What we know and do not know about supervision in school psychology: A systematic mapping and review of the literature between 2000 and 2017

Supervision is a distinct competency area in professional psychology with a burgeoning research base. Yet it remains unclear to what extent the broad supervision research base generalizes specifically to supervision of psychological services in schools for both preservice trainees and credentialed school psychologists. The purposes of this study were to map and review current evidence regarding supervision in school psychology; consider the evidence in the context of the broader psychology supervision literature; and reflect on next steps for training, practice, and research of supervision in school psychology. A systematic review across school psychology journals and psychological supervision journals found only 37 peer refereed articles (21 empirical and 16 conceptual) published on the topic of supervision in school psychology since the year 2000. The topical coverage of these articles is summarized, including its contributions and limitations. Implications are drawn for future research of supervision in school psychology.     

School Processes That Can Drive Scaling-Up of an Innovation or Contribute to Its Abandonment

This five-year study focused on school processes that promoted the scaling-up of a high school academic literacy framework, Reading Apprenticeship, developed by WestEd's Strategic Literacy Initiative (SLI). Implementing an innovative strategy for scaling-up involving school-based cross-disciplinary teacher teams, SLI brought the framework to 274 schools across five states. Our study was guided by research literature that viewed scale-up as increasing local ownership and depth of commitment. Our goal was to measure SLI's success in terms of the numbers of students, teachers, and schools reached, and to evaluate the success of SLI's innovation through metrics that would be indicative of the program taking hold in schools, and ultimately, its scalability.

We developed a longitudinal data set based on teacher and principal surveys, participant records, and school demographics that allowed us to measure implementation over time and to identify program and school characteristics that predicted the increase or decrease in participation. We found early indications of uptake and enthusiasm for Reading Apprenticeship, but greater variation in responses across schools by the third year. Using regression analysis, we found that initial teacher participation in team meetings and schoolwide commitment predicted “scaling-in” within a school. We hypothesized that a process, consistent with SLI's use of cross-disciplinary teacher teams, led to increased and sustained program participation. This study contributes to the field of scale-up research through identifying intermediate teacher outcomes that predict scaling-in and that were not as prevalent in an RCT conducted in parallel, illustrating the weakness of large-scale RCTs as an appropriate context for measuring impact of an innovation that is being scaled up.     

Faculty Activities and Rewards: views from education administrators in the USA

The heads of education divisions of 245 colleges and universities in the USA were surveyed regarding their opinions about faculty activities and reward procedures. Tenure, which was viewed as having the greatest effect on faculty behavior, received significantly more attention from decision‐making bodies in the colleges, and merit pay received significantly less. Education administrators at top universities and larger universities viewed the desire for reputation as more motivating than did other education administrators. The department chairs believed that internal satisfaction was more of a motivating factor than did deans. The deans rated merit pay, contract renewal, promotion and tenure higher as motivators than did the department heads. Although evaluations of teaching were considered the most important for year‐to‐year contract renewal, article and book publication were the most important considerations in merit pay, promotion and tenure. A factor analysis grouped faculty activities into three factors: teaching, service, and publication.     

Ready,steady … pause: integrating ICT into Shanghai preschools

Western research over the last decade has shown that early childhood (EC) teachers’ perspectives on the role of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) in the early years strongly shape young children's experiences in educational settings and affect the integration of ICT into the classroom. The research in China is scant however. This article reports a study of Chinese EC teachers’ views on the use of ICT in preschools. Data consist of illustrative original quotations generated from interviews with four teachers, as part of a larger study. This study shows that Chinese preschool teachers had an emerging understanding about social and technological impacts on the use of ICT in early childhood education (ECE), but they recognised the value of ICT for young children and themselves in a limited way. This restrained young children's active and meaningful use of ICT for early learning and development. We argue that there is a need to develop explicit ICT polices and curriculum guidelines for the ECE system that emphasise young children's active and creative use of ICT for early learning and development, and better support teacher learning.     

Pygmalion at 50: harnessing its power and application in schooling

ABSTRACT

This special issue marks the 50th anniversary of the landmark Pygmalion experiment (Rosenthal & Jacobson, 1968). It offers contributions from across the globe, attesting to universal features of teacher expectancy effects. Reviews of this history underscore controversy, advances, and few intervention studies. Empirical studies emphasise teacher expectancy effects at group, classroom, and school levels, contrast expectation measures, and explore longitudinal and developmental perspectives, advancing the field. Despite headway, I argue that the field’s contested history has stifled its fullest investigation. Conclusions drawn – not replicable, small and dissipating effects, and largely accurate teacher expectations – have underestimated Pygmalion’s power and limited investment in intervention research to promote positive educational prophecies, especially for students placed at the margins. It is time for a greater articulation of the conditions under which expectancy effects are most powerful. It is also time to apply our tremendous knowledge towards the design and evaluation of positive expectancy interventions.     

Where Is the Essence? Developmental Shifts in Children’s Beliefs About Internal Features

The present studies investigated children's and adults' intuitive beliefs about the physical nature of essences. Adults and children (ranging in age from 6 to 10 years old) were asked to reason about 2 different ways of determining an unknown object's category: taking a tiny internal sample from any part of the object (distributed view of essence) or taking a sample from one specific region (localized view of essence). Results from 3 studies indicated that adults strongly endorsed the distributed view, and children showed a developmental shift from a localized to distributed view with increasing age. These results suggest that even children go beyond mere placeholder notions of essence, committing to conceptual frameworks of how essences might be physically instantiated.     

Literacy as a complex activity: deconstructing the simple view of reading

The Rose Review into the teaching of early reading recommended that the conceptual framework incorporated into the National Literacy Strategy Framework for Teaching – the Searchlights model of reading and its development – should be replaced by the Simple View of Reading. In this paper, we demonstrate how these two frameworks relate to each other, and show that nothing has been lost in this transformation from Searchlights to Simple View: on the contrary, much has been gained. That nothing has been lost is demonstrated by consideration of the underlying complexity inherent in each of the two dimensions delineated in the Simple View. That much has been gained is demonstrated by the increased understanding of each dimension that follows from careful scientific investigation of each. The better we understand what is involved in each dimension, the better placed we are to unravel and understand the essential, complex and continual interactions between each dimension which underlie skilled reading. This has clear implications for further improving the early teaching of reading.     

Supporting (or not) the career development of culturally and linguistically diverse migrants and refugees in universities: insights from Australia

International Journal for Educational and Vocational Guidance - The present study used a mixed-methods approach to understand the challenges faced by Australian higher education institutions in...     

SUPERVISION IN SCHOOL PSYCHOLOGY: THE DEVELOPMENTAL/ECOLOGICAL/PROBLEM‐SOLVING MODEL

Effective supervision models guide the supervisory relationship and supervisory tasks leading to reflective and purposeful practice. The Developmental/Ecological/Problem‐Solving (DEP) Model provides a contemporary framework for supervision specific to school psychology. Designed for the school psychology internship, the DEP Model is also applicable to all pre‐service and advanced field‐based training, as well as career‐long continuing professional development. The Developmental domain initiates training at the functioning skill level of the supervisee and progresses toward independent competency. The Ecological domain addresses the multiple systemic contexts that influence school psychology practice and prepares the intern to intervene within both individual and systemic contexts. The Problem‐Solving domain focuses on the application of data‐based decision making and evidence‐based interventions to the full range of school psychology activities. It provides a systematic schema to address student, family, and school needs.