Surveying School Psychologists about Pre-service Training in Response to Intervention

The objective of this project was to obtain detailed information regarding the pre-service training of school psychologists pertaining to Response to Intervention (RTI). RTI is a three tiered model for providing intervention that has recently been identified as an alternative method for identifying children with learning disabilities. Surveys were sent to a nationally stratified random sample of school psychology practitioners. School psychologists were asked to provide information related to their training within the area of RTI. Descriptive and correlation analyses were conducted on all returned surveys. Results from this project were synthesized to determine if school psychologists are adequately trained. In addition, relative strengths and weaknesses of current training practices were identified. The results provide information pertaining to current pre-service RTI training; reported levels of satisfaction with pre-service training, as well as actual time spent providing RTI services. The findings highlight areas that need to be addressed to improve the quality of pre-service training of school psychologists. Therefore, the results may be used to inform graduate training programs what skills school psychologists need further training in to be better prepared to work in today’s schools

Examining Pre-service Consultation Training in NASP-Approved Graduate Programs in School Psychology

School consultation is a problem solving process in which a teacher seeks the help of a consultant regarding an academic or behavioral problem a student is exhibiting. The classroom teacher receives recommendations from the consultant pertaining to problems within the classroom. Consultation has been identified as a preferred activity by school psychology practitioners. However, several studies examining pre-service training in consultation have reported large percentages of practitioners as rating their graduate training as being less than adequate. Therefore, the objective of this study was to examine current consultation requirements within school psychology graduate training programs. All graduate programs in school psychology approved by the National Association of School Psychologist were evaluated. Information pertaining to the number of courses and number of practicum hours required by each program was collected. Data were analyzed by the type of degree offered and the program’s geographic region. The results provide current information pertaining to pre-service consultation training. The results of this evaluation will be beneficial to undergraduate students seeking information regarding graduate training in school psychology. In addition, graduate programs in school psychology may use this information to improve the quality of training their students receive in consultation