Handbook of psychology volume 7 educational psychology

Demographics and Current Practice Conditions

435

Job Component

Satisfaction

0

0.5

1

1.5

2

2.5

3

3.5

4

4.5

Promotion

Pay

Supervision

Work

Colleagues

Figure 17.1

Job satisfaction of school psychologists.

the advantages associated with doctoral-level graduate edu-

cation for practitioners is greater opportunity to pursue alter-

native career settings or to augment the usual role with other

professional activities such as teaching in a local college,

private practice, or consulting. Persons engaged in these

activities generally see the job advancement and promotion

opportunities more positively.

Demographics

Gender

School psychology demographics have changed significantly

over the last 40 years (Reschly, 2000). The greatest changes

occurred in gender; the practitioner work force has changed

from 40% to 70% female. This gender trend is likely to con-

tinue because today slightly more than 80% of all school psy-

chology graduate students are women. The composition of

school psychology faculty, which started at a lower propor-

tion of women (20%) also reflects the same trend; about 50%

of all faculty are female currently. The gender trends in

school psychology are consistent with the increasing femi-

nization of psychology generally—a strong trend that is ap-

parent among undergraduate majors and graduate students in

all areas of psychology (Pion et al., 1996). The proportion of

women in graduate programs in many areas of psychology—

including clinical and counseling—are close to the 80% fig-

ure cited previously for school psychology.

Age

The average age of school psychology practitioners has

increased from about 38– 47 since 1985 (Curtis, Hunley,

Walker, & Baker, 1999; Hosp & Reschly, 2002; Reschly

et al., 1987). Similar age trends likely exist with school psy-

chology faculty who were about 6 years older than practi-

tioners in a 1992 survey (Reschly & Wilson, 1995). The

advancing age of practitioners and faculty creates opportuni-

ties for greater gender representation among faculty, a trend

that appears to be well underway and (perhaps) increasing di-

versity among all types of school psychologists. Moreover,

the likely high rate of retirements over the next decade will

contribute to the already healthy demand for school psychol-

ogists in both practitioner and faculty positions.

Diversity

Greater diversity in school psychology is an intense need and

challenge. Curtis et al. (1999) reported that approximately

5.5% of practitioners identified themselves as being in a non-

Caucasian group; however, only 1% reported being African

American and 1.7% were self-identified as Hispanic. Gradu-

ate program enrollments and faculty have become slightly

more diverse over the last decade; minority faculty member-

ship has increased from 11% to 15%, and minority graduate

students have increased from 13% to 17% (McMaster,

Reschly, & Peters, 1989; Thomas, 1998). The latter statistics

on minority representation were not reported by group; hence,

there is no way to determine whether the most underrepre-

sented groups (African American and Hispanic) are increas-

ing. Regardless of this last point, the composition of the school

psychology profession is markedly different from the current

U.S. public school population, which is approximately 1%

American Indian, 4% Asian or Pacific Islander, 15% Hispanic,

17% African American, and 63% White. It is likely that the

racial-ethnic compositions of school psychologists and stu-

dents will continue to be very different far into the future.

Degree Level

One of the most controversial issues is the appropriate level

of graduate education for the independent, nonsupervised

practice of school psychology in schools and other settings.

Degree level is the principal issue that divides the American

Psychological Association (APA) and its Division 16 (School

Psychology) from the National Association of School Psy-

chologists (NASP; see this chapter’s later section on infra-

structure). The degree composition of the current practitioner

436

School Psychology

0

5

10

15

20

25

Role

Hours per Week

Current

Preferred

Psychoeducational

Assessment

Direct Interventions

Problem Solving

Consultation

Systems-Organizational

Consultation

Research-Evaluation

Figure 17.2

Current and preferred hours per week in different roles.

force is heavily at the specialist level—that is, 60 hours of

graduate work in an organized program of study in school

psychology with a 1-year internship. Although surveys differ

slightly, about 75% of the current practitioners are at the spe-

cialist level and about 25% are at the doctoral level. Over

the past 25 years there has been an enormous shift from the

masters to the specialist level, and over the same period, the

proportion of doctoral-level practitioners has only slightly

increased. The current pattern is highly likely to continue be-

cause the vast majority of current school psychology gradu-

ate students are in specialist-level programs (75–80%), and

the majority of school psychology graduate programs are lo-

cated in institutions that are not authorized by their governing

authorities to offer doctoral degrees in any area (Reschly &

Wilson, 1997; Thomas, 1998). 

The data on degree level of current practitioners and grad-

uate students destroy the credibility of assertions in the mid-

1980s that school psychology was rapidly changing to the

doctoral level (Brown, 1987, 1989a, 1989b; Brown & Minke,

1986). Brown predicted that “. . . by 1990 over half of the stu-

dents in training will be at the doctoral level” and that “. . . a

majority of graduates in the near future will be doctoral”

(1987, p. 755). Others suggested a slightly less rapid progres-

sion toward the doctoral level—for example, Fagan predicted

that half of all practitioners in 2010 would be doctoral

(Fagan, 1986). Past and current trends make those predic-

tions impossible to achieve. In fact, school psychology is a

largely nondoctoral profession and is likely to remain so for

several decades into the new century.

Roles and Services

Based on the traditional literature (Cutts, 1955; Fagan &

Wise, 2000; Magary, 1967; Phye & Reschly, 1979; White &

Harris, 1961), the following summary reflects the research of

Reschly and colleagues on the roles of school psychologists

(Reschly & Wilson, 1995, p. 69).

• Psychoeducational assessment is “evaluations for diagnosis

of handicapping conditions, testing, scoring and interpreta-

tion, report writing, eligibility or placement conferences

with teachers and parents, re-evaluations.”

• Interventions refer to “direct work with students, teachers,

and parents to improve competencies or to solve prob-

lems, counseling, social skills groups, parent or teacher

training, crisis intervention.”

• Problem-solving consultation refers to “working with

consultees (teachers or parents) with students as clients,

problem identification, problem analysis, treatment design

and implementation, and treatment evaluation.”

• Systems-organizational consultation refers to “working

toward system level changes, improved organizational

functioning, school policy, prevention of problems, gen-

eral curriculum issues.”

• Research-evaluation refers to “program evaluation, grant

writing, needs assessment, determining correlates of per-

formance, evaluating effects of programs.”

Using this scheme, several surveys (Hosp & Reschly, 2002;

Reschly et al., 1987; Reschly & Wilson, 1995) have yielded

generally consistent results regarding practitioners’ percep-

tions of their current and preferred roles (see Figure 17.2). The

current services of school psychologists involve a heavy em-

phasis on psychoeducational assessment, which accounts for

over half of the role (Hosp & Reschly, 2002). Approximately

35% of the time is devoted to direct interventions and problem-

solving consultation, with less than 10% devoted to systems-

organizational consultation and research-evaluation. Preferred

roles involve significantly less time in assessment (32%) and

slightly more time in each of the other four roles.

Further information on the character of school psychology

services is revealed by responses to the following item: How

much of your time is spent in determining special education

Legal Requirements

437

eligibility, staffings, follow-up on placements, and reevalua-

tions? The average amount of time in services strongly con-

nected to special education eligibility, and placement in 1997

was 60%. Moreover, the results of a survey on the use of

different assessment instruments or approaches further sup-

ported the strong tie to eligibility determination in special

education. School psychology assessment is dominated by

assessment of intellectual ability and the use of other mea-

sures related to determining eligibility for special education

such as behavior rating scales and projective assessment de-

vices. The behavior rating scales are nearly always completed

by teachers or parents and the projective devices used typi-

cally were the less complex variety, such as figure drawings

and sentence completion tasks. A good case can be made that

IQ testing for the purpose of determining special education el-

igibility still dominates much of school psychology practice.

Ratios and Regional Differences

The content thus far on demographics, roles, and services

has been based on averages derived from national surveys of

school psychologists that mask large variations between re-

gions, states, and districts within states. Regional differences

are a significant influence on the interpretation of some of

these results. A good example of the large variations among

regions is the ratio of students to psychologists. The national

ratio is about 1900:1. That overall average masks signifi-

cant regional variations that differ from 3800:1 in the East-

South-Central states to 1000:1 in the New England states

(Hosp & Reschly, 2002). Even greater variations exist among

states and in some cases between districts within the same

state. It is therefore difficult to generalize about school psy-

chology practice across all districts, states, and regions. The

variables discussed thus far that are most affected by regional

factors are—in addition to ratio—salary (higher in the east-

ern and western coasts and lower in the southern and West-

South-Central states), assessment practices (more IQ testing

in the southern states and less in the Northeast; less use of

projective measures in the central and mountain states), and

nonassessment roles (more time devoted to them in the East

and less in the Pacific states). Job satisfaction, age, gender

composition, and time devoted to special education services

did not vary substantially across the regions.

LEGAL REQUIREMENTS

Legal requirements influence every facet of school psychol-

ogy practice in schools and in many other settings. Public

schools are creations of federal, state, and local governments.

School psychology employment depends heavily on public

funding—a generally secure foundation that expands or con-

tracts at a moderate rates with economic circumstances. Var-

ied sources of legal requirements and legal mechanisms

influence the practice of school psychology (Prasse, 2002;

Reschly & Bersoff, 1999).

The sources of legal requirements influencing school psy-

chology vary from the U.S. Constitution’s 5th and 14th

Amendments used in the Diana (1970), Guadalupe (1972)—

both cases regarding minority overrepresentation in special

education—and Pennsylvania Association of Retarded Chil-

dren v. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania (1972)—a landmark

right of students with mental retardation to appropriate edu-

cational services, due process protections, and participation

in normal educational environments to the greatest extent

feasible—to regulations developed by state education agen-

cies. Litigation beginning in the late 1960s continues to

markedly influence school psychology practice (Reschly &

Bersoff, 1999). Although litigation and constitutional protec-

tions continue to be important, the greatest contemporary

legal influences come from federal statutes and regulations

and state statutes and rules governing the provision of educa-

tional services to students with disabilities (Reschly, 2000).

Legislation

The previously cited litigation was instrumental in the develop-

ment of state and federal legislation regarding the educational

rights of children and youth with disabilities. The EHA (1975,

1977) was the touchstone federal legislation that appears in an

updated form today as IDEA (1991, 1997, 1999). All of the

major principles of IDEA—that is, free appropriate education

at public expense, least restrictive environment, individualized

educational programs, procedural safeguards, and nondiscrim-

ination and appropriate assessment—appeared earlier in the

EHA. These principles and their implications for school psy-

chology practice are summarized in Table 17.1. For example,

the state and federal guarantees of a free and appropriate edu-

cation for all SWD greatly increased the number of such stu-

dents in the public school setting (from about 2.2 million

students age 6–17 to over 5 million today), markedly increasing

the number of eligibility evaluations and reevaluations.

Psychological services are defined in the IDEA regula-

tions, but the terms school psychology or school psychologist

do not appear in the IDEA statute or regulations. A broad

conception of psychological services appears in the follow-

ing IDEA (1999) regulations:

(9) Psychological services includes—

(i) Administering psychological and educational tests, and

other assessment procedures; 

(ii) Interpreting assessment results; 

438

School Psychology

TABLE 17.1

EHA-IDEA Principles: Effects on Schools and Impact on School Psychology

Right to a free appropriate education at public expense (FAPE)

Effects: All students with disabilities (SWD) are guaranteed educational rights leading to (a) more students in the existing population of students

classified as having mild disabilities such as specific learning disabilities and (b) students with complex multiple disabilities and severe disabilities gain

access to public schools for the first time. Litigation interpreting FAPE makes EHA-IDEA a zero-reject guarantee of access to the publicly supported

education.

Impact: More psychologists are needed to conduct evaluations and provide other services to SWD; some psychologists are needed with highly specialized

skills in working with students with low incidence and severe disabilities such as autism and severe and profound levels of MR.

Least restrictive environment (LRE)

Effects: More SWD are served in general education environments or in part-time resource teaching programs. Special education is increasingly becoming

a range of services brought to children and youth in natural environments rather than in places where educational services are provided. Pressure is being

put on states to reduce the use of restrictive placements in settings such as residential institutions or self-contained special education classes.

Impact: More emphasis is on psychologists’ conducting assessments in natural environments and on developing interventions and support services that

assist students in general education environments. More emphasis is on positive behavior supports and functional behavior analysis to teach appropriate

and eliminate inappropriate behaviors so that LRE can be achieved.

Individualized educational program (IEP)

Effects: Detailed plans have been developed to guide the provision of special education and related services, including general goals and specific objec-

tives, assessment of progress, and annual review of the IEP.

Impact: More emphasis is on identifying specific educational needs during evaluations, monitoring progress toward goals, assessing performance in terms

of general education settings with direct measures, and development of testing accommodations. 

Procedural safeguards (due process)

Effects: Formal procedures protect rights and involve parents in decision-making through requirements of informed consent and rights to appeal decisions,

to present additional information, to submit an independent evaluation, to acquire legal representation, to obtain impartial hearings to adjudicate disputes,

and to appeal to state or federal courts.

Impact: School psychologists’ work is more open to parental scrutiny, parents can access records and challenge findings, more emphasis is placed on

communicating with parents as partners in decision making, and the likelihood has increased that psychologists will be asked testify under oath in due

process hearings or in courts when decisions are challenged by parents. 

Procedures for evaluation and determination of eligibility (PEDE)

Effects: Nondiscrimination became more important in evaluation and decision making, multifactored assessment, and decision making by a team that

includes various professionals and parents, valid assessment that focuses on educational need, primary language, and triennial reevaluation.

Impact: Some traditional prerogatives of school psychologists were curtailed through placing less emphasis on IQ and greater emphasis on achievement

and adaptive behavior, consideration of language differences and sociocultural status, determining educational need, and team decision making. More

assessment in natural settings such as classrooms using direct measures has been fostered.

Confidentiality of records and parental access to records

Effects: Access to records is controlled by the client-parent. Access is restricted to school officials with a need to know. Parents or youth of legal age are

guaranteed access to records. Content of records can be challenged and adjudicated.

Impact: Psychologists’ work and records are open to parental inspection, including test protocols and treatment notes (unless excluded under state law)—

raising legal issues about violation of copyright laws and professional ethical issues regarding disclosure of sensitive information. In some instances

schools are required to make copies of copyrighted test protocols for parental inspection. Scrutiny and review of psychologists’ work is increasing.

(iii) Obtaining, integrating, and interpreting information

about child behavior and conditions relating to learning;

(iv) Consulting with other staff members in planning school

programs to meet the special needs of children as indi-

cated by psychological tests, interviews, and behavioral

evaluations;

(v) Planning and managing a program of psychological ser-

vices, including psychological counseling for children

and parents; and 

(vi) Assisting in developing positive behavioral intervention

strategies.

Although the conception of psychological services in

the IDEA regulations is broad and progressive, the actual

effects of the close association with special education

constitute a two-edged sword for school psychology. One

side is that the legislation has prompted the enormous

growth in school psychology over the last 25 years and pro-

vides a secure funding base in nearly all states. Strong spe-

cial education funding nearly always has meant strong

funding for school psychology, and vice versa. The other

side is that the top service priority for the vast majority of

school psychologists is to conduct eligibility evaluations and

to participate in other special education placement activities,

thus limiting the amount of time available for preventive

mental health, direct interventions, and problem-solving

consultation.

Legal Requirements

439

Assessment and Eligibility Determination Regulations

In addition to greater demand, the nature of school psycholog-

ical services changed dramatically after 1975 and continues to

change with statutes and regulations that require eligibility

evaluations to meet certain standards. The regulations that

have the most influence on school psychology practice appear

as the Procedures for Evaluation and Determination of Eligi-

bility section of the federal IDEA regulations (34 C. F. R. 300-

530 through 543). Comparable state education agency rules

exist at the state level. The key regulations that have the most

impact on school psychology practice are:

• A full and individual evaluation that meets certain stan-

dards must be conducted prior to determining eligibility for

disability status and placement in special education.

• The evaluation must not be racially or culturally discrimi-

natory, and it must be administered in the child’s native

language unless to do so is clearly not feasible.

• Disability classification shall not occur if the tests or other

evaluation procedures are unduly affected by language

differences.

• The evaluation results must be relevant to determining

disability eligibility and to the development of the child’s

individualized educational program.

• Standardized tests must be validated for the purpose for

which they are used and must be administered by knowl-

edgeable and trained personnel in accordance with test

publishers’ requirements.

• Tests and other evaluation procedures must focus on spe-

cific educational needs, not merely on a single construct

such as general intellectual functioning.

• The evaluation accounts for the effects of other limitations

such as sensory loss or psychomotor disabilities and does

not merely reflect those limitations.

• No single procedure is used; a multifactored assessment

must be provided that includes areas related to the sus-

pected disability, including (if appropriate) health, vision,

hearing, social and emotional status, general intelligence,

academic performance, communicative status, and motor

abilities. All of the child’s special education and related

services needs must be identified regardless of whether

those needs are commonly associated with a specific

disability.

• A review of existing information pertaining to the child’s

disability eligibility and special education program place-

ment must be conducted every 3 years or more often if

requested by a parent or teacher. A comprehensive reeval-

uation may be conducted as part of the review.

• An evaluation report shared with parents must be

developed.

• Eligibility and placement decisions must be based on a

wide variety of information and be made by a team that in-

cludes evaluation personnel, teachers, special educators,

and parents.

• In the area of SLD, a severe discrepancy must be estab-

lished between achievement and intellectual ability;

furthermore, cause of the SLD cannot be sensory impair-

ment; mental retardation; emotional disturbance; or envi-

ronmental, economic, or cultural disadvantage. 

The discerning reader will notice almost immediately the

inherent ambiguity in many regulations. For example, what

does nondiscrimination or validated for a specific purpose

mean? Does nondiscrimination mean equal average scores

for all groups on relevant measures? Equal predictive accu-

racy? Equal classification and placement outcomes? Simi-

larly, how valid is sufficiently valid to meet the legal

requirement? Is a validity coefficient of r

ϭ .5 sufficient, or

does it have to be higher? No answers are given in the regu-

lations, and for the most part, these questions have not been

answered in litigation. Some of the regulations regarding

eligibility evaluation might be regarded best as aspirational

because—given the current state of knowledge—achieving

nondiscrimination in an absolute sense or attaining perfect or

near-perfect validity are nearly impossible. Clearly, the regu-

lations give notice that high-quality evaluations are required

and that special sensitivity to sociocultural differences is

expected.

In addition to the regulations governing the processes and

procedures for eligibility evaluations, the actual disability

classification criteria also exert a strong influence on the

kinds of evaluations conducted by school psychologists.

The IDEA regulations provide conceptual definitions for 13

disabilities. The federal conceptual definitions generally

indicate the fundamental bases for each of the disability

categories—for example, MR is defined in terms of intellec-

tual functioning and adaptive behavior, but classification cri-

teria are not provided in the federal regulations (e.g., the IQ

and adaptive behavior cutoff scores to define eligibility in

MR). The state education agency rules generally are the most

important influences on classification criteria.

States have wide discretion in the use of disability cate-

gories and disability names and—most especially—in the

classification criteria used to define disabilities. The frequent

use of standardized tests of intellectual functioning and

achievement by school psychologists is closely tied to the na-

ture of these state eligibility criteria. The disability with the

highest prevalence, SLD (accounting for over half of all