Abstract
Job demands of school psychologists influence content covered in school psychology training programs. Research investigating currents trends in school psychological service delivery can shed light on key practice issues that trainers should attend to when preparing graduate students to provide comprehensive services. This study examined differences between school psychologists’ reported delivery of academic and behavioral/social-emotional oriented services, as well as facilitators of and barriers to their provision of three types of academic-oriented services given federal legislation and service delivery models (e.g., Response to Intervention) that may be influencing school psychologists’ practices. The participants included a national sample of 267 practicing school psychologists who were Regular and Early Career Members of the National Association of School Psychologists. The current study was a part of a larger investigation of school psychologists’ engagement in comprehensive and integrated services. Data were collected through a web-survey and archival data analysis was employed to answer the research questions for the current study. Results revealed no significant differences between the participants’ reported delivery of academic and behavioral/social-emotional oriented services. Most facilitators and some barriers (Personal Attributes, Stakeholder Involvement, Resources and Support, School-Specific Variables, Contextual Variables) predicted each of the academic-oriented services, with facilitators accounting for more unique variance in academic-oriented service delivery than did barriers. Implications for training pre-service school psychologists are discussed including recommendations for preparing school psychology trainees to a) provide a broad range of services and b) address factors that influence their delivery of academic-oriented services.
