Making the Most of Your CV: Talking About Yourself in Bullet Points

By Ryan L. Farmer, Oklahoma State University Assembling a curriculum vitae (CV) can simultaneously be exciting and daunting. Okay, maybe exciting is an exaggeration. But some folks—myself included—really enjoy updating their CV. Why? Well, it’s an opportunity to reflect, to think about what I have accomplished, and to compare what I have done with what I would like to do. In this way, I use my CV as a self-evaluation of my progress. Whether you want to use your CV in this way or not, there’s no denying that the CV is used as an evaluation tool by others. Whether you’re applying for an internship, a postdoctoral fellowship, an academic position, a clinical position, or going up for promotion or tenure, the CV plays an integral role in documenting your professional identity and activities. In fact, the CV is one of the first documents that hiring, search, and tenure and promotion committees will look at. Just because the CV is used as an evaluation tool doesn’t mean it doesn’t serve other purposes; you can use your CV to inform and persuade others. It can also serve as a reflection of who you are as a professional. A well-formatted, informational CV can go a long way. In comparison, a sloppy or uninformative CV can make a committee’s job harder, which can mean losing the position or not getting a promotion. So why are we here? The goal is to talk about some standard CV guidelines (not rules), to talk about different ways to document your professional activities, and to share some ideas and templates. First off, a CV is different from your more traditional resume in that it’s longer and more comprehensive. Some would say, there are no length or space restrictions. Secondly, the traditional CV isn’t the only game in town (though it is by far the most common). There are two general types of CV: The traditional CV and the narrative CV, which was developed by the Royal Society & UK Reproducibility Network. The primary distinction between these formats is the former encourages listing activities and products with brief descriptions while the narrative format uses a series of prompts to evoke a narrative response about one’s professional activities and products. The purpose of the narrative format was to de-emphasize the notion of performance indicators (e.g., publication count) and to build a more comprehensive narrative of a person’s professional work. While this is a noble goal, it has not been readily adopted by many programs at this time and so our focus will be on the traditional CV in this blog post. General AdviceWhen developing your CV, remember that your ultimate goal is to communicate your professional activities and details to someone who may not be familiar with you or your work. As a result, being straightforward, well-organized, and focused will help you in achieving your goals. Additionally, while the CV is pretty structured, you should focus on you and your goals. Both the content and the order of the content are flexible, and so you should design your CV to highlight aspects of your professional work that are relevant to the situation. Treat it as a dynamic document that can be reorganized for particular uses. If you’re applying for a research position, you might lead with publications, presentations, and grants. In contrast, if you’re applying for a clinical position, you may want to highlight your clinical license(s) as well as your past clinical positions and field-based or applied experiences. Finally, those applying for predominately teaching positions may want to highlight their past teaching experiences and the courses they’ve taught in the beginning while moving research activities and publications to the end. There is no right or wrong way to build your CV--just make sure it fits your purposes.Also remember that your CV is an evolving document, and so frequently updating the content is crucial to communicating accurately. While it may be feasible to update after a long period of time, you may find it more difficult to recall details. What was the name of that committee? What presentations did I do, again? Many folks update monthly, though, for major products (e.g., a publication), I strongly encourage dropping the details in as soon as you have them. For me, I am sure to forget something I’ve done—a local presentation, an open-source document or figure, or a science communication effort—if I try and do it in batches later on. Before I jump to some basics, I wanted to provide a few wonderful links. Dr. Sara Hart provided this wonderful PowerPoint on CV basics. Some other folks offered their insights, examples, and a bit of humor that folks may find useful.[embed]https://twitter.com/rfarmer27/status/1373733643978432515?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw[/embed][embed]http://twitter.com/SMasonGarrison/status/1374135934493601800[/embed][embed]https://twitter.com/madDoctorAlex/status/1374135236871782406[/embed]When writing a CV, it’s crucial that it appears clean and polished at the end. One way to do that is to ensure that your formatting is thought out and consistent throughout the document. Pick a font (at max, two) and use them strategically. All of your text at a given level (e.g., body) should be in the same font and at the same size. It’s okay to vary up your headers a bit (different font or font size) to help others navigate your document. But for the love of all that is good in this universe, don’t treat this as an abstract art exhibit. While it’s the content that matters, how we present that content may bias reviewers.Screen capture of a CV that uses three different fonts across three sections. The third font is illegible. Another good thing to consider here is the readability of fonts. While it’s not wise to vary up the fonts across your document, at least the fonts in the first two sections (Education and Certification & Licensure) are easily read. Fonts.com argues it’s “all about legibility” in design, and I argue that this is true for CVs as well! Keep it clean and make it easy for others to read. Fonts.com provides wonderful information about selecting fonts. Like Fonts.com, Adobe Fonts lets you search and filter by type of font. However, there’s still a lot of options and it may not always be evident which ones will translate well to print or a pdf document. These excellent blog post from The Paper Mill Store and Practical Typography discuss many of these issues and offers suggestions for fonts. You won’t be surprised to learn that Times New Roman is amongst those suggested. If you’re not feeling adventurous, no one will judge you for sticking with the classic. In general, you want to avoid stylized, cursive, and impact fonts as those tend to be harder to read. Another CV basic is the margins of your document. Arguably, this is a preference to some extent. Those who want to read more can do so here at Practical Typography. That said, I’m a big believer in not trying to fix something that isn’t broken. The defaults in your word processor are fine. That said, you want to keep it consistent throughout your document. The last big decisions you’ll have to make are how to use spacing, tabs, tables, and horizontal rules to organize your document. There are wonderful resources for learning about the details at Practical Typography, but you may want to look at examples from others in the field and see how they’ve managed these elements. Find something you like or mostly like and tweak it. The best advice I can give here is to keep it consistent throughout your document; this may require slightly more planning upfront, but it’s worth it in the end. Okay, enough of the nitty-gritty. Let’s talk content!The ContentFor the most part, there are a number of standard sections and you can find a plethora of ways to organize and format these sections online. Note that some universities or committees may request specific breakdowns, such as the Boyer categories or institution-specific (e.g., Scholarship, Service, Outreach) categories. As such, the following should be taken as general advice, and readers should check with their institutions to see if there are specific requirements.

• Education
• Clinical experiences (e.g., practica, clinical positions)
• Professional experience (e.g., professional, non-clinical positions)
• Teaching experience (e.g., courses taught, teaching positions)
• Publications with subsections
  • Peer-Reviewed Journal Articles
  • Book Chapters
  • Reviews (e.g., test reviews)
• Presentations with subsections
  • National
  • International
  • Regional
  • Local & University Presentations
• Funding
• Certifications & Licensure
• Honors & Awards
• Membership and Professional Affiliations
• Service with subsections
  • National (e.g., NASP, editorial boards)
  • State & Regional (e.g., state associations)
  • Local & University (e.g., committees, organizations)
    • You may need to break this down further to document service at the department, college, and university levels, depending on the expectations of your promotion committee.

Since we don’t want to reinvent the wheel, we’ll only cover these briefly with a few pieces of general advice. For instance, what if you don’t have content to go under each section? Some good advice I’ve gotten is to simply exclude a section or to combine sections. For instance, early career researchers may not have a ton of publications, and so dividing them out in subsections may look a little odd. So long as you’re candid about your content (e.g., specifying that a publication is a chapter versus a peer-reviewed publication), this shouldn’t be a problem. Another piece of general advice here is to add totals at the top of each section (and maybe subsection). Yes, we know that counting publications is a pretty poor way of accounting for a person’s contributions (e.g., Büttner et al., 2020), but unfortunately many of the committees we’re submitting CVs to still operate under this paradigm, so let’s make the process clearer when we can.While how you document this information is a bit of a personal preference, there are a few standards you should be aware of. For instance, reverse chronological order (i.e., newest at the top) should be used whenever possible to highlight what you’ve been doing most recently. Whenever possible, use APA style to format information. While APA doesn’t offer styles for everything (e.g., funding) you might want to include, they offer a great deal of information about how to document publications, presentations, podcasts, and so forth that may be useful. A lot of the standard approaches to building a CV have been around for a good long while, and that may make it difficult to figure out how to include other types of content. For instance, it’s surprisingly hard to find a good, authoritative source on how to document awards and funding. One great source is Walden University’s section on documenting grants. For instance, they recommend this general format:

• Current Research
• Grant # (PI Name)
• Name of Funding Organization (no acronyms)
• Amount of Award
• Period of Grant Award
• Title of Project
• Role on Project (if not PI)

Certainly, the key elements are there and it may be worth documenting your funded (and unfunded) projects in this way, especially if you want them to stand out in your CV. A more streamlined approach, however, might be to approximate an APA format for the funded project. Something like this.

• Name of Funding Organization (no acronyms). Amount of Award, Period of Award. Title of Project & Grant # (if applicable). PI Name. Role on Project (if not PI). 

Documenting Non-Traditional ContributionsThere don’t seem to be any hard and fast rules here, so find a format that works for you and—you guessed it—be consistent. Similarly, there’s little guidance out there on how to document more contemporary contributions to science and practice, such as the creation of software, leading national book or journal clubs, engaging in science communication, and so forth. One option is simply to create subcategories, or a new section, called Public Scholarship to capture some of these activities. This can be a bit imprecise as some are more like traditional scholarship (e.g., an open data set) while others are not (e.g., science communication). I have taken the route of creating a Public Scholarship section and specifying that it is not peer reviewed. Under that, I list subsections for podcasts, science communication and white papers, and blog posts (like this one!). That said, I’m not claiming my approach is right. Some authors have started thinking and working on these issues. Recently, Acquaviva et al (2020) helped to define the notion of Social Media Engagement as an aspect of Public Scholarship both in terms of including social media outreach and activities in the promotion and tenure process, but also in offering guidelines for how such content might be documented. For instance, documenting engagement in social media overall is relatively straightforward, and may look something like this:

• Twitter: @rfarmer27. 2019 to present
• 897 followers. 37,100 impressions.
• 87 tweets. 

or

• Facebook: EBSPsych. 2018 to 2020
• 7,382 followers. 27,000 user reach.
•  https://www.facebook.com/EBSPsych/notifications

Acquaviva et al. (2020) offer more specific guidance for individual social media efforts, but I don’t wish to repeat them here. I strongly encourage folks to check out their work for more details. In addition to how we document public scholarship, I want to talk a little about how we might verify these contributions. For instance, when creating and uploading digital presentations, podcasts, or static images (e.g., infographics), users might consider Figshare or Open Science Framework (OSF). Figshare may be ideal for individual files or presentations whereas OSF more appropriate for projects that consist of several files. The benefit of these services over personal repositories is the ability to generate digital object identifiers and static links. An alternative for video recordings is YouTube, which also provides a permanent link. In addition to details for describing and accessing the content, scholars may want to provide metrics for these materials, such as the number of participants, the reach, and so forth. This said, these guidelines are very much in their infancy and there are a number of ways to document these types of activities. For instance, Dr. Garrison offered a few screen-captures from her CV demonstrating how she documents her contributions to online forums, software packages, and even skills![embed]https://twitter.com/SMasonGarrison/status/1374135407760318467?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw[/embed]Documenting Transparency & Open Science EffortsAdditionally, we might go about documenting various transparency efforts on our CV as an indication of our contributions and as indicators of scientific rigor. Some of you may be familiar with open science badges. It’s relatively straightforward to include these badges and relevant links right into your CV to highlight your transparency efforts. Consider this example from my CV.We’ve documented that we have open stimulus materials (in this case, a survey) and a hyperlink to the OSF project where those details can be found. It would be relatively little effort to modify this to specify that we’ve posted open data, open code, or that we pre-registered the project. We didn’t, so we don’t have those elements here. These badges are available with attribution to the OSF and can highlight these efforts. It might be virtue signaling, but it’s also an indication that you value transparency in your work, and it just might be viewed fondly by your committee! ConclusionFrankly, there’s so much content here that it was hard to select what to include. I tried to be responsive to questions we received following our blog post on science communication, to address common concerns, and to provide a plethora of resources. Toward that last point, we’ve assembled an OSF project on CV construction. If folks want to contribute by adding resources, examples, or templates, please contact Ryan Farmer at r.farmer@okstate.edu or request access as a contributor via the OSF project page. What other recommendations do you have for making the most of CV prep? What tips or tricks make the process less arduous? Let us know what we missed and how we might expand on these and related topics!

Opportunities for Pivoting Research Part 2: Getting Started with Secondary Research

By Amanda L. Sullivan, University of Minnesota; Ethan Van Norman, Lehigh University; and Ryan Farmer,  Oklahoma State UniversityIn our March 2021 post, Katie Maki and Bryn Harris discussed how scholars whose projects were disrupted by the pandemic can leverage meta-analytic methods to jump start their research programs. In many settings, scholars may experience continued challenges to returning to their past work when school partnerships and processes remain hampered by various effects of the pandemic (e.g., remote schooling, P20 staffing or enrollment challenges, budget challenges, administrator reluctance). With many scholars looking forward to the winding down of a uniquely challenging (and long) academic year, we wanted to take a bird’s eye view and discuss the broader utility of secondary research and provide some resources to help you get started (unless you plan to spend the summer on much needed rest and recuperation which you absolutely should—without guilt). Secondary research includes a broad range of approaches that use existing qualitative or quantitative data in a systematic study. They may be particularly attractive to scholars whose applied projects were derailed by pandemic-related challenges to recruitment, data collection, or community engagement given that secondary approaches rely on data that are already available for use. Potential secondary data sources include public or private documents (e.g., state or federal policy, case law, education or health records, as well as other research as was the focus in the previous post), media (as in bibliographic methods, textual analysis), and extant quantitative datasets (e.g., re-analysis of prior study data or large-scale quantitative data), to name a few. Notably, there’s no one way to do secondary research or specific problems that can be answered through secondary methods. And secondary research needn’t be a solitary activity—it’s highly amenable to team science and community-engaged scholarship. Our goal here is to give you some resources to learn more and potentially get started if secondary methods would be useful to your program of research.Although misconceptions about secondary research are commonplace, secondary researchers follow the typical empirical process of generating and refining research questions or hypotheses, identifying data appropriate for addressing those questions or hypotheses, designing a study to address those questions or hypotheses, gathering and preparing data, and analyzing and interpreting data to offer interpretations and recommendations. The data collection process often involves exploring potential data sources and isolating relevant data from the universe of available options, often before finalizing research questions and hypotheses. These processes generally replace the effort typically involved in selecting or developing study implementation, participant recruitment, and data collection, but may be no less time intensive or important and can certainly offer scholarship as rigorous and consequential as any other approach. The following publications provide a helpful introduction to secondary research approaches:

• Jones, C. (2010). Archival data: Advantages and disadvantages for research in psychology. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 4, 1008-1017. doi:10.1111/j.1751-9004.2010.00317.x
• Heaton, J. (2004). What is secondary analysis? In Reworking qualitative data. Sage.
• Smith, E. (2008). Pitfalls and promises: The use of secondary data analysis in educational research. British Journal of Educational Studies, 56, 323–339. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8527.2008.00405.x
• Chatfield, S. L. (2020). Recommendations for secondary analysis of qualitative data. The Qualitative Report, 25(3), 833-842.

You may not have a specific question in mind and rushing hypothesis development could lead to false-starts, false-positives (especially in large data sets), and wasted resources. It’s okay not to jump straight to hypothesis testing (Scheel et al., 2020). Exploring secondary data may provide a wealth of information, including better problem definitions, more informed questions, a more complete picture of the relationships between variables, and so on. This may be especially useful at the beginning of a research line, but may still yield fruit for more established scholars. In addition, large-scale quantitative data can be useful in estimating causal effects and can allow for exploration of other research problems and questions not otherwise feasible without massive financial and human resources. Given that early career scholars don’t generally have millions of research dollars and a team of experts, data collectors, coders, and other staff at the ready, secondary quantitative analysis can be a cost efficient way to investigate consequential questions by taking advantage of others’ prior investment in study design, data collection, and database preparation. The following resources are especially useful to aspiring secondary quant researchers.

• Andersen, J. P., Prause, J., & Silver, R. C. (2011). A step-by-step guide to using secondary data for psychological research. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 5(1), 56–75. doi:10.1111/j.1751-9004.2010.00329.x
• Trzesniewski, K. H., Donnellan, M. B., & Lucas, R. E. (Eds.) (2011). Secondary data analysis: An introduction for psychologists. American Psychological Association.
• Else-Quest, N. M., & Hyde, J. S. (2016). Intersectionality in quantitative psychological research: I. Theoretical and epistemological issues. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 40(2), 155-170.
• Sullivan, A. L., Weeks, M., Kulkarni, T., & Nguyen, T. (2020). Large-scale secondary data analysis—Part 1: For researchers. NASP Communiqué, 48(5), 16-19

Many popular publicly available datasets are already formatted appropriately for cross sectional and longitudinal analyses. In addition to learning the quantitative approach (or collaborating with individuals well versed in the analyses you intend to conduct), it can be wise to familiarize yourself with methods to format or otherwise “clean” quantitative data. This point is especially salient if you are partnering with schools or other community agencies who may not necessarily be mindful of the requirements of data formatting for quantitative analyses. Although different software will have different requirements for data formatting, in general, you can differentiate between “long” format and “wide” format. In the latter each row represents outcomes from one unit of interest (e.g., school, student, etc.), whereas “long” format includes repeated rows from an individual unit. Some analytic approaches (e.g., SEM) often use “wide” data whereas others (e.g., “linear mixed effects regression) use “long” data. It is very likely that you may need to convert raw data from one format to another, such as changing data from wide to long and vice versa (e.g., Reshaping Data in R, Reshaping Data in SPSS, and Reshaping Data Long to Wide in SAS).  To learn more, there are a variety of archived webinars available that provide general information and training, such as this one by the American School Health Association or this handout and archive (scroll past the COVID webinars) from Maternal and Child Health Bureau of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services for research on child health, autism, and other salient topics.For quantitative researchers in particular, there are a variety of ways to find and access potential data sources, including:

• Pamela Davis-Green's List of Secondary Datasets
• Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR) Find Data Tool
• National Surveys of Children's Health
• Virginia Tech’s Data Resources For Social Science
• Google Dataset Search Engine

If you are interested in datasets available from the National Center for Education Statistics, the Distance Learning Dataset Training is a great way to familiarize yourself with specific longitudinal and cross-sectional datasets. Scholars using these datasets and others are also eligible for targeted funding opportunities like these from AERA or the HRSA Autism Secondary Data Analysis Research Program, as well as being eligible for general funding opportunities from various agencies and foundations. As you get started, keep these tips in mind: 

1. Take time to learn about secondary data analysis.
2. As you hone in on a potential data source, be sure to read any technical materials, methods reports, and previous research using the data. Take time to really get to know the data so that you aren’t misusing it.
3. Leave time in your research plans for completing necessary procedures to access the data (e.g., application processes, security requirements, university approval) and secure IRB approval of your project (if applicable; when in doubt, ask your IRB).
4. Document everything you do in the process (e.g., any data manipulation) and keep backups of everything. (Many an analyst has wept over failure to document something key or to save prior code or data files after realizing they needed to backup a few steps to change course). 
5. Don’t be afraid to consult with the original researchers or methodologists if you have questions about the data source.

What questions or concerns do you have for getting started with these approaches? If you’re already doing this work, what professional learning materials and opportunities have you found helpful?

Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses: Opportunities for Pivoting Research during COVID-19

By Kathrin Maki, University of Florida & Bryn Harris, University of Colorado DenverGiven the ongoing pandemic, many early career researchers may need to pivot their research programs because timelines for tenure and promotion and annual expectations may be unchanged and there may be ongoing disruptions to prior research activities. This leaves researchers looking for new, creative ways to advance their research agendas – a challenging yet exciting process. Completing systematic reviews and meta-analyses may be one method of advancing research and productivity during the pandemic, while also contributing to the literature base and knowledge in the field.Defining Systematic Reviews and Meta-analysesThe aim of a systematic review is to use systematic methods to summarize empirical evidence to produce reliable findings that inform decision making (Cochrane, 2021). Many literature reviews within articles in peer-reviewed journals differ from systematic reviews because they do not involve a systematic search of the literature, but rather authors select the articles reviewed, which may result in selection bias. Systemic review is an umbrella term for approaches that attempt to reduce this bias to provide a comprehensive synthesis of available evidence on a given topic.Like all research, systematic reviews vary in quality. Robust, reproducible methods for determining eligibility criteria for studies will result in a higher caliber systemic review. The comprehensiveness of the systematic search is particularly important in systematic reviews. The creation of a comprehensive and well-conceptualized protocol for study inclusion is an essential component of a strong systematic review. This article provides a detailed overview of conducting a strong systematic review in the field of psychology. For example, researchers need to decide on study inclusion criteria such as participant age range, study design, conditions, language of publication, and publication type. Researchers will need to select the type of studies to include such as RCT only, quasi-experimental designs, single-case designs, or qualitative research. Researchers will also need to determine what type of literature to include, for example, the potential inclusion of unpublished studies.Meta-analysis is a subtype of systematic review. Meta-analyses use statistical methods to summarize the results of the included studies. By quantitatively combining outcomes from all relevant studies, a meta-analysis can provide specific estimates of efficacy that are more precise than single studies because they are computed from a larger body of information (Cochrane, 2021). Like systematic reviews generally, the protocol process for study inclusion is often the most time intensive aspect of meta-analysis. Many published meta-analyses do not include important variables such as race, culture, and indicators of socioeconomic status, thus leading to large gaps in the literature. Examining such variables provides comprehensive information on treatment effectiveness across populations. In systematic reviews generally, and meta-analyses specifically, a discussion of the way in which the authors reduced their risk of bias is also considered best practice (referred to as publication bias; McClain et al., 2021). Although meta-analyses rely on quantitative data, a different form of systematic review called a meta-synthesis summarizes qualitative studies. See Lachal et al. (2017) for an overview of this methodology.Advantages of Systematic Reviews There are several potential advantages of systematic reviews for early career scholars’ research agendas. Many early career scholars experience the pressure of demonstrating research productivity through consistent publication of articles in high quality journals relevant to their field. As part of the tenure and promotion process, early career scholars often need to demonstrate their research productivity (in addition to teaching and service). Systematic reviews contribute to research in school psychology by providing a comprehensive understanding of the state of the evidence for a specific topic. The knowledge gained through systematic reviews can provide synthesized empirical support for implementing certain practices or it can suggest areas in need of further research when results suggest practices may be ineffective or lacking support.Systematic reviews are also often highly cited, and if conducted rigorously, may be published in strong journals. At some institutions, metrics such as impact factor and citation counts factor into tenure and promotion decisions. Regardless of how closely impact factors and citation counts are examined at your university, you will want to show how your research contributes to the field and such metrics are one way to do so. All school psychology journals welcome systematic reviews and meta-analyses submissions.Advantages to Conducting Systematic Reviews During the COVID-19 Pandemic One year into the pandemic, scholars continue to deal with its effects on their research productivity and teaching. For many school psychology researchers, our work is dependent upon collecting data in K12 schools, but many school districts across the country continue to provide instruction virtually. Even in school districts where face-to-face instruction is provided, students’ educational experiences are anything but traditional. Further, many schools are restricting visitors from school campuses in an effort to minimize opportunities for spreading the virus. Similarly, data collection in other applied settings (e.g., clinics, hospitals) has also been impacted by changes in how services are provided to clients (e.g., telehealth). As a result of these significant changes in systems’ functioning, applied researchers are experiencing significant setbacks in conducting research.Systematic reviews can offer an alternative research pathway for students, faculty, and other early career scholars who have hit significant roadblocks in conducting research during the pandemic. The most meaningful, and perhaps obvious, advantage to conducting systematic reviews is the elimination of the logistical challenges of conducting traditional research in applied settings during the pandemic. Data collection for systematic reviews is dependent upon accessing published articles (and perhaps dissertations and grey literature) from your university library, which you can comfortably do while you work from home during the pandemic.Speaking of your university library, your librarian can be a valuable resource if you conduct a systematic review. They are experts in how to navigate the library databases, which databases may be most appropriate for your area of research, how to effectively search the databases, and many other related areas as well. In our experiences, university librarians have been extremely helpful for accessing and learning various resources to support such work.Challenges and LimitationsFor many of us in school psychology, we are all too familiar with the logistical challenges and time intensity of collecting data in complicated systems (e.g., schools, clinics, hospitals). Systematic reviews, therefore, may appear to be the answer you’ve been hoping for to continue your research while alleviating the challenges associated with traditional data collection. And they can be. However, it is also important to be aware of the challenges of conducting systematic reviews before getting started.Systematic reviews can be time intensive and, like all research, require a rigorous methodological approach. They require significant planning and forethought to develop your methodology as you plan and revise appropriate search terms, inclusion/exclusion criteria, and coding schemes before implementing your study. Like school-based research, ensuring you have enough personnel resources can also be a challenge. Your systematic review will be more methodologically rigorous and the results more reliable if more than one researcher determines study eligibility and codes at least a portion, if not all, of the articles and variables. Ensuring you and your collaborators reliably determine study inclusion and code variables typically requires an iterative process of practice coding (and resulting revisions to the criteria and codes), all of which can take an extensive amount of time.There are also methodological challenges associated with systematic reviews. Attempting to review studies that have been conducted in different ways and incorporate different variables or measures can present a quandary as to how best to capture study methods and appropriately synthesize or meta-analyze findings. Further, meta-analytical approaches continue to advance including, but not limited to, the use of multilevel modeling, effect size calculation for single-case design studies, and means for assessing publication bias, all of which require methodological and analytical skill fluency. It may be helpful to consult or collaborate with a methodological or quantitative expert for procedural and statistical support.More systematic reviews and meta-analyses have been conducted during the global pandemic across the world. However, a recent meta-analysis of medical studies pertaining to COVID-19 interventions has uncovered substantial flaws in research design, thus leading to potentially problematic medical intervention decisions based on the results. This finding also raises the issue of promoting expedited science and the need for scientific rigor regardless of global context. School psychology researchers must understand the nuances of this method and work to produce rigorous studies in order to support effective decisions among stakeholders using study results (e.g., practitioners, policy makers, other researchers).Introductory Readings and Resources The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) provides guidance on the reporting of systematic review methodology and results. It outlines a protocol for conducting systematic reviews, the information that should be included in each section of the resulting manuscript, and provides a diagram template for reporting of study inclusion procedures. Many journals will encourage or require that systematic reviews are conducted and reported in line with the PRISMA guidelines.For general information on conducting systematic reviews and meta-analyses:

• Higgins JPT, Thomas J, Chandler J, Cumpston M, Li T, Page MJ, Welch VA (editors). Cochrane Handbook for Systematic Reviews of Interventions version 6.1 (updated September 2020). Cochrane, 2020. Available from http://www.training.cochrane.org/handbook.
• Siddaway, A. P., Wood, A. M., & Hedges, L. V (2019). How to do a systematic review: A best practice guide for conducting and reporting narrative reviews, meta-analyses, and meta-syntheses. Annual Review of Psychology, 70, 747-770.
• Uman, L. S. (2011). Systematic reviews and meta-analyses. Journal of the Canadian Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 20, 57-59.
• Zelinksky, N. A. M. & Shadish . W. (2016). A demonstration of how to do a meta-analysis that combines single-case designs with between-groups experiments: The effects of choice making on challenging behaviors performed by people with disabilities. Developmental Neurorehabilitation, 21, 266-278. https://doi.org/10.3109/17518423.2015.1100690

For information on methodological considerations for systematic reviews:

• Ahn, S., Ames, A. J., & Myers, M. D. (2012). A review of meta-analyses in education: Methodological strengths and weaknesses. Review of Educational Research, 82, 436-476. https://doi.org/10.3102/0034654312458162
• Hohn, R. E., Slaney, K. L., & Tafreshi, D. (2019). Primary study quality in psychological meta-analyses: An empirical assessment of recent practice. Frontiers in Psychology, 9, 1-15. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.02667

For information on examining and addressing publication bias in meta-analyses, see:

• McClain,M. B., Callan, G., Harris, B., Floyd, R. G., Golson, M. E., Haverkamp, C. R., Longhurst, D. N., Benallie, K. J. (2021). Methods for addressing publication bias in school psychology journals: A descriptive review of meta-analyses from 1980 to 2019. Journal of School Psychology, 84, 74–94.

Science Communication: It's a Dialogue, Not a Monologue

By Ryan Farmer, PhD, Assistant Professor, Oklahoma State UniversityUniversity faculty are often encouraged to engage in ‘outreach’ to increase the impact of their work locally, nationally, and internationally. While this may take many forms, such as working with local schools, providing professional development, and so forth, one increasingly popular approach is science communication. Science communication (scicomm) is communication aimed at engaging or informing an audience about science-related topics, and can serve a variety of traditional purposes such as (a) increasing awareness or (b) interest in specific topics; (c) developing understanding; and (d) providing information for decision-making. Throughout 2020 and into 2021, we saw a great deal of scicomm about COVID-19 including dashboards to relay information about the spread of the virus (e.g., https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/), information about the efficacy of mask-wearing (e.g., https://aatishb.com/maskmath/), and vaccine efficacy and safety (e.g., https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/conditions-and-diseases/coronavirus/coronavirus-vaccines-infographic). Other perennial topics have long been front-and-center of scicomm efforts, including climate science, GMOs, and health and dieting. While these efforts are intended to share information on controversial and important topics for the general public, science communication may target a variety of audiences for many different purposes. On a much smaller scale, individual researchers often share research within and between research communities, with practitioners, or target specific audiences such as policymakers and related professionals. School psychology researchers are well-poised to engage in science communication as they can assist with developing deeper understanding and awareness of important issues and influence their impact in real time. Why Should You Consider Science Communication?The most obvious ‘why’ of scicomm is the transmission of information from an expert to an audience. This dissemination paradigm is the most traditional approach to science communication and is captured well by university press releases, documentaries, science books, and interviews on news and podcast mediums. In the dissemination paradigm, information only--or primarily--moves in one direction. The Conversation is an exemplar of this approach and most scicomm efforts in school psychology have existed primarily within the dissemination paradigm (e.g., School Psyched Podcast) as well. In contrast, the public participation paradigm is built on the idea of a dialogue between the expert(s), public, and policymakers. Kappel and Holmen (2019) write about more-and-less involved approaches to the public participation approach, ranging from organized efforts to involve members of the public in an ongoing research project to public hearings. Perhaps the most obvious examples of the public participation paradigm in school psychology are the active school psychology communities on Twitter (#schoolpsychology), Practitioner Conversation sessions at NASP, and research-practice partnerships. The benefits of more traditional scicomm are clearer, though scicomm built around improving dialogue has the potential to improve research questions and methods, social validity, and involvement from stakeholders. Both approaches have a small but meaningful potential to narrow the scientist-practitioner gap.How to Get StartedThere are many ways to get started with scicomm, including posting information about a paper you’ve written on social media. Take, for instance, this tweet from Dr. Dan Cohen.

We collected data on the number suspensions received by each student in the sample & found that more exposure to ISS or OSS was associated with worse social, emotional, & behavioral outcomes at the end of the school year, accounting for the same measures collected in the fall.

— Dan Cohen (@DanRCohenPhD) February 4, 2021

In this thread of tweets, Dr. Cohen shares his research, tags relevant users on Twitter, and then describes--broadly--the findings of the paper through a series of tweets. While built primarily from a dissemination paradigm, this approach to scicomm has great potential for dialogue as readers can respond to each tweet in the thread with comments or questions.Using Twitter as a scientist may seem a bit daunting. For those who are interested in learning more, Dr. Daniel Quintana maintains Twitter for Scientists, which is a guide to using Twitter to get feedback on ongoing work, engage in scicomm, and build your reputation in an online community. Researchers may choose to have an individual account or a lab account, but the effect is largely similar. Ortega (2016) found that papers published by Twitter users were more likely to be shared on Twitter, and that “...it indirectly could influence the research impact because the visibility of academic outputs could benefit the citing of those materials” (p. 1362). It is likely that when papers are behind paywalls, the impact of sharing via Twitter may be diminished (cf. OA Citation effect). Twitter, however, is just one avenue. Researchers have been turning to other digital media platforms such as Facebook, Youtube (see How to Succeed as an Academic on Youtube), and blogs to share research and engage with audiences. More traditional approaches, such as posting material to college digital repositories and professional listservs also remain viable as approaches to promote your work, but may not create an open dialogue or provide users with an opportunity to expand or clarify.Before we jump into recommended practices, those interested in learning more about scicomm should check out these podcast episodes from Everything Hertz*:14: Science Communication107: Memes, TikTok, and Science Communication with Chelsea Parlett-Pelleriti*may contain explicit language.Early career faculty interested in learning more about the science behind science communication are referred to the journal, Science Communication, which has been publishing rich content since the late 1970s. Other sources of information include The Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science at Stony Brook University and the AAAS Communication Toolkit. In addition, wonderful digital resources are available, such as Canva, PiktoChart, Sci Ani, and WordPress that can help people start building and sharing content.General RecommendationsThe School of Public Affairs at American University has shared an introduction to scicomm and outlined several recommended practices. Similarly, Choo and Lewis (2021) provided recommendations from their active scicomm efforts. Rather than copying their content here, I’ll provide a brief outline of their recommendations below.

1. Plan ahead (e.g., research the audience; prepare, practice, and get feedback).
2. Identify your goals.
3. Collaborate with other experts and organizations.
4. Communicate your content accurately, ethically, and clearly.
5. Engage on social media (e.g., in ongoing discussions).
6. Establish trust and build relationships with your audience.
7. Respect your audience.
8. Be flexible.
9. Seek out training.
10. Embrace what science can tell us (and what it can’t).
11. Be humble about what you know and don’t know (see Skipper’s The Humility Heuristic).

Additional resources have encouraged the use of humor (Jocularity, jocularity, jocularity!) within reason, share information in images or videos whenever possible (e.g., a key figure from your paper), keep the text short and relatively jargon-free, use--but beware--metaphors, and consider the venue. Above all else: follow the evidence and be humble. Scicomm should not be limited to positive results, and we should embrace uncertainty in our outcomes. This might include specifying the boundary conditions of observed effects, the limitations of our design, and the potential for error. It may also simply be embracing uncertainty with a bit of humility. Communicating uncertainty can feel like a risk, especially when you want others to take your information and apply it to their research, their practice, or in policy change. However, there’s good reason to believe that communicating uncertainty is ethically appropriate (Lewis et al., 2020) and, at the very least, doesn’t significantly decrease our public credibility (Gustafson & Rice, 2019). Ultimately, school psychology is somewhat unique in that our audience is three-fold. We may be talking within the academy (i.e., to scientists), from the academy to persons outside of our field (i.e., non-scientists), and from the academy to practitioners (e.g., scientist-practitioners). We have to understand our goals in communicating, the background knowledge of our audience, and that even within each audience, the relevance of your work is going to vary. Each of these factors must be considered before any communication will be successful. Also, Eric Elias and Rebecca Comizio from the School Psyched Podcast team provided some general advice for people interested in engaging in scicomm.When asked about the biggest lesson they’ve learned doing scicomm, Rebecca Comizio said that “It’s hard because regular communication is even harder. People don’t speak science, or fully appreciate/understand it.” Similarly, Eric Elias commented said “I think one lesson is that as a practice, pseudoscience has its hooks in deeply. We often sink to the easiest common denominator in some aspects of practice. In other words, pseudoscience is easier to follow because it’s less challenging.” Both hosts seemed to come to the same general conclusion: science is hard, and communicating it is no easy task. When asked about the advice she would give to people interested in starting to engage in scicomm, Ms. Comizio said “...know what you don’t know and name it. Keep an open mind and keep learning. Shoot for understanding, not convincing.”Getting Credit for Your SciCommLet’s be honest with one another: If you’re on the tenure track, finding time to tie your shoelaces can be a challenge. Engaging in any kind of professional activity without a clear product to add to your annual or promotion materials is a hard sale. While traditional forms of scicomm (e.g., interviews, popular press articles) can be directly cited in your evaluation materials, this is less clear for scicomm efforts on social media. To address this (very real) concern, I’d remind you that scicomm can pay dividends. As we discussed earlier, it can lead to increased awareness of your work, and thus increased impact. It may also lead to additional opportunities to collaborate, speaking invitations, and a boost to your professional reputation. But what about the short game? One way to get immediate credit for your scicomm efforts is to use Open Science platforms such as Figshare or the Open Science Framework to host your scicomm products (e.g., infographics, videos). First, this produces a stable link which you can tie to a line on your CV or other materials. But perhaps more importantly, both systems can produce digital object identifiers for your work. Take for example this infographic that our research team produced regarding remote ability testing during COVID-19. Not only is that figure shareable, but it can also be cited. Thinking outside the box, using some of the resources produced by the open science movement, and looking toward the future may help in evaluating the impact of your scicomm efforts.ConclusionThroughout this blog post, I’ve tried to embed resources on various topics, where to find research on effective communication strategies, general recommendations, and a bit of advice from people doing the work. There’s no debate: scicomm takes effort, persistence, and time. However, the payoff can be completely worth the effort. What benefit could scicomm have for your research? How might school psychology faculty use scicomm to increase the use of culturally-responsive and evidence-based practices? 

Top 10 Tips for New Faculty

On November 5, 2020, the ECF’s Lindsay Fallon and Bryn Harris hosted a virtual social for new faculty where they highlighted their top 10 tips from past ECF posts. See the tips below, linked to the original posts. 10. Self-Care MattersIn a year in which the election, racial justice, and a global pandemic are at the forefront, take care of yourself to help others. 

• Take breaks from watching, reading, or listening to news stories, including social media. Hearing about the pandemic repeatedly can be upsetting.
• Take care of your body by engaging in relaxation techniques (deep breathing, stretching, meditation), healthy eating, exercise, and adequate sleep. 
• Make time to unwind and connect with others. Talking with trusted friends and colleagues can help to process difficult events and feelings. 

9. It’s OK to Not Have Academic Parenthood All Figured OutIf you are caring for others, be kind to yourself. In this post, Dr. Sterett Mercer reminded us to:

• Match tasks with current capabilities. 
• Planning and initiating a major project at a “low point” may not be the best use of time. 
• Be aware of the cycles of the work week and academic year and set reasonable expectations. 
• Try to relax and stay in the game - burnout is real!

8. Recognize That Imposter Syndrome Is CommonKnow that you belong; fake it ‘til you make it. Our anonymous blogger, Dr. Ima Syke, pointed out the following steps to help deal with imposter syndrome:

• Recognize it within yourself and in others. 
• Regularly remind yourself of your accomplishments. 
• Become keenly aware of your strengths. 
• Discuss imposter syndrome with your students. 
• Seek support. 

7. Be as Efficient as Possible With Course PrepFind ways to use time wisely when prepping courses and teaching. Dr. Bryn Harris recommends that you: 

• Schedule time to prep. 
• Make revisions right away! Take notes during or immediately after class on things that went well and things that need to be improved. 
• Teach early in the week if you can. It forces you to be efficient, and leaves the rest of the week for other tasks. 
• Use the notes feature in PowerPoint to remind you what you were thinking when you made the slide a year ago. Be kind to your future self!

6. Know Who You Are As a MentorBe intentional about how you will mentor and know your limits. Drs. Bryn Harris and Amanda Sullivan advocated that we: 

• Seek support from others when stuck and to learn ideas.
• Identify strong role models, be inspired by their style. 
• Know your strengths and decide what your approach will be/is. 
• Define expectations, roles and goals. 
• Set boundaries.
• Follow through with what you say you will do. 

5. Your Research Agenda Can EvolveYou are not wedded to who you were in your cover letter. Dr. Milena A. Keller-Margulis emphasized that it’s important you: 

• Don’t think of your research agenda as static but rather inherently reflective and ongoing.
• The best way to determine (or evolve) the general topic(s) of your research agenda is to pay attention to the topics that interest you the most. You might discover this through reading the literature but these ideas may also surface through your practical or field-based experiences. 
• Do not be afraid to test drive some areas of interest by getting involved in or exploring new areas, and talking to other people with similar interests.
• These activities will help you narrow your focus to the topics and questions that are the most interesting to you. 

4. A Manuscript Rejection Is Sometimes a BlessingIt’s awful, but can also teach you a lesson. Dr. Laura Pendergast shared this story: “Are you done?” my mentor asked patiently. My beautiful manuscript had been rejected… again. My mentor had been listening to me complain for 15 minutes. I was starting a tenure-track position and needed to publish. I had conducted my analyses using the most current statistical techniques. I had painstakingly crafted my arguments and drawn careful, well-supported conclusions. Why didn’t these reviewers understand my paper?! My mentor looked at me calmly and shared a hard truth that changed the way I thought about my writing. She said, “The editor chose three reviewers who he viewed as trusted experts. These hand-picked experts didn’t understand your paper. If multiple, highly educated people didn’t understand what you wrote, whose fault is that?” She was right. Publishing manuscripts is not just about being technically correct and scientifically sound. It is about communicating with an audience… I began by making a new outline. I kept my original results section but rewrote the rest of the paper in a way that was clear and conveyed why the work was meaningful. The revised paper was quickly accepted at another journal.” 3. Start Thinking Now About Your Personal StatementIt’s never too early to start thinking about T&P. Panelists offered the following advice on crafting your materials:Dr. Jamilia Blake: “Your CV provides a quantitative account of what you have accomplished in a set amount of time. I often think of my CV as my personal reference list. However, your candidate statement is qualitative and provides the context for your work. It should not merely be a narrative recount of your CV. It is your opportunity to bring attention to themes in your work that you feel are important and will eventually have impact on the field. It is your space to discuss how your work shows promise for changing school psychology practice and research.”Dr. Amanda Sullivan: “I used my statements to explain activities and describe linkages between them - to tell the story I wanted them to take away from reviewing my materials.” 2. Be Intentional About Managing Your TimeSelf-manage or track your time devoted to research, teaching and service. Dr. Stacy-Ann January offered the following recommendations: “I use a program/app called Toggl (many other programs are available). I started with 3 broad categories (research, teaching, service) and then kept track of everything I did related to those categories. Each week, Toggl sends me an email with a breakdown of how I spent my time during the previous week.”Know when you write best. Dr. Dave Klingbeil shared his approach: “I write best late at night, when there are far fewer distractions. I also tend to be more productive when I write almost every day for 1-2 hours (not always attainable), rather than trying to protect two full days for ‘research time’.” 1. Give Yourself the Gift of NoDr. Amanda Sullivan pointed out, As an early career scholar, you have a finite amount of time so there reaches a point where saying yes to one thing means saying no to another - or where you risk overburdening yourself to the point where your performance in other areas of work suffers. Saying yes to x often means less time for y. Learning to say no first requires identifying your priorities so that you can easily identify requests and opportunities inconsistent with those priorities. Practice pleasantly and unapologetically saying no. It’s okay to say no without offering any more justification than you are simply unavailable. What other tips or favorite posts would you share with new faculty?

Transitioning from Practitioner to Graduate Educator in School Psychology

By Daniel L. Gadke, Mississippi State UniversityAt any given time (excepting pandemics and major recessions), there are dozens of open faculty positions in school psychology across the country. Often, many envision a career path into academia to look something like (1) finish graduate school, (2) complete a post-doctoral position to gain research experience or licensure, and (3) find a job at a university. While this path may have been the route for many academics, fortunately, it is not the only one. Academia is full of outstanding educators and scholars who first practiced. Unfortunately, given the more traditional path into academia and research demands, many practicing school psychologists interested in taking the leap to the ivory tower may feel discouraged in doing so. Concerns with establishing a research line and connecting to mentors are just some of the things that might hold them back from applying. To help us better understand, prepare for, and navigate the transition, we have asked Drs. Courtenay Barret, Michigan State University; Shereen C. Naser,  Cleveland State University;  and Wesley A. Sims, University of California Riverside to share their insights and journeys from successful practitioners to successful academics. Why did you decide to transition into academia?Barrett: I went into academia right after graduate school and then chose to become a practitioner when I started a family. At that time, though, I knew there was always the possibility that I would go back! I decided to transition back into academia because I missed working with graduate students, the emphasis on conducting research, and the autonomy, but the precise timing was somewhat coincidental and prompted by a mixture of family circumstances and available positions at research-intensive universities in school psychology doctoral programs. Naser: When I was working as a practitioner I was asked to head MTSS programming for my school. I found myself constantly asking questions about our behavioral procedures I couldn’t readily find answers to. I was spending a considerable amount of time writing data reports, working with my teams to apply for grants, and creating white papers or reports for our administrative teams. I absolutely loved being a practitioner but I began to wonder what it might be like to do the work I was spending so much time on with more space to read and learn from other scholars.Sims: I transitioned from practice to academia because I felt academia would allow me to influence the field in a more impactful way. I enjoyed working with practicum students and interns and teaching undergraduate psychology courses. I enjoyed both and believed that training future school psychologists would be personally gratifying, professionally fulfilling, and impactful.How did you develop your research and teaching experience while practicing? If you didn’t engage in research or teaching while practicing, did you do anything to build your skills or experience once you started in your new role?Barrett: In my previous position at a regional education service agency, I tried to embody a scientist-scholar-practitioner role by using research principles and concepts, such as program evaluation, data-based decision making, progress monitoring, research design, and measurement theory, as an approach for service delivery in a manner that could be evaluated and was publishable. I also reached out to several university-based researchers to collaborate and seek mentorship on how to conduct community-engaged scholarship. In terms of teaching, I provided a lot of professional development and coaching to a range of educators, which scratched that itch for me!Naser: I was fortunate to have a graduate advisor and mentorship team who were willing to continue to write with me and provide me with adjunct teaching opportunities. The time where I was a full-time practicing school psychologist, supporting our building’s after school programming, teaching Abnormal Psychology as an adjunct while trying to also be involved in manuscript writing was brutal. However, it helped me keep all my doors open. I do want to reiterate that none of that would have been possible without the mentorship I received from folks who were in academia. Academia can often feel like a mysterious place. I remember the first time I submitted a manuscript as lead author and I had no clue that including a cover letter was standard practice. Having partners in academia made navigating those things much easier.Sims: As a practitioner, I frequently conducted in-service presentations for my district(s). Additionally, I taught undergraduate psychology courses for several years before pursuing my doctoral degree. These experiences gave me some insight into teaching adults/in higher education.In contrast, like many practitioners, I gained little to no research experience as a practitioner. Thankfully, I was very lucky to have been exposed to some great research models during my doctoral training. I had very generous advisors and mentors (thank you Chris, Wendy, Keith, Steve, Matt, Erica, and others). Later, I was honored to be included in the School Psychology Research Collaboration Conference (SPRCC). I will be forever grateful to my Catalyst Scholar (Linda Reddy) and group members. I have learned so much from them! Finally, reviewing manuscripts and collaborating with others with similar interests have supported development of my research skills.How did your experience as a practitioner prepare you for the work you do now? In what ways has it informed your scholarship?Barrett: My practice experience has been extremely influential and important for my current role as a faculty member. I believe my systems-level experiences have given me a unique perspective on how school psychologists can serve as change agents in schools. I have tried to bring that to my teaching and mentorship, and several students have commented that these experiences have been really useful in class. My experiences have also influenced my research agenda, as I became interested in implementation science and the research-practice gap. For example, one new line of research, economic evaluation in school psychology, came about directly from my experience as a practitioner. I witnessed first-hand how resource allocation is extremely complex and crucial for high-quality implementation of evidence-based practices. The complexity has made it a really fun area to study and its practical importance helps me feel like my research agenda has real-world implications for student outcomes, which is my primary goal! Naser: I am deeply thankful for my time as a practitioner. I learned so much from the teachers, administrators, families and children that I worked with. I keep old copies of our school’s newsletter on my office walls, and my computer desktop wallpaper is a picture from my time as a practitioner. In academia, particularly for tenure track faculty, there is a push to publish and grant write as a goal in and of itself. These keepsakes remind me that the work I engage in can have real consequences, that my research and training other school psychologists is an opportunity to continue to serve the students, families, teachers and administrators in our education system. My time as a practitioner gives me purpose and my experiences enrich my research and my teaching.Sims: My time as a practitioner helped me transition to academia in several ways. First, there is no substitute for the professional experiences from which I can draw to illustrate concepts or issues discussed in class. Rather than hypothetical examples, I have actual experiences to use. They’re usually much more entertaining than anything I could make up. Next, working in multiple buildings, districts, and cities, each with its own unique organizational make up, socio-political climate, people, and procedures taught me how to be adaptable. Lastly, as a practicing school psychologist I learned how to manage numerous activities at once and to be flexible. Rarely does a school psychologist’s day happen as planned. I learned to be organized and to plan ahead, but also how to roll with changes that will inevitably occur. The latter attributes have proven helpful in my work in the fast-paced, stressful, and unpredictable world of academia.My time as a practitioner has informed my scholarship by influencing my research interests. Broadly, my research seeks to improve service delivery practices and processes, particularly those related to prevention and early intervention. This work is grounded in the daily challenges I directly experienced as a practitioner and is driven by my belief this work could have positive and enduring impacts on student outcomes.What were the key challenges associated with making the transition?Barrett: I haven’t had too many challenges, above and beyond those associated with any transition to a new organization. I’m continuing to learn more about the procedures, policies, and cultural norms of my program, department, and university, but this is necessary for any new job. I think my prior experience in academia helped me significantly. If this were my first position in academia, I would probably be quite overwhelmed trying to navigate the pre-tenure process! Naser: Many of my current colleagues completed postdoctoral fellowships before moving into a tenure track position. They were able to come to academia with a well-defined research agenda, a publication pipeline and in some cases grant money to help fund their projects. In choosing to practice as a school psychologist I forwent a traditional research post doctorate experience. I don’t regret it at all, however my first few years in academia were really a challenge. I went from getting to work at 6:30 AM, greeting students in the  morning, supporting teachers, having mandated state deadlines for writing projects, and feeling an urgency to solve immediate problems our school was facing to turning on my computer and wondering what the heck I was supposed to do next. That transition came with some very serious imposter syndrome as well. I had worked in school buildings across the world, and I always worked as part of team. Coming into academia I was greeted enthusiastically by my colleagues, shown my office and was expected to initiate my own tasks- there were certainly no 5th graders following me down the hall wondering what exactly I was doing next. I do not mean in any way to imply I did not have support. Moving into academia gave me exactly the mental space I was craving to be creative and answer burning questions, and I was hired because other people believed in my vision. However, I really had to dig deep to develop the discipline to create a thriving research agenda, and to become the trainer and teacher I wanted to be. It was easy at first to look for service opportunities to try and create that sense of urgency that I had as a practitioner. Part of refocusing was really outlining my goals and my mission as an academic and saying no to activities that didn’t help me further that goal.With that in mind, I tried to create a structure that would help me succeed. In my first year I signed up for writing courses, read books on writing, reached out to colleagues I knew were also looking for writing opportunities and created interdisciplinary writing and research accountability groups at my university. As a woman and as an Arab American in academia working in primarily White and male spaces, I spent a lot of my first few years in academia often questioning if I belonged. As the daughter of immigrants, I felt like maybe I didn’t have the institutional knowledge I needed to figure this thing out. So, I started reaching out to other people with similar backgrounds. I really outlined what I wanted and what I hoped to accomplish in the next 5 years. I don’t think I ended up publishing a single thing I wrote that first year but I made some fantastic relationships that have developed into productive research partnerships and friendships.I am still learning and still growing and that sometimes feels uncomfortable, but I feel much better equipped to handle the growing pains now than I did when I first started, even as a visiting assistant professor. All of the skills I used to help me get the ball rolling in academia- problem solving, team building, being flexible- were all skills that I honed as a practicing school psychologist and that translated well to academia. Sims: I think the biggest challenge associated with this transition has been the general instability that has come with it. Returning to school was a very dramatic life change. After almost a decade of practice, I had become stable in my career, finances, and life. Returning to school ended that stability. Similarly, this transition has resulted in several relocations. In most cases, pursuit of an academic career requires a willingness to go where jobs are rather than finding a job in a place you want to live. Like most other changes, there has been a learning curve. Academia has its own rules, terms, paperwork, hierarchies, and expectations that can take time to learn. Finally, and relative to academia in particular, academia can be very punishing. At times it can be challenging not to take reviewer feedback personally.What mentoring or professional learning experiences were valuable in preparing for or supporting your scholarship?Barrett: I have received a lot of support and mentorship from professionals with a range of backgrounds, values, perspectives, and role identities both inside and outside of my previous organization, and locally and nationally. I received an Early Career Research Award (ECRA) from the Society for the Study of School Psychology (SSSP) as a practitioner to run a pilot study examining the effects of coaching in schools, with Nate Stevenson, Ph.D. from Kent State University (Co-PI), and Matt Burns, Ph.D. from the University of Missouri, as our mentor. This experience was extremely helpful in learning how to conduct applied research in schools. My advice to anyone who is trying to promote systems-level change and/or transition from practice to academia would be to proactively reach out to a range of professionals for help and then commit to following through until you have reached your goals. I believe that one of the biggest challenges is not just talking about what we’re going to do, but then actually going and doing it!   Naser: Even as a practitioner I continued to attend professional conferences and presented research I conducted while working as a school psychologist. I also completed a visiting assistant professor position before transitioning to a tenure track position. I also kept in touch with my mentors, and they were instrumental in helping me transition into an academic position.Sims: As noted earlier, my experiences during my doctoral training were extremely valuable. I work on multiple large-scale, multi-year, and federally funded projects under advisors that were great models. Later, collaborative efforts with my SPRCC group have been invaluable.What advice would you have for a practitioner interested in entering the academic job market? Is there anything you wish you’d done differently?Barrett: I think it’s important to talk to a range of people about the culture and values of academia, and understand the various types of universities. For example, some universities emphasize research productivity, others emphasize teaching and mentorship. There will also be differences if the program is at the EdS-level or the doctoral-level. Essentially, institutional fit is important. I think that many of the skills necessary to be successful in academia are only/best learned by participating in the process (e.g., the publication process), so I would recommend reaching out to collaborate with others with more experience, if that’s an area for growth. Prior to going on the job market, I was somewhat ambivalent and asked a mentor of mine for career advice, as she has also been in a range of settings (independent consultant, practitioner, academic, and program developer), and she gave me some of the best advice – to sincerely reflect on what I enjoyed doing and then find the work environment that supports my engagement in those activities. I wouldn’t change any part of my career trajectory, even though it has been somewhat atypical, but this is the advice I would give anyone looking to make a change!Naser: The academic job market is rough. Other than a job that requires strict security clearance, I don’t know of many fields that require multi-day interviews and several different presentations, all after turning in an application that basically bares your soul. No one page resumes here! I was also applying for jobs while in the middle of a family crises- I had a sibling with a chronic illness that was taking a turn for the worst. In a lot of ways my sister’s illness meant I didn’t have mental capacity to worry about much else. I created my materials, my mentors and friends were kind enough to review them for me and to help me prepare and practice my research and teaching talks, and I just went for it. I think this forced me to be more authentic in my approach. The interviews I did get were at institutions that felt like fantastic fits, and I met people I would have been proud to work with. To this day I still keep in touch with people at institutions I interviewed with, even though I do not work there. That being said, reviews of my materials by mentors and friends as well as practicing my teaching and research talks multiple times also helped me ensure I was putting my best self forward.Sims: Do your research (pun intended). Make sure you know what you’re getting into. Make sure you understand where you want to end up and where you could end up. Try to get a sense of what academia looks like at several different institutions, not all academic positions are created equally. There is a vast array of positions each with their own, varying research, teaching, and service expectations. You should be mindful and intentional about the types of training and experience preferred for the type of position you want and seek them out.In hindsight, I wish I had focused more on the development of my research skills (e.g., statistics, manuscript preparation), rather than continuing to emphasize practice in my training and experiences. As I made this transition, I continued to practice while pursuing research focused training and experiences. I wish I had more fully embraced unfamiliar, novel research-oriented learning experiences that would support my current work.Thank you to all our panelists. What questions or concerns do you (our readers) have about transitioning and thriving as practitioners moving into academic settings?

Archived Webinar - Applying for the NIH Loan Repayment Program

The Early Career Forum recently hosted a webinar on the NIH Loan Repayment Programs (LRP). This webinar was co-hosted by Dr. Eric Moody, Wyoming Institute for Disabilities, a past LRP recipient and NIH LRP Ambassador; and Dr. Bryn Harris, University of Colorado Denver, a recent NIH LRP awardee. The NIH LRP is designed to recruit and retain qualified health professionals in research careers. The program alleviates some financial pressure of remaining in research careers instead of obtaining positions in private industry or private practice. The program repays up to $50,000 annually of a researcher’s qualified educational debt in return for a commitment to engage in research endeavors over a two year period. The webinar provided an overview of the program, qualifications for submission, application process, and tips for a successful submission. A recording of the webinar is available here.

Coping with COVID-19 As An Early Career Scholar (Part I)

By Lindsay M. Fallon, University of Massachusetts – Boston; and Amanda L. Sullivan, University of Minnesota Over the past few months, COVID-19 has been known to infect over a million people worldwide. Its spread brings great concern for physical health and safety, but also emotional wellness; access to healthcare, education and employment; caring for oneself and others; managing competing responsibilities; and much more. A pandemic of this magnitude is uncharted territory for most of us and there remain many unknowns. Intense and new feelings about the virus and its impact are justified. Kindness to oneself is critical in navigating through this difficult and unsettling time.As early career scholars in a helping profession, it can be hard to know exactly what to do or how to help. Those whom we support, teach, and mentor may be experiencing illness or significant disruptions to their life (e.g., moving away or back home to be with family, experiencing an abrupt end to on-site fieldwork, managing the interruption to dissertation data collection, unemployment or illness among family members). Challenges may be exacerbated for individuals from historically minoritized backgrounds, including first-gen students, individuals from racially minoritized backgrounds, women, and others given racialized, classist, gendered, and ableist dimensions of this crisis. Taken together, this may bring about feelings of disappointment, discomfort, and even grief. Those we mentor may require additional and more intensive support during a time when we also need time and space to process and adjust to unanticipated changes ourselves. It is critical we engage in self-care, access social support, and set and maintain manageable expectations now and in the coming months.There are many ways to engage in self-care. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) recommend: 

• Taking breaks from watching, reading, or listening to news stories, including social media. Hearing about the pandemic repeatedly can be upsetting.
• Taking care of one’s body by engaging in relaxation techniques (deep breathing, stretching, meditation), healthy eating, exercise, and adequate sleep.
• Making time to unwind and connect with others. Talking with trusted friends and colleagues can help to process difficult events and feelings.

Additional recommendations and resources have been offered by NASP, SAMHSA and others. Accessing necessary social support is, of course, impacted by the practice of social distancing, or physical distancing as it is more aptly named. Guidance by the American Psychological Association (APA) emphasizes the value of using technology in the absence of face-to-face interactions. This includes using phone calls, text messages, video chat and social media to access social support networks. There are many virtual social media support groups emerging (e.g., Facebook groups) to facilitate communication and a sense of community. While social and professional support needs will vary for individuals, the realization that all early career scholars are experiencing this pandemic together is powerful. We hope that early career scholars utilize each other as support systems and build stronger collaborative relationships as a result of these challenging times.It’s also important to set and maintain manageable expectations in the coming weeks and months. What is manageable is necessarily different now and will likely vary throughout this pandemic. Most faculty are grappling with the unwieldy task of quickly transitioning to online instruction while also managing extensive, and perhaps growing, personal demands. Rebecca Barrett-Fox offered numerous reasons why you should please do a bad job of putting your courses online during this unprecedented time. Her rationale and corresponding recommendations are especially helpful for scholars who are deeply committed to high quality preparation of school psychologists and high personal standards of excellence generally. We all want to do our best. As she points out, present circumstances necessitate a qualitatively different approach to online teaching than we’d pursue outside of a crisis. Be kind to yourself and your students by doing less. That’s more important now than learning and implementing the most recent teaching apps or ensuring that your online course is as rigorous as you’d intended the in-person class to be before COVID-19 upended everything. Elsewhere, recommendations for supporting struggling online learners are increasingly abundant, but the general themes are to be flexible, low tech, and as minimalistic as possible. It's also reasonable to assume your students are or will be struggling with COVID-related challenges and to practice compassion accordingly.Contrary to early posturing about mimicking Shakespeare or Newton’s pandemic productivity, this crisis does not lend itself to research productivity for most of us. We aren’t on mandatory writing retreats when stay-at-home or shelter-in-place orders are issued by university and state leaders. This is especially true for individuals now acclimating to round-the-clock childcare duties; distance learning support for school-age kids; mutual aid for friends, loved ones, and community members; and supporting our students, advisees, supervisees, and colleagues---to say nothing of the personal emotional toll of all of this. We are anxious. We are angry. We are grieving. We are scared.As scholars and graduate educators, most of us have the privilege of being able to continue our work from our homes following social distancing and home isolation orders. Yet, as many have pointed out, “You’re not working from home. You’re sheltering in place during a pandemic and trying to get work done in the gaps between taking care of yourself, your loved ones, and your worries.” Such pandemic work is fundamentally different from choosing to work from home outside of an international crisis. Research findings on employees’ stable or enhanced productivity when working from home are not generalizable to our present context. We must give ourselves permission to expect less from everyone---ourselves, our students, our collaborators, our colleagues---right now. 

pic.twitter.com/nj6LwVlDAO

— Seánie (@seanieflanagan) April 1, 2020

Indeed, it may be hard to concentrate or focus on certain tasks, making it difficult to feel productive. This can feel stressful, but is completely understandable. Now, productivity will likely look very different than it did last semester. Practice acknowledging and accepting this, along with celebrating what you are doing: responding to the needs of students, colleagues, clients, etc. is essential, meaningful work. Also, many of us now have children at home all day and are navigating work and caregiving responsibilities. This calls for flexibility with deadlines, requests, and workload. As such, it might also be important to communicate with professional colleagues about capacity and deadlines (e.g., asking for more time to review manuscripts for editorial boards). It is important to think about ways to advocate for one’s needs during this time. Don’t be afraid to request extensions, step away from projects, or ask for other assistance. For tenure-track junior faculty, it may be necessary to discuss with department, college, and university colleagues about adjusted expectations pre-tenure (e.g., fewer publications required; paused tenure clocks). Many universities are automatically extending probationary periods or are allowing faculty to opt in to pausing their clocks. It can be difficult to grant yourself use of such allowances because of common criticisms of pausing clocks that many of us have encountered from senior scholars and others, not to mention concern for how it may widen gender disparities, but these are extraordinarily challenging times. Those of us with more privilege* must advocate and assist our more vulnerable colleagues. This means being flexible with scheduling, deadlines, and delegation of responsibilities and assignments. It means, as much as possible given our own challenges, shouldering more of the burden than we put on junior faculty, contingent faculty colleagues, and students. It also means advocating for tenure clock extensions if they aren’t already in place and ensuring that we make allowances for this lost year when evaluating junior scholars’ accomplishments and potential in the context of promotion, tenure (pssst - external reviewers), student reviews, hiring, or grant or fellowship proposals. The likely impact on grades, research output, teaching evaluations, service activities, and other professional activities or accomplishments should not be ignored or downplayed once this pandemic passes. In the coming days, weeks, and months, we will have a better sense of how long COVID-19 will impact our daily lives and of the long lasting impact the pandemic will have on our field and society. In the meantime, we can take care of ourselves and others by normalizing our own feelings of discomfort and stress, engaging in self-care to the extent that we’re able, accessing social support as needed, setting and maintaining manageable expectations, and being an advocate for what we need at this time. This is undoubtedly a pivotal moment in history. Let’s be kind to ourselves as we navigate the duality of this unprecedented time.

 

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Brown Girl Therapy (@browngirltherapy) on Mar 29, 2020 at 3:07pm PDT

This is part 1 of at least two posts the Early Career Forum is preparing to address the unique circumstances COVID-19 presents for early career scholars and others in our school psychology community. Our next installment will address the research challenges for early career scholars in school psychology. To our readers: What questions do you have for the ECF? What resources or opportunities would you like to see? What other recommendations would you offer to our community for coping with COVID-related issues as an early career scholar? Tell us in the comments section below or comment on Twitter or Facebook.* As a full professor, I (Amanda) know that I am co-writing this from a place of immense privilege. I challenge myself and my similarly privileged peers to ask how we can support those without the luxuries of rank, tenure, and everything that comes with it. We must also keep in mind that the consequences of this crisis will continue to reverberate, even when/if we return to business as usual, so our grace must extend beyond the crisis.

NASP 2020 Recap & Handouts

Thanks for joining us for the Early Career Forum's sessions and events at the NASP 2020 Convention! Thanks to all the early career scholars who joined us as well as the panelists and mentors who contributed: Scott Ardoin, Stacy Bender, Amy Briesch, Elaine Clark, Bridget Dever, Tanya Eckert, Lindsay Fallon, Randy Floyd, Daniel Gadke, Sally Grapin, Bryn Harris, Bridget Hier, Shane Jimerson, Janine Jones, Steve Kilgus, Dave Klingbeil, Katie Maki, Amity Noltemeyer, Andy Roach, and Ethan Van Norman.We're pleased to share handouts from our three sessions:

• SS024 - Effectively Mentoring Student Research: Leading a Productive Lab
• SS003 - Methods Matter: The Promise of Empirical Research to Inform Practice
• PA176 - Careers in Academia: Aligning Research, Teaching, and Service

If you have ideas for future conference programming or events, or topics you'd like to see us address here on the blog, please comment below.

Straight talk about faculty careers: Opportunities and strategies for success. (NASP 2019 Handout)

Access the handout here.Citation: Sullivan, A. L., Harris, B., & Gadke, D. (2019, February). Straight talk about faculty careers: Opportunities and strategies for success. Symposium accepted for presentation at the annual convention of the National Association of School Psychologists, Atlanta, GA.Description: This symposium provided an overview of faculty roles in school psychology and strategies to prepare for such roles as a graduate student or practitioner. The session was geared towards prospective faculty, including practicing school psychologists and graduate students, who would like to learn more about the diversity of faculty/graduate educator career options and opportunities in school psychology.