School Climates and Student Behavior: Implications for Counselor Role

The current research on the study of school climates is described, and implications of this research for counselor role are indicated. This research has examined the nature of educational climates and environments, as well as the relationship of various environments to student achievement, attitudes, and behaviors. The research provides information about the nature of school environments as they are affected by staff characteristics and behaviors and student peer group characteristics. This research indicates that schools do have quite different climates which are supportive of diverse types of student and staff behavior. It appears that the adjustment and success of an individual student may well be a function of (a) the type of climate of the school he attends, and (b) the extent to which the school climate is supportive of his individual needs. After an extensive review of nine methodologies for studying school climate, possible applications of these research findings by the counselor are described.     

School Psychology: Training Individuals for One of the Best Kept Secrets in Professional Psychology

Abstract

School psychology training at the doctoral level is discussed. Given the increasing diversity in the schools as well as the varied education and mental health needs of the population, school psychology training is necessarily broad, involving traditional skills such as assessment, intervention, consultation, and counseling, all of which are taught within a context of a changing school population with changing needs. Because there is compulsory education, school psychologists’ interface with a broad cross-section of individual children, their parents, and their teachers. Moreover, school psychological practice is not limited to schools, as doctoral school psychologists are health service providers; many of these individuals work in other settings for which they are trained to provide services. The complexities and challenges of training school psychologists within this broad agenda effectively across domains are discussed.     

Students' perception of school moral atmosphere: From moral culture to social competence. A generalizability study

The School Moral Atmosphere Questionnaire (SMAQ) was constructed to measure differences in students' perception of school moral atmosphere between schools. The instrument is based upon the constructs defined by the Just Community Approach that focused on students' shared perspective and portrayed ideal types of school moral culture. This study presents reliability estimates of the SMAQ based on a generalizability study. A total of 1280 students from 32 normal secondary schools participated in the study. The design of the study includes the factors: type of school varying in educational level; school; grade level; class; and student. Variance components and reliabilities are estimated for two models. In Model 1 grade level is a fixed effect, in Model 2 grade level is a random effect. The results indicate that moral atmosphere in school can be measured reliably, although in Model 2 a considerable number of observations may be needed. Because score levels for some subscales depend on the school type, reliabilities are higher for the entire population than for populations consisting of one particular school type. It is concluded that students' perception of moral atmosphere in normal secondary schools have a strong individual flavour. Perceived moral atmosphere should not be regarded primarily as a shared perspective among students within a school like a moral school culture, but as an instance of the social competence of the individual student.     

School outcomes of a community-wide intervention model aimed at preventing problem behavior

The Early Intervention for Children at Risk for Developing Behavioral Problems (EICR) is a community-wide intervention model preventing and treating problem behavior and promoting social competence in children. The aim of the study was to test whether EICR would result in fewer incidences of problem behavior and improved learning climate in elementary schools in a Norwegian municipality. The municipality was divided in two, each section having equal chance of being assigned to the intervention condition. Participants were principals and school staff. One year after the initiation of EICR, the prevalence of student problem behavior was significantly lower, and student relations were significantly better for schools located in the intervention area than for schools located in the comparison area. The findings support further development, implementation and research on the EICR model.     

Utilizing Staff Incentives to Increase School-Wide Praise

The authors evaluated whether an incentive raffle increased teachers' use of written praise and appropriate student behavior. Participants included 93 staff members and 755 students at an elementary school in Central Illinois. School staff received didactic instruction for the importance of using praise, and praise notes were measured on a weekly basis by praise type, staff member type, and student type. Results indicated that the faculty incentive produced medium effects for praise for students, but did not impact the number of office discipline referrals. Staff members reported praise notes to be an acceptable school-wide system for managing student behavior, but had mixed feelings regarding faculty receiving incentives for writing praise notes. Implications as well as future research are discussed.     

Group CBT for Externalizing Disorders in Urban Schools: Effect of Training Strategy on Treatment Fidelity and Child Outcomes

Public schools are an ideal setting for the delivery of mental health services to children. Unfortunately, services provided in schools, and more so in urban schools, have been found to lead to little or no significant clinical improvements. Studies with urban school children seldom report on the effects of clinician training on treatment fidelity and child outcomes. This study examines the differential effects of two levels of school-based counselor training: training workshop with basic consultation (C) vs. training workshop plus enhanced consultation (C +) on treatment fidelity and child outcomes. Fourteen school staff members (counselors) were randomly assigned to C or C +. Counselors implemented a group cognitive behavioral therapy protocol (Coping Power Program, CPP) for children with or at risk for externalizing behavior disorders. Independent coders coded each CPP session for content and process fidelity. Changes in outcomes from pre to post were assessed via a parent psychiatric interview and interviewer-rated severity of illness and global impairment. Counselors in C + delivered CPP with significantly higher levels of content and process fidelity compared to counselors in C. Both C and C + resulted in significant improvement in interviewer-rated impairment; the conditions did not differ from each other with regard to impairment. Groups did not differ with regard to pre- to- posttreatment changes in diagnostic severity level. School-based behavioral health staff in urban schools are able to implement interventions with fidelity and clinical effectiveness when provided with ongoing consultation. Enhanced consultation resulted in higher fidelity. Enhanced consultation did not result in better student outcomes compared to basic consultation. Implications for resource allocation decisions with staff training in EBP are discussed.     

Supportive school climate and student willingness to seek help for bullying and threats of violence

This study investigated the relations between student perceptions of support and student willingness to seek help for bullying and threats of violence in a sample of 7318 ninth-grade students from 291 high schools who participated in the Virginia High School Safety Study. Hierarchical linear modeling indicated that students who perceived their teachers and other school staff to be supportive were more likely to endorse positive attitudes toward seeking help for bullying and threats of violence. In schools with more perceived support, there was less of a discrepancy in help-seeking attitudes between girls and boys. Findings suggest that efforts by school staff to provide a supportive climate are a potentially valuable strategy for engaging students in the prevention of bullying and threats of violence.     

Using Information from an Early Intervention Program to Enhance Literacy Goals on the Individualized Education Program (IEP)

The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act requires that an Individualized Education Program (IEP) be developed for each child that receives special education services. To develop the most effective IEP, information is gathered from everyone who has worked with the child. In many schools the child receives early intervention services prior to referral to special education. One early intervention program that is utilized for first grade children falling behind in reading and writing is Reading Recovery®. The detailed information gathered as part of this program provides invaluable information that may facilitate development of appropriate literacy goals. This article discusses the information that is collected in the Reading Recovery program and provides an example of how this information can be utilized to support the development of IEP literacy goals.     

Individual and Contextual Factors Associated With School Connectedness in the Context of Counseling in Schools

School connectedness refers to students' beliefs that their peers and adults at school care about their learning and themselves as individuals. School connectedness has been widely documented as a significant predictor for positive student outcomes, yet little is known about factors associated with it as an outcome variable. Guided by the advocating student-within-environment framework situated with the social development model, this study explored individual and contextual factors associated with school connectedness among 1,201 students in Grades 4 to 8. Gender, ethnicity, grade level, and social skills were found to be significant individual factors, whereas school support for learning and acceptance of diversity were significant contextual factors. Together, the individual and contextual factors explained 47% of the variance in school connectedness. Our findings also revealed grade-related variability concerning associations between the factors and school connectedness. These findings provide further insights into fostering connectedness in the context of counseling in schools with consideration to students' developmental needs.     

Schools as Health Service Delivery Sites: Current Status and Future Directions

Summary

The health of our nation is inextricably linked with the health of our children. While families and professionals alike have recognized this truth for decades, current social reform movements in education and health services have provided an unprecedented opportunity for schools to become equal partners in addressing the needs of children, families, and communities in a wholistic, boundary-free, and collaborative manner. Since schools are the one social institution with which every child has contact, they offer a natural environment for assessment, services, and follow-up to promote the convergent education and health agendas articulated in Goals 2000 and Healthy People 2000. This article examines the components of education and health care reform with particular attention to a recon-ceptualization of health care services in schools. Within this framework, special services professionals are highlighted as leaders in service coordination and delivery for students, staff, and the community at large.     

The teacher as observer and experimenter in the modification of disputing and talking-out behaviors

Disputing and talking-out behaviors of individual pupils and entire classroom groups in special education classes and regular classes from white middle-class areas and from all black poverty areas ranging from the first grade to junior high school were studied. The classroom teacher in each case acted as the experimenter and as an observer. Various means of recording behaviors were used and reliability of observation was checked by an outside observer, another teacher, a teacher-aide, a student, or by using a tape recorder. Observation sessions varied from 15 min to an entire school day. After baseline rates were obtained, extinction of inappropriate disputing or talking-out behaviors and reinforcement of appropriate behavior with teacher attention, praise and in some cases a desired classroom activity or a surprise at the end of the week brought a decrease in undesired verbalizations. A reversal of contingencies brought a return to high levels of inappropriate talking with a return to low levels when reinforcement for appropriate talking was reinstated. The experiments demonstrated that teachers in a variety of classroom settings could obtain reliable observational records and carry out experimental manipulations successfully using resources available in most schools.     

The Family and the School: Utilizing Human Resources to Promote Learning

There is a continuing challenge in our complex society to bridge the gaps that exist between various subsystems. Only by overcoming segmentation can common problems be mutually addressed and the full resources of each subsystem be utilized in finding viable solutions. The project described here brings together members of the family with public school professional staff and a consultant from a family therapy unit. Each system learns from and about the others in an open, sharing environment. The processes of family therapy are utilized with the goals of reversing maladaptive school behavior of children and facilitating constructive interactions both between the family and the school and among school personnel.
The uniqueness in this effort lies in the treatment of the staff of a school as a live, dynamic, interacting system having some of the characteristics of a family. The need for mutual respect on the part of consultant and school personnel is documented. Defining and observing boundaries, clarifying roles and creating a non-critical atmosphere provide the security that permits and encourages individuals to share relevant material within agreed-upon parameters.
Changes in traditional practices have been achieved. School psychologists have taken on new roles while principals and staffs have learned new techniques and skills for relating to each other and for approaching family-based school learning problems. The non-blaming approach recognizes the child as a member of both a family and school organization. Bringing the family and the school together for dialogue and planning unburdens the child as a conveyor of information and values between the two systems. Thus far, there have been substantial benefits from the project to the schools, to the families, and to the body of professional knowledge from which we all learn and grow.     

On becoming a child advocate in school psychology

Child advocacy is becoming an important concept as well as practice in education and other serivices for children. There are definite societal reasons for the evolution of formal advocacy mechanisms, not the least of which is the functioning of professionals. School psychology provides an ideal opportunity for many child advocacy concepts to be implemented. However, the individual psychologists must have a personal commitment to “follow through” to see that children's needs are met. Child advocacy can be built into the school psychology training program in both philosophy and practice.     

Joining up with ‘not us’ staff to run adolescent groups in schools

The author describes the development of a model for working with staff members from non-psychoanalytic backgrounds to run therapeutic and therapy-like pupil groups in schools. She draws on her experience of co-facilitating groups at a London-based secondary school and uses examples from recent group work with Year 10 pupils (aged 14–15). Child psychotherapists who have shied away either from doing group work in general, or more specifically taking on group work in schools, may be encouraged to see that the underlying principles are essentially no different from those of individual therapy. Worrying and troublesome young people tend to have difficulties in their external relationships, often exhibited at school and contributing to their underachievement. Psychoanalytically informed groups such as the kind portrayed here can address this difficulty by offering a safe setting for interactions with other group participants and with the leaders to be observed, examined and challenged in the here and now. Attention is paid to primitive anxieties and the defences employed to keep them at bay, including the tendency to place individual needs before group needs when sense of self and sometimes survival itself are felt to be threatened. The aim is for participants to learn about themselves by sharing a group experience and, if successful, integrate some conflicting aspects of themselves. This model for doing group work demonstrates how child psychotherapists can make a unique and valuable contribution, provided the school environment is conducive and there is a member of staff who is open to learning a new way of working.     

School psychology-observation and reminiscence

Analyses of certain characteristics of the membership of the Division of School Psychology and some of its efforts are presented. Evidence is presented which suggests unequivocally that school psychologists, whom the schools clearly need, must be soundly grounded in relevant psychological testing theory, must be fully sensitive to the social characteristics and needs of each child in whose interests they work, and must be fully conversant with the relevance of their psychological perceptions to the educational functioning of those children.     

Effects of a school-based cognitive-behavioral intervention for ADHD children

Two variations of school-based cognitive-behavioral training (CBT) program were compared to each other and to a waiting-list control condition in the treatment of children with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). The experimental interventions included a multicomponent condition that provided coordinated training programs for parents, teachers, and children and a teacher-only condition that offered training for classroom teachers only. Evaluation of outcome occurred at pre-intervention, post-intervention and at 6-week followup periods. Depedent measures included classroom behavior observations, teacher ratings of child behavior, child self-report, and teacher ratings of adjustment. The multicomponent CBT condition was significantly better than the other conditions at improving observed off-task/disruptive behavior at post-test. This improvement was maintained at followup, although treatment condition differences were no longer significant. There were no treatment condition differences on any other measures at postintervention or followup. It was concluded that the intervention had minimal short-term effects on the ADHD children. The results are discussed within the context of several methodological limitations of the study which serve as proposals for continued research in this area.The authors gratefully acknowledge the support and assistance of the faculty and staff at Echo Park, Cedar Park and Westview Elementary Schools (Rosemount, MN, Independent School District), and the parents and children who participated in this study. The authors would also like to extent special thanks to the principals of these schools, Mr. Robert Keaton, Mr. William Mack and Mr. Marvin Skinner, and the school psychologists servicing these schools, Ms. Sheila Peterson, Ms. Ann O'Brien, and Mr. Mark Kaloski, for their commitment and service to children with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder.     

A Preventive Approach to School Violence and Vandalism: An Experimental Study

School violence and vandalism are at crisis level. The investigators attempted to employ strategies that would attack identified procreators of school violence and vandalism existing within our schools. The effects of these strategies on vandalism costs, student attendance, off-task and disruptive behaviors, and on various kinds of positive teacher-student contacts were investigated in 19 elementary schools. Results indicated that the dollar costs of vandalism and frequency of inappropriate student behaviors decreased more in experimental than in control schools. Student attending and positive teacher-student contacts improved, or remained higher, in the experimental than in the control schools.     

Counselling in schools: Looking back and looking forward

The history of counselling in schools is briefly outlined. Recent educational reforms have led to a fragmented approach which represents a return to the earlier view that counselling should be provided by outside specialists. This is particularly evident in relation to the issue of student exclusion from schools. It goes against the growing emphasis on the inclusion of students and on attention to the student voice in education. Counselling has an important part to play in enhancing both learning and effective schooling. Interviews with staff and students in two schools are drawn upon. It is argued that a polarisation of the cognitive and the personal/social is false and shortsighted.     

学校心理环境对小学4～6年级学生学业表现的作用及条件

本研究基于具有良好全国代表性的中国儿童青少年心理发育特征数据库,使用多水平建模,分析了来自全国100个区县421所学校的心理环境特征对10826名小学4~6年级学生学业表现的影响途径及其发挥作用的条件。研究结果表明:(1)小学4~6年级学生学习动机和态度及学业成绩中分别有10.0%和33.3%的变异来自学生个体以外的学校因素。(2)在控制学生年级、性别、家庭背景和学校所在地、师资、学校学生总体家庭社会经济地位(SES)等基本特征后,学校总体和学生个体知觉两个层次的学校心理环境对学生学习动机和态度的影响均显著大于其对学生学业成绩的影响;与个体知觉到的心理环境相比,学校总体心理环境对学生学业成绩的作用相对较强。(3)学校总体心理环境对学生学业表现的影响受到学校所在地、学校师资水平、学校学生总体社会经济地位的显著调节。学校总体心理环境对处于师资水平较低、平均家庭年收入较低学校学生的学习动机和态度具有相对更强的保护作用;对处于农村、师资水平较低、平均家长文化水平较低学校学生的学业成绩具有相对更强的保护性作用。上述结果表明,学校总体心理环境对学生学业表现具有重要影响,个体知觉到的心理环境仅部分中介其作用;且学校总体心理环境对学生学业表现的作用强度受到学校所在地、师资水平和学校学生总体社会经济地位的调节。