School Psychology Research Articles

Irina Ivanovna Mamaichuk. Her scientific contributions in child clinical psychology and psychology of developmental disorders

The article is dedicated to the memory of Professor of the Department of Medical Psychology and Psychophysiology of the Saint Petersburg State University, a leading specialist in the field of child clinical psychology Irina Ivanovna Mamaychuk. An attempt to analyze and generalize its great scientific and practical contribution to child clinical psychology is made. The stages of her professional path are singled out and described: (1) the study of the mechanisms and types of disturbed development in children with cerebral palsy; (2) study of the psychology of children with various disorders of the musculoskeletal system; (3) empirical substantiation of strategies and technologies for psychological assistance to children with various variants of disturbed development; (4) development of methodological and applied problems of child clinical psychology. The results and conclusions of Irina Ivanovna’s key studies are revealed, which have made a great contribution to understanding the causes and mechanisms of mental disorders in children and adolescents, and embodying the principles of ontogenetic and system-structural approaches developed at the Leningrad — St. Petersburg school of psychology. In particular, the study of the role of motility in perceptogenesis in various variants of dysontogenesis; specifics of violations of interfunctional relationships in children with motor and mental disorders; subspecies of mental retardation of cerebral-organic origin; psychological characteristics of children and adolescents with somatic pathology. Based on the analysis of scientific works, a list of the main problems and prospects of modern child clinical psychology is highlighted. An approach to psychological assistance and psychological correction of disorders in children and adolescents is described, taking into account the role of the family and the immediate environment. It is emphasized that the empirical work of Irina Ivanovna has become the “gold standard” in the study of the problems of children with mental dysontogenesis, and her theoretical generalizations and methodological developments are very important а for the further development of child clinical psychology and understanding the problem of mental development in general.

O PAPEL DO PSICÓLOGO ESCOLAR SEGUNDO PROFESSORES: UMA ABORDAGEM BIOECOLÓGICA

ABSTRACT The objective of this research was to understand, from a Bioecological approach, the role of the school psychologist according to the perspective of early childhood and elementary school teachers in a private school in the city of Recife. Individual interviews were conducted with 10 teachers. Data were analyzed using the Thematic Content Analysis Technique. Three categories were identified (frequent activities of the psychologist, role of the psychologist, and the psychologist’s conception) that revealed the recognition of the psychologist’s active posture, considered a professional with a differentiated look and whose performance is focused on students, their families, and teachers, while creating a space for exchange and partnership. The ecological transition and the proximal processes play a fundamental role in understanding the role of the school psychologist. This understanding, by the teachers, is in accordance with the new model of performance expected from this professional - preventive and relational practice - rather than old paradigms.

Соціально-психологічний супровід дитячо-батьківських взаємин під час дистанційного навчання в закладах загальної середньої освіти в умовах війни

The article substantiates the relevance of the problem of psychological and pedagogical support of families, with consideration of modern realities and challenges of the time (distance learning in war conditions). The possibilities of remote monitoring of child-parent relations and the role of a school psychologist have been determined. Conclusions regarding the results of the study of theoretical approaches in providing psychological and pedagogical assistance to children and teachers have been given. The main problems in family and child-parent relations in war conditions have been identified. Factors that significantly exacerbate child-parent relations have been analyzed. A pilot study in the form of a survey (via Google Forms) in 7th, 9th, 10th grades has been conducted (parents and students of secondary schools of Slovianskyi district of Donetsk region participated in the sample). The types and volumes of child-parent communication after school hours have been clarified. The need for systematic psychological and pedagogical support and the creation of the following conditions for the interaction of the participants of the educational process has been proven: the formation of permanent, two-way informational contact between the participants of the interaction; systematic and purposeful inclusion of all subjects of the educational process in the joint activity; the formation of a positive attitude towards the interaction of participants against the background of favorable emotional well-being.

School Psychologist Practices in an Educational Program for Gifted Students

Resumo: Este estudo objetivou investigar práticas dos psicólogos escolares em atendimento educacional a estudantes superdotados, bem como os desafios enfrentados por estes profissionais. O cenário da pesquisa foi um atendimento educacional especializado para estudantes com altas habilidades/superdotação oferecido por uma secretaria de estado de Educação da região Centro-Oeste do Brasil. Participaram cinco psicólogas(os) escolares atuantes no atendimento, e utilizou-se a entrevista semiestruturada como instrumento. Para a análise dos dados, optou-se pela análise de conteúdo qualitativa. Os resultados revelaram que as(os) psicólogas(os) escolares realizam práticas envolvendo alunos, familiares e professoras(es), com cinco categorias se destacando: avaliação psicológica do aluno; práticas de acolhimento, suporte e orientação; intervenções breves; planejamento, desenvolvimento e acompanhamento das atividades; e divulgação do atendimento ao superdotado. Contudo, as(os) psicólogas(os) enfrentam desafios em sua atuação, como o impacto de mitos e crenças populares equivocadas, trocas de governo, inconsistência na legislação sobre a educação do superdotado, insuficiência de investimentos no atendimento e influência de outros fatores contextuais. Conclui-se que as(os) psicólogas(os) escolares desempenham funções cruciais no atendimento ao superdotado, sobretudo no que tange ao mapeamento das necessidades do aluno e ao suporte aos envolvidos em sua educação, mas diversos fatores limitam sua prática. Logo, propõem-se direções para possibilitar uma atuação mais ampla e efetiva da(o) psicóloga(o).

Teachers as caregivers of grieving children in school in the post-COVID-19 era: using the self-determination theory to conceptualize teachers' needs when supporting grieving children's mental health.

It has been estimated in recent studies that more than 1.5 million children worldwide lost a caregiver due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Childhood bereavement is associated with heightened risks of impaired academic and social performance, mental health issues, substance use disorders, and higher mortality rates. Yet children may receive insufficient support post-loss. Although the role of school psychologists in supporting grieving students has been examined, little is known about the role of teachers in this context. Specifically, knowledge about teachers' needs when supporting bereaved children is lacking. The study's aim was to explore teachers' needs, drawing upon a well-established framework-self-determination theory (SDT)-which focuses on three human needs considered essential for optimal functioning: autonomy, competence, and relatedness. Employing a qualitative approach, 36 teachers were interviewed about their needs when supporting grieving students. Interviews were transcribed and then analyzed using thematic content analysis. Analysis revealed three SDT-related needs: knowledge (theory- and practice-related), acknowledgment, and support (emotional and practical). The findings enhance our theoretical understanding of childhood bereavement and may promote policy changes that ensure teachers' needs satisfaction. Its significance lies in the basic premise that supporting teachers' needs in the context of pediatric grief may eventually lead to their optimal ability to enact best practices for supporting grieving students' well-being.

“The world has collapsed, what am I going to do?” —A School Psychological Counseling Case Report of a Junior High School Student with Acute Stress Disorder

“The world has collapsed, what am I going to do?” —A School Psychological Counseling Case Report of a Junior High School Student with Acute Stress Disorder

Historiografia e empatia: ações da Psicologia Escolar Crítica sobre as práticas de automutilação

Abstract Objective Intervention research in the field of Critical School Psychology based on historiographical assumptions. The objective was to investigate the current meanings of non-suicidal self-harm in educational environments. Method In the workshops, psychology students were prepared to put themselves in the shoes of a person with a history of non-suicidal self-harm. Later, these students wrote narratives about that person's past, their current experiences and future expectations. Results Aspects highlighted in the literature about the history of non-suicidal self-injury were also configured in the current meanings about self-mutilation described in the narratives of Psychology students. Psychology students modified their meanings about non-suicidal self-injury to empathize with people with this experience. Conclusion As the historiographical approach aims to explain current situations anchored in past events, it favors the planning of actions for educational environments committed to ethical and political aspects. The focus on empathy associated with a historiographical perspective on educational processes can be a way to design actions in the field of Critical School Psychology, given its commitment to the humanization of contemporary society.

Statement by Division 16 of the American Psychological Association: Safety of Schools (SOS) Task Force.

This is an official statement of School Psychology, Division 16 of the American Psychological Association, and does not represent the position of the American Psychological Association or any of its other divisions or subunits. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Supplemental Material for Transitioning to Telehealth During COVID-19: Challenges and Opportunities for Trauma-Focused School Psychology

Supplemental Material for Transitioning to Telehealth During COVID-19: Challenges and Opportunities for Trauma-Focused School Psychology

Unfair teachers, unhappy students: longitudinal associations of perceived teacher relational unfairness with adolescent peer aggression and school satisfaction.

Teacher relational unfairness is a significant risk factor for students' physical and mental well-being, especially during adolescence. However, school psychology research has not yet fully analyzed the links between teacher unfairness and important indicators of school experience and wellbeing, including peer aggression and school satisfaction. Even less evidence does exist with longitudinal, multilevel data. The present study tested the prospective relations between Fall perceived teacher unfairness and Spring reactive and proactive aggression, and school satisfaction. At T1, participants were 1,299 students (48.3% girls, mean age = 13.6 years, SD = 1.1) attending 67 classrooms in Italian public schools, whereas 1,227 students participated in the second wave 6 months later. Multilevel regressions showed that, at the individual level, T1 perceived teacher unfairness positively predicted T2 reactive and proactive aggression, and negatively predicted school satisfaction. At the class-level, T1 class teacher unfairness explained between-class variability in T2 school satisfaction, but not variability in peer aggression. The findings expand current knowledge about the role of teacher unfairness with the classroom and have implications for interventions at school.

School Psychology annual journal update: Revising open science standards.

School Psychology is an outlet for research on children, youth, educators, and families that has scientific, practice, and policy implications for education and educational systems. In this editorial, annual updates are provided regarding journal impact, award winners, special topics, and editorial leadership, as well as reflections on how the journal engages in the open science process to promote transparency, rigor, and reproducibility in the science produced in the field of school psychology. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Optimization Strategy of Middle School Psychological Teaching Objective Design from the Perspective of Positive Psychology

Optimization Strategy of Middle School Psychological Teaching Objective Design from the Perspective of Positive Psychology

The Application of Solution-focused Technology in Primary School Psychology Class—Taking the Lesson of Reconciliation with Imperfection as an Example

The Application of Solution-focused Technology in Primary School Psychology Class—Taking the Lesson of Reconciliation with Imperfection as an Example

Developmental Psychology and Differential Psychology at St. Petersburg State University (25 years since the founding of the Department)

The Department of Developmental Psychology and Differential Psychology turned 25 years old, in 2022, In 2022. The article discusses the main stages of the scientific study of the problems of developmental psychology and differential psychology at the St. Petersburg Psychological School. B.G. Ananyev proceeded from the need to study a person in the unity of his properties as an individual, personality, subject of activity, individuality in the process of his individual development. The ideas of human integrity and continuity of development are laid by him in the basis of the scientific study of individuality. For the purposes of such a study, it is necessary to combine the efforts of developmental psychology and differential psychology and the use of methods of complex study. Initially, this direction was formed within the Department of General Psychology, empirical research was carried out by employees of the Laboratory of Differential Psychology and Anthropology of NIIKSI, starting in 1963. The Department of Developmental Psychology and Differential Psychology was opened in 1998. The department's research covers all periods of human development, starting from prenatal, and ending with the period of late adulthood and aging. Former and current employees of the department conducted large-scale studies of the intellectual potential of adolescents living in different environmental conditions. The conditions, factors and mechanisms of self-realization of personality in adolescence, adolescence and adulthood were studied. A comprehensive study of the stressors of everyday life and coping mechanisms at different stages of adulthood has been conducted. The parameters of psychoemotional well-being of adolescents and adults were studied from the standpoint of an integrative approach. Studies of the impact of pandemic-related stress on pregnant women and child development and many other projects have been conducted. The history of the department is represented by four generations of researchers, starting from the direct students of B.G. Ananyev, M.D. Alexandrova, E.F. Rybalko, N.A. Grishchenko-Rose and ending with the students of their students.

INTERVENÇÕES À LUZ DA PSICOLOGIA ESCOLAR NA UNIVERSIDADE: UMA EXPERIÊNCIA DE ESTÁGIO

ABSTRACT This article seeks to report the internship experience in School and Educational Psychology at a Psychology school service, located at a university in Natal/RN. The interventional project that was developed throughout the internship period sought to provide open group meetings for the students’ demands. Thus, three steps were established: 1) dissemination of the project; 2) three intervention meetings; 3) evaluative moment of the actions performed by the internship team. The elaborated interventions highlighted the importance of the university in providing the reception to the complaints of academic daily life, bringing not only the idea of quality of life inside the university, but also offering considerable support to meet the needs of the students.

Can Empathy Moderate the Interaction Between Anxiety and Indirect Aggression? Evidence-Based Study of Adolescent Girls

The current study looked into the connections between adolescent females' anxiety, empathy, and indirect aggression. It was hypothesized that the three different forms of anxiety (i.e., state, trait, and social anxiety) would predict and positively correlate to indirect aggression while empathy would moderate this relationship. A descriptive-predictive research design was employed and a sample of (N = 210) adolescent girls between the ages of (13 and 18) years (M = 14.54, SD = 1.27) was taken through a non-probability purposive sampling method. Study variables were assessed through the short version of the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI), the Social Interaction Anxiety Inventory (SIAS), the Basic Empathy Scale (BES), and Relational Aggression Scale. Results showed a positive correlation among study variables and all three types of anxiety predicted indirect aggression while empathy moderated the relationship between them. This study was an empirical and research-based addition to the already existing indigenous body of literature regarding anxiety in school environments that could potentially cause indirect aggression among adolescent girls. Moreover, it provided insight into associations and predictions regarding study variables and filled the existing gap in the literature. These findings have implications within the fields of school psychology, gender psychology, and social psychology.

Особенности личностного ресурса школьников: предикторы ненормативного поведения и причины учебной лени

The purpose of the study was to investigate the connection between the non-normative forms of behaviour of schoolchildren with young people's satisfaction with the attitude of significant persons (parents, teachers, peers), as well as personal traits, such as self-confidence, accountability and self-regulation. The study is based on the views of the ecopsychological approach to the study of mental development and was conducted in a comprehensive school. The study involved 698 students of grades 8–11. The author used own methods ‘Personal Resource of Schoolchildren’ and ‘Academic Indolence, or Reasons for Reluctance to Learn’. Results of descriptive statistics and validation permitted us to proceed to the research tasks. The hypothesis of a significant association between dissatisfaction with the attitudes of significant persons and disturbing use of digital devices (teachers ,458; parents ,431), tendency to violate rules (teache­rs ,422; parents ,417) and tendency to suicidal feelings (teachers ,434; parents ,692; peers ,452) at a significance level of p<0.001 was confirmed (Spearman). Such personal traits as self-confidence, accountability and self-regulation can be viewed as a condition of normal behaviour. Applied value of the results of the study lies in the development of psychological tools to prevent abnormal behaviour of young people by educating teachers on the harmonization of relationships. The developed methods may be of interest for the school psychology staff.

Using Participatory Research Methods to Foster an Anti-Racist Graduate Learning Environment

Only within the last few years has the American Psychological Association (APA) acknowledged the impact that the racist history of psychology training, research, and practice has had on people of color (APA, October 2021). As the primary governing organization of psychology, the field looks to the APA to model the possibility of an anti-racist approach to psychology. Training competencies, such as “professionalism,” have persisted as a core foundational skill, yet there is no consensus regarding the definition or essential elements of the competency (Elman et al., 2005; Grus et al., 2018). The lack of clarity in definition and essential elements has left supervising health service psychologists to form more subjective assessments that may be rooted within the field’s racist history. It is therefore unsurprising that professionalism is a concept that has long been weaponized against Black people, Indigenous people, and people of color (BIPOC) in medical and educational settings (Marom, 2019). To address this problem in a School Psychology doctoral program, participatory action research (PAR) methods were utilized to take action towards the creation of an equitable, inclusive, experiential definition of professionalism to reduce opportunities for racist and other discriminatory evaluation. Students and faculty were involved in every phase of the project, from the inception through multiple rounds of analysis and member checking. The result was a programmatic Essence Statement of professionalism, core beliefs about professionalism, and a table of professionalism competencies with definitions and behavioral exemplars, all of which are now codified in the School Psychology Program Handbook and available to all current and prospective students and faculty. The outlined methods can be implemented by professionals across disciplines and systems to actively reduce inequalities in settings where individuals with diverse and intersection identities evaluated by these systems have traditionally been excluded from the processes that impact them.

Mixed methods integration strategies used in education: A systematic review

Mixed methods research (MMR) has been widely adopted in a plethora of disciplines. Integration is the pressing issue regarding the legitimation, the added value, and the quality of using MMR, though inadequate literature has discussed effective strategies used in the field of education, including school psychology, counseling, and teacher education. This study reviewed 119 recently published MMR articles in education using a four-dimension codebook with the goal to explore generic integration strategies and innovative strategies used by educational researchers in practice. As a result, three most commonly used generic integration strategies were identified, including (1) using a good mixed methods (MM) research question to guide research design, (2) using appropriate MM sampling strategy to obtain good data for achieving integration, and (3) using multiple MM data mixing strategies to facilitate integration. Moreover, five creative integration strategies were found at the method level: (1) using an innovative survey to collect both qualitative and quantitative data, (2) using visual support to collect data, (3) using high-tech methods to facilitate data collection, (4) using data visualization in mixing, and (5) quantitizing categorized QUAL data. This review summarizes and analyzes the effective integration strategies commonly used at the research design level and at the method level. It also provides valuable recommendations for educational researchers to explore creative strategies to achieve efficient integration when they conduct mixed methods research.

School psychologists’ perceptions of the effectiveness of neuropsychological evaluation reports

Referral sources and parents value the report following a neuropsychological evaluation. Nevertheless, key stakeholders have described pediatric reports as excessive in length and jargon. Recent research indicates that it is possible to modify pediatric neuropsychological reports that result in positive outcomes for key stakeholders and clinicians. Evaluating modified pediatric neuropsychological reports for other providers is necessary. School psychologists are key stakeholders who read and interact with such reports. This study assessed school psychologists’ perceptions of a modified pediatric neuropsychological report. Forty-one school psychologists were randomly assigned to read either a traditional or modified version of a pediatric report and provide feedback via survey and qualitative questions. Results revealed that school psychologists’ perceptions of a traditional and modified report were not significantly different. Qualitatively, respondents noted a disconnect between recommendations and school systems. These findings suggest that pediatric neuropsychologists can create shorter and more easily understood reports that do not impact the effectiveness for school psychologists. Future research should continue to evaluate perceptions of modified pediatric neuropsychological reports for additional key stakeholders. A better understanding of the disconnect between recommendations and their feasibility in schools, as well as barriers to increased interdisciplinary collaboration, is also essential for client care.