School -based consultation and assessment: Communication patterns and educational implications.
Item
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Title
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School -based consultation and assessment: Communication patterns and educational implications.
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Identifier
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AAI3083703
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identifier
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3083703
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Creator
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Rolih, Jeanne Nester.
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Contributor
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Adviser: Carol Kehr Tittle
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Date
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2003
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Education, Educational Psychology
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Abstract
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The purpose of this study was to examine the communication patterns and cognitive structures of a psychologist and a teacher when discussing the psychoeducational assessment results of a child referred by the teacher for academic underachievement. An additional intent of the study was to examine the differences in the cognition and verbal behavior of experienced or "expert" school psychologists and school psychology interns or "novices." This study consisted of the audio taping of a teacher and a school psychologist as they discussed the assessment results of the referred child. Quantitative and qualitative analyses were conducted on the data. The quantitative analyses, which involved coding the data according to a modified version of the Consultation Analysis Record (Rolih, 2001), showed that psychologists spent most of their time describing or explaining their assessment results to teachers. However, both teachers and psychologists shared information or contributed to the content of the conversation, with psychologists speaking more than teachers.;Qualitative analyses identified three important differences in the communication and cognition of experts and novices. First, experts gave complete explanations of their assessment data. That is, they addressed the two domains of consultation and assessment: the child during the evaluation and the child in the classroom. They also attempted to confirm or validate their clinical impressions of the child with teachers. Novices, on the other hand, tended to focus on their own assessment data and did not endeavor to generalize their findings to the classroom. Second, experts retrieved relevant knowledge fluently and identified meaningful patterns in their data, whereas novices did not evidence those behaviors. Finally, experts recommended classroom interventions as a primary goal for the child and special services (e.g., resource room) as an adjunct to classroom interventions. Experts also developed classroom interventions in dialogue with teachers during the meeting. In contrast, novices recommended special services as the principal intervention for the child, and they rarely recommended classroom interventions. They also tended to present their recommendations to teachers. The educational implications for the training of future school psychologists are discussed. In addition, the implications for a broader definition of test validity are described.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
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degree
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Ph.D.
