Abstract
As social media becomes an increasingly integral aspect of the modern world, professional fields must adapt to the ethical and professional implications thereof. Pham (2014) provided a framework for understanding and addressing such implications in school psychology. Pham (2014) suggested seven components to include in the development of a social media policies for school psychology graduate programs. While these components are conceivably important aspects of social media policies, there is limited research on whether school psychology graduate programs have adopted these recommendations. The current study examined the state of guidance on social media use via program-specific social media policies. This included systematically reviewing publicly available program handbooks of APA-accredited and/ or NASP-approved school psychology programs, as well as coding for policy comprehensiveness based on suggestions by Pham (2014). Results showed that about 12% of programs identified for analysis had program-specific social media policies, with about 3% including all components suggested by Pham (2014). This suggests that the majority of school psychology graduate programs in the United States lack a program-specific social media policy, and existing policies may not be sufficiently comprehensive. To provide graduate students with proper guidance, programs may consider designing and implementing comprehensive social media policies with fidelity.
