THE CONTRIBUTION OF SCHOOL COUNSELORS’ SELF‐EFFICACY TO THEIR PROGRAMMATIC SERVICE DELIVERY

Self‐efficacy pertains to individuals’ belief about their capability to accomplish a task; consequently, school counselors’ positive self‐efficacy is a theoretically based prerequisite for their facilitation of school‐based interventions. In addition, school counselor‐led interventions and comprehensive, developmenta l guidance programs benefit students’ personal social, academic, and career development. Therefore, this investigation examined the contribution of practicing school counselors’ (N = 693) self‐efficacy in relation to the frequency of their programmatic service delivery. The findings indicate that participants’ self‐efficacy scores contributed to the frequency of their programmatic service delivery (48% of the variance explained). Implications for school counselors, supervisors, and educational researchers are discussed.     

Integrated Reading and Writing Interventions for Students with Learning Disabilities: A Review of the Literature

In this systematic review of literature that spans 1975–2015, integrated reading and writing interventions for students with learning disabilities (LD) or students with academic difficulties were evaluated to understand the extant research, identify encouraging practices, and guide future research. Ten studies met inclusion criteria and each study was evaluated according to the relevant What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) design standards. Eight of the 10 investigations were conducted with students in grades 4–8. While only 4 of the 10 studies met WWC design with or without reservations, results from these studies are encouraging. Study findings suggest several areas for immediate future research relating to methodological and treatment variables and considerations for classroom instruction in order to respond to advanced expectations for the successful integration of reading and writing across subjects. In addition to employing stronger experimental designs and additional replications of encouraging studies, future research should explore the utility of integrated reading and writing interventions with secondary students with who have academic difficulties.     

Educational leadership and pupil achievement in primary education

Educational leadership can be defined as the ability of a principal to initiate school improvement, to create a learning-oriented educational climate, and to stimulate and supervise teachers in such a way that the latter may execute their tasks as effectively as possible. In 1989, 1993, and 1998, teacher perceptions of educational leadership of principals in Dutch elementary education were evaluated by means of a Rasch-scale. It turned out that the educational leadership of Dutch principals has grown considerably. In both 1989 and 1993 the effect of educational leadership on pupil achievement was investigated. While in 1989 no significant relationship was found, the results of 1993 show a significant relationship between educational leadership and average pupil achievement over 3 successive years corrected for school environment.