Do You See What I See? Teachers' and School Psychologists' Evaluations of Naturally Occurring

Abstract

Teachers and school psychologists participating in routine school-based, problem-solving consultation were surveyed regarding their perceptions of the referral concern, intervention development process, intervention outcomes, and their time investment. Respondents were surveyed using parallel forms on matched cases to permit analysis of perceptual agreement. Respondents reported developing and implementing multicomponent interventions that were predominantly designed for elementary school boys. Referral concerns included a range of problems that were rated by respondents as relatively severe. Across most of the items, school psychologists and teachers exhibited relatively high levels of agreement. The person to whom both the consultant and consultee reported feeling most accountable for the effectiveness of the intervention was the classroom teacher (i.e., the consultee). Time investment estimates indicated that consulting school psychologists may have been more directly involved in implementing interventions than traditional definitions of consultation would indicate.