Talk:School psychology

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[edit] School psychologist qualifications

I don't know who wrote this page, but no state lets you be a school psychologist with only a bachelors degree. First, it is unethical to use the term 'psychologist' unless you have a doctorate (check APA) and are licensed. Second, you cannot be a licensed school psychologist unless you have at least an educational specialist degree.

  • You need to provide your sources
  • Your edits should not contradict the references already cited, reputable references too.
  • Just because APA declars its unethical does not mean that it is illegal
  • Non-doctoral School Psychologists are allowed to join Division 16 of APA whicky1978 05:39, Jun 11, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] First psychologist

I don't know anyone who considers Binet a school psychologist. Developing an IQ test does not defione one's career. More likely that Lightner Witmer is considered to be the first. Then again, given the evolution of the science of psychology - if you can call it a science at all - there isn't likely to be a "first" at all. Rather, school psychology is the culmination of several burgeoning fields mixed together in one big salad bowl. BrainDoc 01:06, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Binet did practice in schools, and was interested in the application of his work to education. He did not, strictly speaking, develop an IQ test- this was Terman at Stanford, hence, the Stanford-Binet. He could be broadly considered a school psychologist, although he predated the term.

The use of the term "psychologist" by nondoctoral "school psychologists" is the one exception allowed by APA. School psychologists should only refer to themselves as such when practicing in school settings.

[edit] Educational requirements

Is it true that you can have only a Bachelor's, or need a doctorate in some states? I will look into this because I don't believe that either is true.

Tennessee requires only a Specialist in Education or Ed.S degreewhicky1978 20:22, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

Each state's requirements are summarized at this page: http://www.nasponline.org/certification/state_info_list.html; you can also get the information directly from each state's department of education certification web sites. Hawaii requires a master's degree plus 30 hours, as does Maine, New Jersey, and Tennessee.

Most states require a Master's degree plus 30 graduate credit hours. This, in turn, can earn an Ed.S., a CAGS, or raised eyebrows when explaining your lengthy graduate work that never earned anything more than the M.A. Some states require a supervised internship which can range from 300 hours to 1200 hours. An NCSP can be earned through NASP but it only earns the right to fork over $120 in dues every year to maintain it. BrainDoc 02:00, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

I edited the page's text to reflect information from NASP's website. It does not appear that a Bachelor's degree is sufficient to practice in ANY state; neither is a Doctorate required in any state. Bddaly 05:34, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Actually the NCSP earns you the right to a supplemental stipend ranging from $1000- $5000 in states or school districts that recognize it. The renewal rate is $80 every 3 years.--Annapena 02:07, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

According to the APA Guidelines and Principles for Accreditation of Programs in Professional Psychology-- doctoral level school psychology students complete a minimum of a 10 month internship.--Annapena 00:05, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Relation to School psychology entry

I recently noticed that school psychology redirected to educational psychology, which is certainly not ideal. The entry has since been reverted to a previously-used stub, but before more work is done on it, I wonder how it should fit with school psychologist. Would it make more sense to combine them or can they co-exist without too much overlap? If they are combined, it makes most sense to me to bring them together under the entry for the field as a whole, not under the entry for the title of people working in the field. Tim 15:51, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

Looking at the most related practitioner/discipline pairs, I would support two distinct articles. There seems to be enough information in these articles to expand the stub and justify complementary articles. Identifying notable school psychologists could be part of this expansion. Rfrisbietalk 16:21, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
Practitioner Discipline
School psychologist School psychology
Educational psychologists Educational psychology
Psychologist Psychology
I have redirected school psychology perhaps I was hasty. I did not add or try to merge the two. But then again it was a stub.whicky1978

My preference is to have just one article for school psychology/school psychology and one article for educational psychology/educational psychologist. Let's redirect school psychology to the school psychologist article Nesbit 14:17, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

I too would prefer that there be one article "school psychology" - this is the broader term - school psychology is a discipline with its own knowledge base, as well as practitioners. "School psychology" should emphasize the discipline, "school psychologist" the practitioners. User:jdmacdonald2

If articles were to be merged, the concept of "discipline" seems to be more basic than the concept of "practioner," IMHO. Wikipedia classification schemes are much stronger in the area of disciplines, using people subcategories of them when warranted. If we were to consistently merge all three pairs above (not that I'm suggesting it), I believe "Psychology - Educational psychology - School psychology" as article titles with the corresponding emphasis on discipline to be preferred over "Psychologist - Educational psychologists - School psychologist" as titles and emphases. Rfrisbietalk 16:03, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
I agree that discipline (rather than member of the discipline) is more common as the central focus for WP articles. For example, educational psychologist is a simple redirect to the article on educational psychology. One could make the argument that school psychology is an exception because it is such an applied discipline, but I don't have a strong opinion on whether the article should be titled school psychologist or school psychology. In any case, there should be two separate articles, one for educational psychology and one for school psychology. Nesbit 17:08, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

I would point out that articles such as teacher and professor are titled as practioner rather than discipline. I guess it would seem funny to say professorship. I try to have a more occupational focus on school counselor, school psychologist, and school social worker.whicky1978 21:41, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

My actual preference is to have six articles for the topics we've been discussing! :-) I'm just saying that if a pair gets merged, I prefer the "discipline" version of the title. Then, I would place any "practitioner"-specific info under a top-level heading. I also support keeping school psychology and educational psychology separate under any scenario. In the case of "teaching," the "discipline" would be more like physical education, etc., such as listed under the Education disciplines. Rfrisbietalk 22:24, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
Rfrisbie, to prove how unconventional your thinking is I did a quick survey of WP and found that you may actually be in the majority. The disciplines which have separate discipline and practitioner articles include physics, chemistry, biology, psychology, chemistry and economics. Those which have a single article include anthropology, sociology, and paleontology. I note, however, that the practitioner articles (e.g., economist) look much further away from FA status than their discipline-focused partners (e.g., economics). Nesbit 23:51, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
Lumping me with the majority! Was that a put-down? :-) Rfrisbietalk 00:46, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
Not at all... WP obviously owes its one-million article success to splitters like you, not lumpers like me. :-) Nesbit 03:17, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
Chalk it up to short attention span. Does that go under generic, educational or school pyschology? ;-) Rfrisbietalk 03:24, 16 May 2006 (UTC) p.s. What was the question? Rfrisbietalk

In coming back to this entry, it occurred to me that it was bothering me just a little bit too much to let it go as it is. To me, logic dictates that the main entry for the field should be "school psychology" and not "school psychologist." Therefore, I have transferred all content to school psychology. Hope this sits well with everyone. Perhaps the entry can be reorganized to fit with its new placement. --Tim 05:29, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] School psychologist files

A link to http://www.schoolpsychologistfiles.com was previously put in by SchoolpsychErin and removed by Nposs, refering to policies and guidelines. Now SchoolpsychErin has put the link back in again. I checked the link and I checked the policies and guidelines, but actually, I can't see why this link shouldn't be there. Yes, there are some advertisements on the link, but otherwise it is not a commercial link. I haven't read the whole site, but I can't see anything there that looks unreliable. So before anybody removes the link again, I would appreciate if you could explain why. (Also because I'm still rather new and would like to learn more about which links are acceptable and which are not.) Thank you! Lova Falk 17:09, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for bringing it to the talk page. I only wish the editor who repeatedly added the link would do the same. The site is not problematic in terms of reliability or being commercial. The external link guidelines (WP:EL) contain a number of instructions to keep articles from becoming repositories of links (see What Wikipedia is Not WP:NOT). The website linked in this case is extremely low in content, much of it consisting of links or lists of books. This content is already available from the other links. I also suspect there is a problem of "conflict of interest" - WP:COI. That is to say, it seems the person who owns the website is the one who continues to add it. Repeatedly adding a link to a low content site (especially one that you own and that has more advertising than content on some pages) is basically a form of linkspam. Unless someone can demonstrate how this site provides a unique resource besides what is already available, I see no reason to link it. Nposs 17:42, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
Thank you very much for your explanation! It makes sense to me and next time you take the link away, I won't revert it anymore :) Lova Falk 17:53, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] School-Psychologist.com

I agree that the previous links violated the terms of service. However, I consider the current link an excellent resource for individuals considering the field of School Psychology. I am hoping it does not get deleted in the future but am open to a discussion of its relevancy related to current links.

I'm sorry, I confused this site with the above mentioned school psychologist files. I thought Nposs had given a thorough explanation, so I didn't feel an explanation was needed. Sorry, my mistake! Lova Falk 07:43, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Thanks for your reply.