Foundations for Successful Scholarship in School Psychology

August 31, 2015

This year, the ECF invited Randy Floyd, professor at the University of Memphis and previous editor of SSSP’s Journal of School Psychology to share his advice for early career researchers. In this first installment, Randy offers general recommendations for successful scholarship in school psychology.  Foundations for Successful Scholarship in School PsychologyBy Randy G. Floyd, The University of MemphisAs a participant in the 2005 School Psychology Research Collaborative Conference, I am the beneficiary of the numerous, ongoing efforts of the Society for the Study of School Psychology (SSSP) to enhance the scholarship of the field through professional development activities and generous funding of several initiatives. Thus, I appreciate this opportunity to contribute to the SSSP Early Career Forum and focus on publishing and the peer-review process. I hope to offer, in a series of five blog posts, (a) practical insights from both my experience as a university professor and as a former editor of one of the major journals in the field and (b) information from reviews of the literature and research with close colleagues (including Craig Albers, Tom Fagan, Rebecca Martinez, and Sterett Mercer). Future posts will address employing specific strategies (and avoiding common mistakes) in submitting to peer-reviewed journals, finding the best resources to which to turn, and responding to reviewer and editor feedback. In this post, I want to offer 10 broad recommendations for scholarly success:1.      Be a student of the game. Devote time, money, and effort to securing resources and participate in trainings that will enhance your skill set and strategy use as a scholar. Although the strongest scholars continue to expand their competencies throughout their development, your early career is the time to establish a strong foundation on which the remainder of your career can rest. It is likely, too, that you will have more time early in your career to reach this goal than later in your career, when service responsibilities tend to increase. Find articles, book chapters, books, and blogs that address career success (see for example, Prinstein, 2013), and read voraciously. Seek out and attend presentations at professional conferences and use start-up monies and department funding to attend specialized workshops (e.g., focused on grant writing and advanced statistics and research designs). I will address some of these resources in my next blog post.2.      Finish what you started as a graduate student, intern, post-doc, or early career practitioner. If you have not already, work to publish your thesis and dissertation research. In the same vein, discuss with your major professor, supervisors, and research team members ways to present and publish research results or other projects from your graduate training, post-doctoral experience, or earlier career in practice. Find ways to channel what you have learned from those experiences into other published products (e.g., a narrative review of the literature, a test review, a newsletter article, or a guide for practitioners).3.      Collaborate selectively with others who have a scientific orientation, data analysis skills, or are generally good at writing. The best collaborations are synergistic—or at least mutually beneficial. There is no sense in collaborating for its own sake; some collaborations may produce more cost than gain. As you establish your competencies, know where you are weakest and seek out others who will complement you. Unless you anticipate more cost than gain, continue research and writing collaborations with major professors, supervisors, and research team members (as previously noted). Do not hesitate to contact more senior members in the field about collaborating in areas of their most intense interest. They may be overjoyed to team with energetic early career scholars and very willing to provide guidance. Their contributions will likely complement your own; they will be less likely to generate text for a manuscript but more likely to offer advice regarding study conceptualization, manuscript preparation, and viable publication outlets.4.      Identify when and where you work best and protect it. Focused, productive writing and thinking time is vital to the success of an early career scholar, so give generously of your time to service throughout the week, but do not hesitate to say (without elaboration) that you cannot meet during sacred periods. In selecting them, reflect on what time of the day you are at your cognitive best, and complete your most challenging work then. Save less demanding tasks (e.g., responding to emails) for when you are not at your cognitive peak. Although these periods may change throughout your career (and due to variable home and work schedules), strive foremost to protect your best time. In addition, work where there are few distractions—which often means not in your university office. Many of the most productive faculty work at home—often staying home at least a day a week or during long mornings or afternoons throughout the week. Others find hiding places on the university campus (including library study carrels or empty classrooms) or in coffee shops (when neither home nor work offices are quiet options). Consider employing time management strategies (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pomodoro_Technique), but whenever and wherever, turn off email, text, and phone message notifications during these thinking and writing sessions.5.      Spend at least 8 hours (1 work day) a week writing. As you consider your schedule each week, stay aware of the amount of time you engage in writing activities (see Silva, 2007). Writing in the broad sense includes everything supporting scholarship and manuscript development. For example, when you feel unable to produce some semblance of coherent text during a scheduled writing period, reading and taking notes from articles, adding and formatting references, and writing incomplete sentences in manuscripts will support your broad writing goals. Write what comes easiest to you, which rarely reflects the standard Introduction, Method, Results, and Discussion sequence of manuscripts. When writing, many productive scholars start with the most concrete elements—in Method and Results sections—and extend writing from there. For me, each section of the manuscript requires different thinking and text construction processes, so I tend to develop those sections somewhat independently. Reviewing the text structure and content of articles and other publications as models as well as journal article reporting standards (see Cooper, 2011) will assist you in developing manuscripts.6.      Use your breadth of experiences as a foundation for your research. For professors, use readings from your courses, student questions, and student projects to generate ideas and projects to enhance your research agenda. For practitioners, develop manuscripts focusing on research based on single-case studies and program evaluations to address practical questions in the field. Generate ideas for literature reviews from questions posed to you during workshops or from pressing issues facing practitioners and administrators in schools and clinics. You should strive to never be without data or an idea for your next manuscript.7.      Find your publishing niche (or niches). With a variety of publishing outlets—including journals, newsletters, and books—you should consider your interests and skills and how they might be best aligned with these outlets. Rather than always striving to publish in journals, some scholars with strong writing and editing skills publish more authored and edited books than research articles. Others with a strong leaning toward practice-based issues publish in professional newsletters. Still others publish commercially developed assessment instruments, test reviews, and book reviews. In the same vein, let your data analytic skills help fill a niche. Consider ways to develop skills in specific areas that will allow you to use them repeatedly to answer questions in a novel way across parallel projects. For example, some research teams focus on publishing meta-analyses or qualitative analyses and publish multiple studies using these methodologies. Others employ sophisticated quantitative analyses (e.g., structural equation modeling) and archival data sets from test publishers or longitudinal data bases to produce a series of related articles.8.      Consider multiple outlets for your publications. It is easy to gravitate toward submitting manuscripts first to the journals you know best and then giving up when these journals do not agree to publish your work. Do not be disheartened. There are a wide variety of school psychology generalist and specialty journals and professional newsletters that target and publish quantitative and qualitative research, systematic and narrative reviews, descriptions of best practices for the field, test reviews, book reviews, and “thought pieces.” Another blog post in this series will focus on this array of publishing outlets.9.      Use national presentations as motivation. Professional publications (even books and associated chapters) rarely have hard deadlines associated with them. As such, determining when to submit your manuscripts to journals is almost always completely up to you. Some of the strongest scholars in the field (and their students) appear to use (a) proposals for presentations (as posters or papers) at national conventions and (b) the presentations themselves to motivate them to complete their projects. Frequently, these presentations yield feedback that can be used to refine subsequent manuscript development. Plus, each presentation will add to your count on your curriculum vitae.10.     Be a strong mentor in guiding students toward publishing. Just like your collaborations with your major professor and supervisors, your efforts with your students can produce publications about which you can be proud. When well designed, theses and dissertations developed under your mentorship should be publishable. Additional scholarly projects with individual students or across your research team members not only assist the development of your students’ skills and careers but also increase your publishing productivity.ReferencesCooper, H. (2011). Reporting research in psychology: How to meet journal article reporting standards. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.Prinstein, M. J. (Ed.). (2013). The portable mentor: Expert guide to a successful career in psychology (2nd ed.) New York, NY: Springer.Silva, P. (2007). How to write a lot. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.The author would like to thank Dr. Ryan Farmer, Dr. Xu (Lilya) Jiang, Dr. Beth Meisinger, and Dr. Colby Taylor for their feedback on earlier drafts of this post.

#makingresearchmatter

July 8, 2015

By Julia Ogg, University of South FloridaWhen thinking about dissemination and impact, those of us on the tenure-track typically focus on peer-reviewed journal articles and professional conference presentations. However, a presentation I recently attended at my university showed me how non-traditional outlets such as social media and mainstream publications can extend the reach of our scholarship. Indeed the popularity of TED Talks and websites devoted to making science interesting and understandable illustrate the public’s interest in obtaining information about contemporary research topics. Using non-traditional outlets could increase the impact of our research by creating an opportunity for people to be exposed to our work who would not see it otherwise. This could ultimately lead people to our more traditional and detailed dissemination efforts. Despite recognizing the potential of these venues for getting our research distributed broadly, many in academic positions (including myself) have reservations.  Below I consider a few common concerns in regard to dissemination through popular media and potential solutions.Concern: You are hesitant to share your research in non-traditional outlets like social media or mainstream publications because the information we generate from research is so nuanced.  That is, you do not want to oversimplify or fail to share the intricate nature of your findings.Potential Solution: This is a valid concern; however, one perspective is that getting evidence-based information out there may encourage people to read more in depth on the topic. Although the message may not be understood in the exact way you intended it, by sharing you may open doors. This point was made very eloquently by Jonah Berger, a professor of business and social media expert, when asked if he has ever seen any of his studies misquoted, “That is the danger. And there are definitely quotes where you talk to someone for a half-hour, and they pick out the one thing that you said that you wish you didn’t say. And then you have a choice though. Do you not want to speak at all about your work or do you want to do your best to get it out there in a rigorous way. And if it takes a life of its own, try to correct that. And I think, personally at least, I am interested in making sure that my work is useful to people, and so that’s a risk you have to take” (Scott, 2012). Another point to consider here is that it is important for us to learn how to talk about our research in a way that is both understandable and engaging to the public. Certainly publications in peer-reviewed journals are essential to advance science, but also making our work useful to more people can also be considered an important goal. These two goals do not have to be in opposition. When it comes to writing for mainstream publications, just like writing for peer-reviewed journals, practice and experience will help.  Learn and practice how to succinctly share what you are learning with your research.  What we are doing when presenting our research is telling a story (a non-fiction story of course). Any good story-teller appreciates the utility of a narrative arc.  Authors like Malcolm Gladwell have made a career publishing popular books (i.e., Outliers, The Tipping Point) known for integrating research with a human-interest story.  In addition, adopting other strategies, such as using infographics or pictures, can help draw people into your message in a powerful way.Concern:I don’t have time or this is too overwhelming. This will be way too difficult to sustain. Potential Solution: You do not have to become a media guru by tomorrow, but you do something as simple as joining Twitter and start following others with similar interests.  By becoming a consumer, you can learn about ways to use social media and other non-traditional outlets for disseminating your research. You may also gain information you would not have gotten via more traditional formats. It may be helpful to look at how other faculty use social media to share their work and I have provided a link below to an article on 50 media savvy professors.In terms of sustaining your efforts, one strategy is to try and find ways to make this part of your routine by building in a short block of time to engage each day or week. Using features like scheduling when a tweet goes out (which can be accomplished through Twitter add-ons such as Hootsuite), you can be present at times beyond when you are online.  One other nice factor is that you can also be on Twitter even when you have just a short period of time (e.g., while waiting at the doctor’s office).  Ultimately, you could consider institutionalizing your efforts by including a graduate assistant on grants that assists with disseminating results via these methods.I still have a lot to learn about how to effectively use and manage media to help disseminate my work; however, I think this is a topic that needs to be considered.  Sharing in these non-traditional ways may not be for everyone, but recognizing that the world we live in is changing and that these are increasingly widespread ways for interacting with others is important.  As academics we should consider how we can embrace these changes and use them to help our work inform policy and practice.ReferencesScott, M. (September 28, 2012). Good bye ivory tower, hello social media: academics struggle to make ideas accessible. The Pulse. 50 most social media savvy professors in America.Related Resources of Interest

• The Just a Click Away column in the Communiquéby Dr. Dan Florell is a great way to stay on top of emerging technologies.
• Reviews on mobile Apps on the NASP webpage
• The Best Educational Apps of 2014(these are apps for kids)
• Excellent example of a psychology professor who uses a variety of media outlets for his work ( Todd Kashdan)

In the comments section, please share any apps you use professionally that may be beneficial for others.

Fostering Research Partnerships as New Faculty: Making Inroads with Local Agencies and Communities

April 27, 2015

During the early career faculty meeting at NASP, participants asked for ideas on how to build research partnerships when they are new to a university and the surrounding community. Below, two early career faculty share their experience for doing just that. By Daniel Gadke& Kasee Stratton, Mississippi State UniversityIn November, Milena Keller-Margulis wrote a great post on developing a research agenda. As junior faculty we find ourselves regularly honing our research agendas and determining how to build them from the ground up.  Personally, our broad strokes research agenda involves the exploration of strategies rooted in applied behavior analysis to address behavioral and academic needs in children with disabilities. Depending on which of us you approach, you may find that we spend most of that time targeting children with autism spectrum and related disorders, or children with complex genetic disorders (e.g., CHARGE Syndrome) and children who present as deaf-blind. As new faculty, we recognize that starting up at a new university and getting your agenda to take off can prove difficult.It is our experience that successful research agendas, particularly in school psychology, involve positive partnerships with local agencies (e.g., schools, daycares, hospitals, etc.). Developing these partnerships and getting your name out there may be difficult regardless of your institution; however, we found this to be particularly difficult joining the faculty at a major university in the rural south. The number of local agencies within the town is limited, and other major cities are at least 100 miles away.  We had heard that many academics working with schools and other agencies in the area sometimes offered pro-bono services in hopes that this relationship would lead to a collaborative arrangement allowing the faculty member to engage in research at the location. Some mentors told stories of their efforts taking several years before paying off, and, in some instances, not working out at all.  They were often lost in the service only shuffle without seeing the benefits to their research agenda.  That being said, we took a different approach: we decided to figure out a way to bring as many agencies representatives to us as possible by offering them continuing education units. Our goal was not only to be able to go out to these agencies and conduct research on-site, but to have these agencies send participants to us for our on-campus labs.Capitalizing on Practitioners’ Need for Continuing Education. At one of our alma maters, Illinois State University, the faculty host an annual School Psychology Appreciation Day where professionals from around the state are offered free CEUs at a workshop held at the university every April. For school psychologists in the state, NASP-approved CEUs are provided at no cost, as they are a NASP-approved CEU provider. Additionally, Illinois State Board of Education CEUs were offered at no cost. We took a similar approach by offering a two-day workshop for educators at Mississippi State University in January 2014, which was our second semester as faculty.  In order to recruit additional school personnel and those familiar with autism, we partnered with a speech pathologist colleague who was well known for assistive technology to offer speech pathology CEUs as well.  Our presentations included talks on classroom behavior management, changes to autism criteria in the DSM-V, sleep maintenance, and creating individualized behavioral goals for BIPs.  All of the topics aligned well with our research interests, allowing us to capitalize on sharing our expertise and research outcomes.Participant recruitment.Our college assisted with advertising on the university website and we sent the information to schools, hospitals, and other agencies across the state.  We were also sure to send personalized emails to directors of special education.  When it was all said and done, we ended up with 100 professionals in attendance from all over the state. We had now shared our research endeavors with 100 individuals who showed their excitement by staying after the workshop to ask questions and to inquire about assistance and research for their employer.Seeing results.As new faculty, the payoff was huge. We quickly had folks inviting us into their schools to do additional staff development trainings or to help with individual students. Those 100 attendees also told their other colleagues about how we could collaborate and parents about how we could help. By the end of the semester, our programs of research were positively impacted in a variety of ways. We were able to establish partnerships with schools, which allowed for our students to engage in research on-site and in additional practicum activities.  We also have a waitlist for all service and research activities, which is not a bad problem to have—a built in control group.Unanticipated benefits.We have had so many clients referred to us, we were able to formalize what we now refer to as our School Psychology Service Center on campus. The Service Center allows us to actively engage in research, training, and service to the community.  Additionally, our practicum students have been provided with a wealth of experiences through the Center from difficult psychoeducational evaluations, challenging behavior cases, to first-hand intervention experience with some extremely rare genetic conditions.  More recently, the upper-level students have begun to express what a unique addition the Center has been to the program and their training experience. The clinic has become so active in the areas of research, training, and services that administrators have started to take notice, now considering it an integral part of the college.Making this approach work for you. We hope this simple idea can be particularly useful for junior faculty in establishing collaborative relationships with community agencies.  We leave you with a few tips; some of which we learned along the way and others that we would have changed if we did it all over again.Gain the support of your department head and college.  Do not be shy about your ideas.

• Identify early on a location on campus to host the event (our location was free, but we had to book early!).
• Determine if you are going to offer the CEUs free or charge a fee (we would suggest offering them for free, especially if you are able to avoid any overhead costs with the university). This may vary state by state and university by university.
• Partner with other colleagues on campus whom might enrich the topics you are able to provide or who are well-respected in the community.
• Offer trainings that map directly onto your areas of expertise and research interests and plug your research needs throughout your presentations.
• yourself ample time to market the event throughout your state or region (we had approximately 3 months, but wished we had longer).
• Leave time for lots of questions and answers or offer a post-workshop reception to allow more informal connections while your research is fresh on the attendants’ minds.

How do you see this idea working for you? What other approaches have you taken to foster research partnerships in your community?

Developing a Research Agenda

November 12, 2014

By Milena A. Keller-Margulis, University of HoustonDespite how much and how often the term “research agenda” is used, there seems to be no agreed-upon, or formalized definition to be found. Many different entities may have a research agenda including entire fields of study, funding agencies, and of course individuals. We propose the following definition of a research agenda; a roadmap or framework that guides inquiry. A research agenda may be both global and specific. Ideally it is used to specify gaps in knowledge in a specific area and serves to guide the direction and development of new projects and research questions. A clear research agenda serves two important purposes. First, it can help you communicate to others what you study and the area in which you have developed (or are developing) expertise.  Second, it serves to guide your decision-making about what projects or specific research questions to pursue. Ultimately, you must be interested in and excited about the topic(s) at the heart of your research agenda.Strategies for Defining Your AgendaIt is never too early or too late to begin to develop your research agenda. It should not be considered static, as the process of developing an agenda is inherently reflective and ongoing. The best way to determine the general topic 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. These opportunities help to refine what might be a more global topic area into more specific or narrow research questions that have practical significance. Lastly, do not be afraid to test drive some areas of interest by getting involved in research, seeking out opportunities to explore 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.How to Put Your Agenda into ActionOnce you determine your general topic(s) of interest, the actions you take are what solidify your agenda. The two key ways to accomplish this are to (1) conduct research in the areasthat are the focus of your research agenda, and (2) disseminate the products of your research agenda. Generating new research and then disseminating it through writing for publication is the most critical way to further your developing agenda, and of course, contribute to the scientific literature. This can take many forms including writing proposals for conference presentations, writing grant proposals (small or large), and writing for publication. Dissemination can also be informal and involve reaching out to others who are doing similar work in order to identify potential collaborative relationships. All of these actions serve to communicate your agenda to others while at the same time developing and further refining your ideas.  Ultimately, having a research agenda means that you not only have specific topics that you are interested in studying but that you actively engage in research to advance that literature base.Here are some general tips to consider:

• Use your Research Agenda as your Roadmap: One of the most exciting aspects of working in academia and engaging in research is the limitless topics and projects you can pursue. This is also a challenge because you have to make choices as to where you will invest your time. Evaluate each potential research opportunity for the degree to which it is consistent with your agenda.
• Develop an Infrastructure: There are some logistic or infrastructure elements that you might consider in the early stages of developing your agenda. You should consider what you need to facilitate your work. Do you need space or support in the form of research assistants? Materials? Access to certain settings or populations of interest? Build a team of students to help you advance your agenda.
• Get Connected: Another strategy to further develop your research agenda is to collaborate with other scholars who are interested in the same topics. This can be accomplished in an informal way by meeting at conferences (e.g. attend social hours or networking events) or sending a friendly email but there are also structured mentoring/networking opportunities you can utilize. For example, the Society for the Study of School Psychology (SSSP) hosts the School Psychology Research Collaboration Conference every other year. This opportunity brings together junior and senior scholars to support the development of collaborative relationships. Reaching out to other professionals who work in settings that serve populations you want to study is also a great way to develop field-based research partnerships that are mutually beneficial.

Developing and furthering a research agenda takes time and commitment but having a clear area of interest that you find exciting, ensures that it will be a very rewarding endeavor.

Building and Sustaining School Partnerships

November 29, 2013

By Robert J. Volpe and Amy M. BrieschIf you have had the experience of entering an unfamiliar school and performing a well-rehearsed conference room pitch for some study you would like to conduct only to be rebuffed by the school staff, you are not alone. Although one of the more common concerns voiced by school staff is that there is already too much testing going on in the school, you likely have had the sense that the school staff views you as an outsider, of whose intentions they should be somewhat wary. If this is the case, the school has likely had one or more experiences dealing with what we call the slash and burn approach to conducting school-based research. Building research infrastructure is a lot like farming. Just like farming there are sustainable approaches, but there are also unsustainable approaches, which are ineffective for both the researcher and stakeholders. Research partnerships, just like any other relationship, are built on three principal concepts: a) mutual respect, b) mutual benefits and c) trust. Slash and burn farming involves cutting down shrubs and trees on a plot of land, setting the debris on fire and using the resultant ashes to nourish the soil for the purposes of growing food. Because the nutrients in the soil are rapidly depleted, the farmer must find a new plot of land and cannot return to the original plot until the natural vegetation grows back. School-based researchers often follow an analogous approach to partnering with schools because they fail to ensure that they are providing the school with adequate benefits and do not necessarily seek to sustain relationships within the school. Much like the farmer, slash and burn researchers find themselves repeatedly searching for new study sites because they have burned their bridges with former school partners who do not see the “partnership” as mutually beneficial. Alternatively, a key tenant of sustainable farming is developing and maintaining healthy soil, avoiding erosion, and supporting healthy root growth. A sustainable approach requires a greater investment of time, energy, and resources on the part of the farmer; however, it also results in both a more desirable product and long-term environmental benefits. The same can be said of sustainable research: although conducting an isolated study may require less time and effort than building solid partnerships with schools, the latter is likely to result both in a better study in the short term and fertile ground for future research down the road. In the table below we will compare these two approaches along some relevant dimensions. 

	Slash and Burn	Sustainable
Focus	Short-term	Long-term
Principal motivation	How I can get my study run?	How can my expertise serve the school?
Ideas about collaboration	Preconceived/rigid	Open and flexible
Communication	Explaining	Listening
	Abrupt	Proactive and maintained
Follow-up	Minimal	Maximal
Role	Outside consultant	Partner
Engagement	Low	High

 To build research partnerships that are sustainable requires the researcher to plan ahead. As early career scholars it is not a good idea to wait to contact a school until you need them as a site for a study. Early in your career or early in a new location, you have not yet built your “street cred.” By that we mean that you may have not yet demonstrated whether your relationship with a school is an asset to them or a burden. As a well-trained school psychologist (and perhaps a trainer), you know you have much to offer the school, but you will not know how you can best serve them unless you ask. Listening to the needs and developing research questions in this context is an example of participatory action research. We all want to do something to serve troubled schools, but when we listen to our school partners it helps us pursue informed action. Among the services we have provided to our school partners include:

• Benchmarking (e.g., DIBELS) the school, crunching the numbers, and presenting the data to the school staff
• Conducting staff in-service trainings on PBIS and RtI
• Consulting on challenging behavioral cases
• Evaluating programs
• Converting classes to service learning courses where students implement academic interventions
• Serving as a consultant to school leadership teams
• Engaging in problem-solving with teachers and team leaders to identify and assess appropriate interventions

Each of the aforementioned projects was viewed as a win-win for both the school and us. We provided useful resources and services that the school needed and our students benefitted from the experience. In some cases we were able to publish data generated from these activities. Also, when we approached the school regarding a study we wanted to conduct, the study design was informed by what we had learned about the school and the perception across parties was that the project was another win-win situation. Identifying opportunities for dual benefits and building mutual respect and trust take both time and attention, but these investments will likely pay dividends. The mistake too many investigators make is that they wait too long to plant the seeds of partnership and then are surprised to find that their yield is much smaller than what they had hoped. If you keep these considerations in mind, and implement sustainable research practices, we feel confident that both you and your partners will reap incredible benefits!