation theory and research. The SELIT uses a multi-faceted approach to program and strategy implementation. The SELIT addresses a gap in the literature by offering researchers and practitioners a program-independent method to guide dimensions of implementation such as adaptations, dosage, adherence, quality, and student engagement.
In this study, social media addiction, which attracts the attention of researchers today and is a risk factor for adolescents, was examined as a predictor of subjective well-being, which is accepted as one of the dimensions of functionality for mental health, especially within the framework of a positive approach. While explaining this relationship, the variables of social self-efficacy and school engagement, which again contribute to the psycho-social development area of adolescence as a supporter, were also included in the process as mediator variables. The sample of the study consists of 821 students studying in high schools. SPSS 27.0 program was used for the correlation analyses of the estimated model of the study, and PROCESS Macro (Model-6) was used for mediator analyses. As a result of the analyses, it was seen that level of social media addiction was negatively and slightly significantly related to subjective well-being and social self-efficacy and school engagement, which were included as mediator variables. Correlation findings showed that subjective well-being was also positively and moderately significantly related to social self-efficacy and school engagement. It was also seen that there was a positive and moderately significant relationship between the mediator variables of the study (social self-efficacy and school engagement). Finally, in the analysis of the study, the indirect effect of social media addiction’s level on subjective well-being was evaluated through both social self-efficacy and school engagement, and the relationship was found to be significant.
Despite growing research on the use of evidence-based practices (EBPs) in schools, many fail to be implemented with fidelity and sustained over time. Implementation science offers a framework to address this gap through examining contextual variables that impact school-based implementation. In practice, there are different determinants of implementation; facilitators promote implementation, and barriers inhibit implementation. Educators encounter numerous implementation barriers that can hinder treatment fidelity, but little is known about broad contextual variables in schools. This survey study analyzed responses from 298 in-service teachers to explore perceived implementation barriers and facilitators, organized into inner and outer context variables. Inner context variables included Resources, Training, Support, and Implementer Characteristics, while outer context variables included School, Family, District, and Community influences. Teachers indicated how often the implementation variable were present in their setting; overall responses were summarized as barriers or facilitators. Results indicated that teachers mainly identified lack of resources and insufficient training as inner context barriers. However, school leadership, district alignment, and parent investment were viewed as implementation facilitators. Community-level support, implementation support, and implementer motivation and self-efficacy were more mixed, with some items representing a barrier and others a facilitator. Implications for practice and future research directions are discussed.
This study explored the perspectives of adolescents with a history of hospitalization for suicide-related crises (n = 28) and their parents (n = 30) on school-related supports and services during remote learning due to COVID-19. Participants completed an online survey exploring (1) the ways schools can support feelings of connectedness in students with suicidal thoughts and behaviors during remote practices, (2) successes and improvements for school-mental health supports delivery during remote practices, (3) ways students with past suicide-related crises coped when feeling upset, down, sad, or depressed during the pandemic, and (4) how schools can best support students who may be struggling with suicidal thoughts and behaviors during remote school instruction. Descriptive statistics (e.g., frequencies) were calculated to present quantitative data, and content analysis was used to qualitatively analyze text responses to open-ended questions in the survey. Overall, adolescents previously hospitalized for a suicide-related crisis and their parents viewed counseling services and academic accommodations favorably, calling for increased academic supports, improved communication practices, and attention to the psychosocial climate in the school. Findings reinforce the importance of school-family partnerships for supporting youth with suicidal thoughts and behaviors before and during times of stress.
Inclusion practices for students with high-functioning autism address both academic and social needs, promoting equity, acceptance, and personal development. This systematic review focuses on the inclusive educational practices implemented by teachers to facilitate the integration of students with high-functioning autism, particularly in relation to bullying and the development of friendships. Specifically, the review aims to highlight effective inclusion strategies that prevent victimization and foster positive peer relationships in mainstream elementary classrooms. The systematic review was conducted using the following databases: Google Scholar, PsycINFO, Scopus, and ERIC. The PRISMA flow diagram (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews) was used to guide the systematic selection and evaluation of studies. Research data published in the past decade (2014–2024) were included. The review identified 10 studies that explored inclusion interventions for students with high-functioning autism, targeting bullying prevention and the enhancement of peer relationships. These interventions focused on developing social and emotional skills, promoting social interaction and cooperation, supporting emotional regulation, enhancing verbal communication, training school personnel, and reducing social stigma. Despite the progress made, there remains a critical need for interventions that explicitly target victimization prevention and the development of meaningful friendships.
This study examined the efficacy of a combined mindfulness and social–emotional learning (SEL) intervention in reducing negative emotional states and improving perceptions of teacher–student relationships among novice teachers. A quasi-experimental, pretest–posttest–follow-up design with a control group was used. The sample included 30 elementary school teachers (15 males, 15 females) from Sanandaj, Iran, during the (Antony 2023)–2024 academic year. Participants were recruited through purposive sampling based on predefined inclusion and exclusion criteria and were randomly assigned to either the experimental or control group (n = 15 per group). The experimental group attended seven weekly 90-minute sessions of combined mindfulness and SEL training. Outcome measures included the Depression Anxiety Stress Scale–21 (DASS-21) and the Student–Teacher Relationship Scale–Short Form (STRS-SF), administered at pretest, posttest, and one-month follow-up. Data were analyzed using repeated measures multivariate analysis of variance (RM-MANOVA) in SPSS version 26. Results indicated that the intervention significantly reduced depression, anxiety, and stress levels and improved teachers’ perceptions of teacher–student relationship quality, with effects largely sustained at follow-up. These findings suggest that combined mindfulness and SEL programs may serve as effective strategies for alleviating emotional distress and promoting positive teacher–student interactions, which highlights the critical role of school-based practitioners in supporting teachers’ emotional functioning and fostering constructive classroom relationships.
COVID-19 caused considerable disruptions in student mental health, yet little research has explored school psychologists’ experiences during the early months of the pandemic. This study examined the extent to which school-community (e.g., community setting, household income) and personal factors (e.g., degree obtained, years employed) predicted school psychologists’ perceptions of whether they were called on to provide mental health support to students during the first four months of the pandemic. Data from 652 school psychologists were analyzed using hierarchical regression models. The first model assessed school-community and personal factors associated with school psychologists being called on to provide mental health support. The second model examined predictors of whether school psychologists provided mental health support directly to students who had been personally affected by COVID-19 (e.g., illness or loss of a loved one). School-community and personal factors accounted for 6.6
