School Psychology Quarterly

Diversification trends of U.S. schools make clear the need for evidence-based practices supporting ethnically-racially diverse students. Yet, there are significant hindrances to readily identifying and summarizing findings generated from diverse classroom contexts. The current meta-analytic review was designed to address this gap in the classroom management literature. This review includes single-case design studies conducted in majority ethnic-racial minority classrooms (≥50%) that included a direct comparison of baseline to treatment for behavior management strategies implemented at the whole class level...

This case study describes in depth the actions and processes associated with implementing the Classroom Strategies Coaching (CSC) model with a 3rd-grade teacher, Sara. The CSC model uses formative assessment data to support teachers' use of evidenced-based instructional and behavior management practices. The CSC model took place across 8 weeks in a high poverty school. Findings highlight increased use of behavior praise and concept summaries by Sara (single subject effect sizes of 8.49, .56) and reduced need for practice changes in academic performance feedback and behavior praise (as measured by Classroom Strategies Assessment System discrepancy scores [i...

Research has supported the applied use of Direct Behavior Rating Single-Item Scale (DBR-SIS) targets of "academic engagement" and "disruptive behavior" for a range of purposes, including universal screening and progress monitoring. Though useful in evaluating social behavior and externalizing problems, these targets have limited utility in evaluating emotional behavior and internalizing problems. Thus, the primary purpose of this study was to support the initial development and validation of a novel DBR-SIS target of "unhappy," which was intended to tap into the specific construct of depression...

The Bayley's Scales of Infant and Toddler Development-Third Edition (Bayley-III) were used to measure the development of 24-month-old children (N = 1,452) in the Interactions of Malnutrition and Enteric Infections: Consequences for Child Health and Development (MAL-ED) study (an international, multisite study on many aspects of child development). This study examined the factor structure and measurement equivalence/invariance of Bayley-III scores across 7 international research sites located in Bangladesh, Brazil, India, Nepal, Pakistan, Peru, and South Africa...

Teachers report high levels of occupational stress, which is associated with teacher turnover and potential negative consequences for students. Mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs) may improve the protective factors that buffer educators against occupational stress. Although previous meta-analytic reviews synthesized the effects of MBIs for healthy and clinical samples of adults, this study was the first to synthesize the effects of MBIs for teachers (grades pre-K through 12). A total of 347 effect sizes from 29 studies (N = 1,493) were synthesized using metaregression with robust variance estimation...

Single-case experimental methods are used across a range of educational and psychological research. Single-case data are analyzed with a variety of methods, but no statistic has demonstrated clear superiority over other methods. The time-series nature of single-case designs requires special consideration for baseline trend and autocorrelation when estimating intervention effect size. However, standard correction methods are limited because they assume precise statistical estimation of trend and autocorrelation...

Despite research demonstrating the importance of student-teacher relationships for student functioning, little is known about strategies to enhance such relationships, particularly in secondary school. The current study examined effects of a professional development for middle school teachers on the Establish-Maintain-Restore (EMR) approach. EMR aims to enhance teachers' skills in cultivating relationships with students and involves brief training (3 hr) and ongoing implementation supports. In a randomized controlled trial, 20 teachers and 190 students were assigned to EMR or control...

One evaluation measure available through the Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports framework is the Effective Behavior Support Self-Assessment Survey (SAS). Evaluations of the SAS have supported its factor structure. However, the SAS is designed to be completed by school personnel who are nested within other levels of analysis (e.g., schools, grade level, district). There have been no studies examining the SAS from a multilevel perspective. The current study addressed this gap by evaluating the SAS using data from 1,726 respondents across 36 public schools in 3 school districts...

Situated within a positive psychology perspective, the current study examined the relations among academic achievement, self-esteem, and subjective well-being (SWB) in school among Chinese elementary school students using a longitudinal mediation model. A total of 807 elementary school students ( M age = 9.43 years; 52.9% male) completed a multimeasure questionnaire that tapped the targeted variables at 3 time points, across 18 months. After controlling for gender, age, and family socioeconomic status, the results revealed that (a) academic achievement positively predicted later SWB in school; (b) self-esteem at Time 2 completely mediated the relation between academic achievement at Time 1 and SWB in school at Time 3; and (c) significant bidirectional relations were observed between self-esteem and SWB in school...

Parents and teachers-primary socializers across elementary grades-offer potentially differential support mechanisms for children's healthy functioning across developmental periods. Utilizing child, parent, teacher, and observational data from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Department Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development (n = 1,031), we employed a longitudinal path model to examine indirect associations between parents' and teachers' academic influences (i.e., direct parental involvement, the student-teacher relationship, instructional support) and achievement (reading and math) through behavioral engagement at 1st and 5th grades...

Implementation science provides guidance on adapting existing evidence based practices (EBPs) by incorporating implementation concerns from the start. Focus-group methodology was used to understand barriers and facilitators of transition planning and implementation for students with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) who often experience disparate postsecondary outcomes compared to peers. Results were used to modify an evidence-based consultation intervention originally applied to young students with ASD, called the Collaborative Model for Promoting Competence and Success (COMPASS; Ruble, Dalrymple, & McGrew, 2012)...

School-based professionals often use curriculum-based measurement of reading (CBM-R) to monitor the progress of students with reading difficulties. Much of the extant CBM-R progress monitoring research has focused on its use for making group-level decisions, and less is known about using CBM-R to make decisions at the individual level. To inform the administration and use of CBM-R progress monitoring data, the current study evaluated the utility of 4 progress monitoring schedules that differed in frequency (once or twice weekly) and density (1 or 3 probes)...

Despite prior studies documenting learning difficulties among internationally adopted youth (IAY), none has explored academic motivation within this population. The current study addressed this gap by examining expectancies for success and task values in math and science among internationally adopted, domestically adopted, and nonadopted high-school students. Differences in students' math achievement and parents' beliefs about their ability were also explored. A subsample of 7,420 11th-grade students was selected from the High School Longitudinal Study data set (Ingels et al...

Prior research shows that many teachers feel ill-equipped to deal with students experiencing loss, and teachers of Black male adolescents, in particular, sometimes mistake grieving for misbehavior. This multimethod case study investigated the way teachers and their Black male students at a single-sex school related around encounters with loss. We examined students' and teachers' grief experiences through stories that were shared during qualitative interviews and focus group meetings and by observing everyday interactions throughout the school building...

Bereavement due to sudden loss may disrupt positive adjustment among youth, yet few studies have examined the age at which youth are most likely to first encounter sudden loss, the co-occurrence of sudden loss with other traumatic events, and the independent effects of sudden loss on academic functioning. Data were analyzed from the National Comorbidity Survey-Adolescent Supplement (N = 10,148, Mage = 15.18, 51.1% female). Youth reported on whether they had experienced sudden loss (along with 17 other traumatic events), the age at which they had first experienced sudden loss, and multiple indicators of academic functioning...

The objective was to characterize the relation between different sources of school-based social support (friends, peers, and teachers) and bereaved siblings' grief and grief-related growth and to examine whether nonparental sources of social support buffer the effects of low parent support on bereaved siblings. Families (N = 85) were recruited from cancer registries at 3 pediatric institutions 3-12 months after a child's death. Bereaved siblings were 8-18 years old (M = 12.39, SD = 2.65) and majority female (58%) and White (74%)...

School psychologists are in a unique position to both identify and work with grieving students; to provide guidance to schools, families, and peers on approaches to support such children and youth; and to offer training to classroom educators so that they are better prepared to support grieving students. Yet, there has been minimal research published on this topic in professional journals. This special section of School Psychology Quarterly is devoted to grief and loss with the hope of beginning to narrow this gap in the literature...

The use of multilevel modeling (MLM) to analyze nested data has grown in popularity over the years in the study of school psychology. However, with the increase in use, several statistical misconceptions about the technique have also proliferated. We discuss some commonly cited myths and golden rules related to the use of MLM, explain their origin, and suggest approaches to dealing with certain issues. Misunderstandings related to the use of the intraclass correlation, design effects, minimum sample size, multilevel factor structures, model R², and the misestimation of standard errors are reviewed...

Children and youth rely on language skills to navigate environments, many of which are multifaceted and complex. In a society in which successful interactions involve language and prosocial behavior, children who struggle with language or classroom behavior are predisposed to failure. The present perspectives article (a) summarizes the comorbidity of and relations between language skills and behavior problems, (b) provides examples of recent descriptive and experimental studies on these relations, (c) overviews current theoretical frameworks for situating empirical research in this area, and (d) recommends directions for future research...

Single-case data are frequently used in school psychology. In research, single-case designs allow experimenters to provide rigorous demonstrations of treatment effects on a smaller scale and with more precise measurement than traditional group experimental design. In practice, single-case data are used to evaluate the effects of school-based services to make decisions at the individual level within a multitiered system of support (MTSS). School psychology and related fields (e.g., special education) have worked to increase the rigor of single-case data by developing standards for single-case experimental design and developing robust single-case effect size statistics; however, in practice, single-case data are often collected with less experimental rigor and evaluated using visual analysis of a linear graph as opposed to quantitative effect sizes...