Research as a Tool for Advocacy

By Sally Grapin, Montclair State UniversityIn the last decade, the concept of social justice has received unprecedented attention in the field of school psychology. As the field grapples with its role in promoting social justice, many scholars have focused on integrating advocacy and research to deconstruct systems of power and privilege in K-12 schools, training environments, and communities. To better understand research as a tool for advocacy, the authors of this post reached out to four experts in integrating these professional activities. Our panelists include Drs. Antoinette Miranda (The Ohio State University), Sherrie Proctor (Queens College, City University of New York), David Shriberg (Indiana University), and Sam Song (University of Nevada, Las Vegas). These scholars were asked to respond to a variety of questions about their research experiences, goals, and challenges, as presented below.What does it mean for school psychologists to use research as advocacy? Why should scholars strive to integrate research and advocacy? Antoinette Miranda [AM]: To me, it means answering the hard questions and examining areas that we have traditionally avoided in school psychology. In many respects, broader issues that are affecting education also affect the profession. These include the privatization of public schools, over-policing of urban schools, discipline issues, and chronic absenteeism, to name a few. These are systems issues, but we have the ability to implement programs and promote strategies that will benefit the most vulnerable students in education. I believe school psychologists can make an impact with research that examines and implements culturally responsive practices that improve the educational outcomes of minoritized youth. Our research should promote socially just practices.Sam Song [SS]: The clearest differentiating factor is "action," i.e., the findings result in (or contribute to) social action/change for a local community per "action research" literature.Dave Shriberg [DS]: I believe connecting your research with advocacy is important both for the researcher and for the students that we work with. For the researcher, every scholar—or at least I hope this is the case—is motivated to pursue research questions that have the potential to be impactful. The vast majority of school psychology researchers want their work to benefit practice. However, practice does not occur in a vacuum. Schools are a microcosm of the broader society, including topics pertaining to social justice [e.g., topics related to equity, access, and respect (culturally responsive behavior/non-discriminatory behavior)]. I am hard-pressed to think of research topics within the realm of school psychology that do not touch on social justice issues in some way. So, to conduct your research as if social justice realities do not exist first limits the type and usefulness of the research questions you are exploring.Second, to just put your research out there but not advocate for why this work is important lessens the likelihood that your work ultimately will have an impact. If you are convinced that all one needs to do is conduct the research and then things will take care of themselves in terms of this work being translated to practice in a culturally responsive manner that does not perpetuate existing inequities, then I think you are fooling yourself. It is possible to both remain objective in your data analysis and also work to devise research studies that speak to social justice advocacy and then to go out and advocate yourself for why your work—and the work of others—is important.Regarding our students, we are modeling not only how to design strong research studies but also the moral imperative for why research is needed in the first place. Research itself can be considered a revolutionary act. If we already have all the answers, why conduct more research? By conducting research, you are saying that, on some level, the current state of knowledge on the topics you are studying is incomplete and/or inaccurate. Advocacy involves not just doing the study, but also making the case for why this work is needed, particularly in light of social injustices that impact your topic. If our students do not see us out there advocating for the need for our work and then tying this need to the moral imperatives that underlie social justice, how can we expect them to do so?I once was afraid that if I advocated for social justice that I might somehow undercut my credibility as a researcher. I have never found this to be the case; instead, I have found that the more I make the case for why research that speaks to social justice is needed, the more I learn from others, the stronger my own research becomes, and the better mentor I become to my students.In your opinion, what are the major social or advocacy issues that school psychologists should be addressing through their research? AM: Many inequities impact students’ educational attainment.  School psychologists have the opportunity to address systemic issues that perpetuate and/or impact academic achievement, especially for marginalized students. For example, consider serious childhood trauma. We could be advocates for developing and implementing trauma informed practices school wide to help in reducing behavioral problems and improve the mental health of students.  We could be better advocates for wellness programs and school-community partnerships. There are many RFPs related to these issues that can focus on developing evidence-based programs. We need research that asks the hard questions with respect to these inequities such as disproportionality, effective training in the area of culturally responsive practices, and how the privatization of schools negatively affects urban public schools and our work in them.SS: Major social or advocacy issues include educational disparities, diversity, equity, and inclusion.DS: This is a bit challenging to answer. I think that almost every research topic germane to school psychology COULD be framed around social justice advocacy, if the researcher chose to think about it this way. Again, research can and should be revolutionary in the sense of changing paradigms. I worry very much that people will just start using the phrase “social justice” in their work because it is seen as trendy but not really do work that speaks to the disruption of the status quo on issues of equity, access, and respect that the term entails.Everyone is passionate about different things when it comes to research and my sense always has been that people do their best work on topics that they are passionate about. That said, my opinion is that there is a major gap in school psychology research related to work that speaks directly to different forms of cultural oppression, be it racism, nativism, classism, religious oppression, sexism, heterosexism, etc. Ask the typical school psychologist if these different “isms” exist and cause harm in schools, and I believe most would say yes. But where is the deep well of research that speaks to these different topics and the intersectionalities between them? This type of research is rarely found in school psychology journals. Some of that is due to a lack of researchers in this area, but also I feel that many school psychology journals have historically been closed off to these topics. For a lot of school psychology researchers, to do this work has meant to look outside of school psychology journals to publish. So, while I do hope that more school psychology researchers pursue social justice topics—and my sense is that this is already happening—it’s not just about picking topics to address; it’s about having our field’s journals be open to high-quality research in these areas. My sense is that we have a long way to go on that front, unfortunately. I hope I am wrong about that.Sherrie Proctor [SP]: Issues related to educational inequity represent major advocacy issues I believe school psychologists should address in their research. I think it is important to address these issues from a structural and systemic perspective instead of a student-centered deficit lens. For example, discipline disparities and school push-out for Black girls and boys that begin as early preschool are issues school psychologists can research using an advocacy frame. What are the structural/systemic factors that account for such disparities? Advocacy focused research approaches these topics through a lens that leads to actionable recommendations that challenge existing structures and systems that are unfair and unjust for specific student populations. An advocacy focused lens also pushes researchers to frame discussions of their findings in ways that disrupt the "status quo."How do you link advocacy and research in your own work?SP: I begin by thinking about educational and social inequities and injustices that impact Black people, particularly Black students throughout the educational pipeline. I then immerse myself in the relevant research, identifying gaps in knowledge. My research questions are a direct result of the gaps I find, but I generally contextualize my work within school psychology. I'm highly focused on developing research questions that relate directly to our field because I feel that there is great opportunity to advocate for Black students within school psychology, given my knowledge of the field from both a practitioner and academic perspective. In many ways, my work is designed to help school psychologists gain insight into issues impacting Black students throughout the educational pipeline in order to encourage their advocacy for Black students. In my work, I stay away from the use of a deficit lens; instead I focus on systemic and structural changes that can lead to educational and social justice for Black students.SS: I engage in action research or community based research (CBR), which includes participatory action research (PAR).AM: My advocacy in research has mostly centered around social justice. Thus, I have examined how we can engage in socially just practice in a myriad of ways from training to implementing university-school partnerships.What types of challenges have you or your colleagues encountered in integrating research and advocacy? What suggestions might you have for addressing these challenges? SP: My main challenge as a younger researcher was fear that integrating research and advocacy would prevent me from getting published in school psychology journals. During my pre-tenure years, the prospect of my work getting rejected from in-field journals was really scary because much of my work is designed to influence our field. As I became a more experienced researcher and writer, this fear lessened a bit. For less experienced researchers, I recommend partnering with more experienced researchers who engage research using an advocacy frame. I also recommend reading research in other fields that integrate an advocacy frame, submitting your work to journals often and taking the feedback seriously, and writing a lot!  It may also be helpful to find a trusted colleague who is successful with integrating research and advocacy to review drafts of articles prior to journal submission.  I've also found having conversations with other researchers who are at my same career stage is helpful with talking through the challenges of integrating research and advocacy.SS: Large districts seem to experience significant changes in administrative leadership at various levels (superintendents to team coordinators). It will behoove the researcher to build genuine relationships with various leaders and individuals in the community and system when (not if) this occurs. Fortunately, true CBR/action requires such relationship-building.DS: The biggest challenge I see is a lack of programmatic and institutional support, particularly for faculty from minoritized groups. If you decide that you are going to bring advocacy to your work, particularly around social justice topics that inherently involve challenging the status quo, you are almost certainly going to meet resistance, often very fierce and personal resistance. Even as someone with privilege, I have experienced this regularly. It’s the unfortunate reality of many academic spaces that you are going to get a lot of pushback if you advocate for social justice. Academia tends to reward those who don’t make waves and those who follow whomever has the most power in their college at that moment. So, finding the right place to work, a place that truly values you for you and allows you the space to advocate for social justice, is incredibly important, as is finding allies to help you through the inevitable pushback you will receive when you speak up. This is not a random sample, but over the years I have heard from so many graduate students and faculty from across the country who tell me that their school psychology programs are hostile to social justice research and advocacy. This needs to change.Some have argued that integrating research and advocacy may bias scientific investigations by skewing findings in support of specific ideologies or positions. How would you respond to this claim? SS: First, part of the answer relates to how "advocacy" is defined. Some would not define it the way that I did above. Second, it is common knowledge, especially in 2020, that all human endeavors are ripe with "specific ideologies or positions" to use your terms. Said in another way, even the most "rigorous" of scientific studies are based on human beliefs (e.g., epistemology), values, etc. that have influenced even the type of research question asked. For those who do not understand this, well then, they are biased.AM: We are assuming that this already doesn’t or hasn’t happened.  We have many examples of this having occurred in “supposedly” scientific investigations in the past. If we are engaging in research for the purpose of advocating for better programs, strategies, and system-wide solutions that will improve outcomes for our most vulnerable students, then we are doing the right and socially just thing. In addition, research that exposes flaws, discrimination, disproportionality, racism, and poor practices will hopefully enable us to develop solutions that meet the needs of students in a cultural context. Honestly, I think too often “research” has justified practices that negatively affect minoritized populations and thus has supported a specific ideology that has been detrimental to certain segments of the population.DS: I have never understood this argument and find it incredibly insulting. You are saying that you do not trust the author to be ethical. As a journal editor, many times I have given authors feedback that they are making claims that go beyond their data. I do not assume, however, that they are doing this on purpose or have some kind of “agenda” behind this mistake. Researchers are not perfect and, in my opinion, when they go beyond their data this should be pointed out and factored into editorial decisions. None of this, however, has anything to do with the TOPIC of the research, and I see no reason why, to the extent this occurs, skewing findings to fit someone’s preconceived ideas or otherwise going beyond the data obtained is any more common with people doing research focused on social justice than any other topic we might investigate.One of the things I have noticed is that people who have the concern reflected in this question tend to emphasize the sanctity of objective data but then provide no objective data of their own in support of their claim that the social justice oriented research was biased. Many times over my career I have submitted research focused on social justice only to receive reviews suggesting that the reviewers dismissed the work out of hand because they felt that the topic was not legitimate, without critiquing the actual quality of the research design.  Of course, these kinds of reviews reveal the reviewers’ bias, but I don’t get the sense that these reviewers get the irony that they are accusing me of being biased in words that reveal that their own biases were the guiding factors in their conclusion. I am not saying that all of my studies are perfect—they are not—or that work related to social justice should not be judged on its merits. What I am saying is that, despite the loud claims of such bias, no one has ever shown me any convincing, data-based evidence that a lack of objectivity is any more common in research focused on social justice than it is in research on any other topic. As such, I have a hard time taking this argument particularly seriously intellectually, although I recognize that the prevalence of this type of thinking presents major barriers to work reflecting social justice being published in school psychology journals, which I tend to assume is the intent.How can early career scholars build an advocacy agenda into their own scholarship? SS: Consider why you entered the field and the communities who are most in need or minoritized by the status quo. Partner with them - listen and learn from them, develop genuine relationships with them, and work together to take action.SP: I think all research is biased, and this bias starts with the selection and framing of research questions. I believe that many people truly believe that our science is objective. I am not one of those people. One reason I really love and embrace qualitative methods is that these methods force researchers to name their biases upfront as well as to monitor/challenge them throughout the research process. I think when you are more upfront with and acknowledge the biases you bring to the research process, you are more attuned to managing them. I think strong research designs, collaborating with other researchers who share a high level of integrity, and being ethical prevents skewing of findings in support of specific ideologies or positions. But, I think this is true for those doing advocacy focused research or not. I do think it is important for research that serves as advocacy to be clear in its limitations. I also think it helps for researchers who utilize an advocacy frame to be upfront in their aims and not to overreach in their interpretation of findings in order to support a position. But, again, I think the things I am speaking of are indicative of behaviors in which all researchers should engage, not just those who aim to use research as an advocacy tool.AM: I believe they have to have a commitment to engage in research with the purpose of improving educational outcomes in the real world. We cannot do research for research’s sake in the educational community.  We need to develop, implement, and share evidence-based practices that work with students in a cultural context.Do you have any additional thoughts or comments on this topic? What else should readers consider?SS: Be aware that this type of work takes longer to develop relationships and may become stalled due to transitions in leadership. This has happened to me a number of times in different contexts. It will be important to have multiple types of projects with this community and with others. It will help with the tenure-pressure. After all, we (the field of school psychology) need you all to be successful for the future of our profession!Thank you to each panelist for taking the time to respond to these questions and to share your insights with early career researchers.How do you integrate research and advocacy in your own work? Share your thoughts below!

Coping with COVID-19 As An Early Career Scholar - Part 2: What About My Research? (and an appeal to not so early career scholars)

By Kathrin E. Maki, University of Florida; Ryan Farmer, Oklahoma State University; and Amanda L. Sullivan, University of MinnesotaAs we all continue to navigate life in a pandemic, we are attempting to manage wellness, work, family, community, and other responsibilities. Some days may go more smoothly than others. Because the SSSP Early Career Forum exists to support early career scholars and many early career scholars are worried about their interrupted research, we felt it was important to discuss considerations for research during and in the aftermath of the pandemic. That said, as noted in Part 1 where we discussed scholars’ general C-19 concerns, we also recognize that many scholars are not able to focus on research due to caregiving responsibilities, unexpected professional responsibilities, heightened stress, Zoom exhaustion, and numerous other reasons. Many of us are dealing with disastrous days under protracted disaster conditions. This post is not intended to suggest that we should all be focused on our research now (to be clear, we eschew pandemic productivity pressure); for many scholars, that simply isn’t feasible or conducive to their wellness. If that is the case, we hope you’ll offer yourself compassion generally and especially in a pandemic and that your university provides accommodations to evaluation and tenure/promotion. But for those who are interested and able to engage in research now, we hope this post will support your endeavors. Taking StockAs an early career scholar, you may have received the advice to develop a three-to-five year research agenda including studies you plan to carry out, manuscripts you plan to write, and grants for which you plan to apply. Even if you do not have a highly specific plan, you have likely thought through how your research agenda will facilitate your eventual promotion and tenure or future scholarly opportunities (e.g., jobs, grants, fellowships, collaborations). Today, our research plans may feel rather tenuous because we do not know what the next several months hold. As school psychology scholars, many of us engage in applied research in schools and other settings now beset with disruptions and unknowns regarding the reopening and return for former operations. If you are like Katie, you may have experienced the abrupt end to a project that had barely gotten off the ground with data collection after an arduous process of obtaining parental consent. Or perhaps you were close to finishing data collection when schools closed. Many of us were running treatments with students either one-on-one or in groups, and those studies had to be discontinued. Even many basic scientists and large-scale data analysts (like Amanda) find themselves locked out of their university labs and centers, meaning most scholars likely find their research derailed in one way or another by stay-at-home orders. Taken together, this is frustrating for most and fearsome for many—and early career scholars in particular—when concerns about finding, securing, or keeping positions; achieving tenure and promotion; gendered divisions of labor at home and work and resultant research disparities; and sustaining long-term goals are on layered onto current challenges. Managing the Unknowns AheadThe ongoing pandemic and uncertainties about the coming year mean planning for future research projects, particularly many types of school-based data collection, is extremely challenging. But there are other research activities in which you can engage to continue to advance your research agenda during this significant, and potentially protracted, interruption. (That said, it’s also absolutely okay to take a break from scholarship during a pandemic. These are extraordinary times.) If you endeavor to maintain research activity, consider the following as you reconceptualize what your scholarship might look like in the coming months:

• What manuscripts have you file drawered or otherwise ignored that you could write or revise now? 
• Are there high quality unpublished presentations, dissertations, or theses (your own or others) that you could help move toward publication?
• Are there studies using your existing data, or viable secondary studies, that you can write up?
• What of your recently interrupted data collection is salvageable for analysis and dissemination?
• What remote data collection methods might be applicable to your research interests?
• Can you adapt an otherwise shovel-ready project for remote data collection?
• Are there secondary data sources available that are applicable to your research agenda?
• Are there ways you can leverage review methods (e.g., systematic review, meta-analysis, bibliographic review) to advance your research agenda?
• What non-empirical writing projects might you contribute to the field (e.g., conceptual models, theoretical essays, historical analyses, methods demonstrations, commentaries)?
• Can you leverage past or current collaborations to assist with less disrupted projects?
• Are there ways you might pivot your research agenda to address emergent pandemic related issues if consistent with your (general or temporary) interests and opportunities (e.g., COVID-19 rapid response grants from APA and NIH and related journal solicitations)?
• What other activities can you engage in now or in the coming months to eventually advance your research agenda?

Answers to these questions will depend on several factors such as your topical focus, typical methods,  career stage, experience, institutional resources, current and prospective collaborations, and personal circumstances. In taking time to reflect, the goal is, to the extent feasible, to identify ways you might reclaim momentum without relying on in-person access to your university or school partnerships. Rebounding from Interrupted ProjectsMany of us face decisions of whether halted projects are salvageable. One important consideration for your research will be the status of data collection and the quality of the data collected. If you were further along in data collection, consider if any data can be meaningfully used. For some, the existing but less than ideal data are sufficient for reporting. If part of your project can be salvaged, it will be important to further consider how you will contextualize your study within manuscripts. As applied researchers, we often experience disruptions that impact our research (e.g., student absences, snow days, field trips). The pandemic, although a more significant impact, can be similarly discussed in manuscripts so that reviewers and readers understand its impact on study limitations. Of course, it will be important to ensure that interpretations reflect the data collected and associated limitations. Perhaps the data won’t reflect your initial plan, but research questions may still be addressed differently. In addition, are there modified research questions that can be examined or different means of addressing similar questions?For others, preparing manuscripts might not be feasible. My (Katie) project that came to a halt one week into data collection is unfortunately lost (for this year at least) because I simply did not have enough data for meaningful findings or interpretations. But, after feeling frustrated about the lost project and publication, it is helpful to think through how and when the project can be implemented in the future. Again, while the future seems somewhat tenuous now, you may be able to start the project over in the future. At the very least, in planning for your initial data collection, you prepped all the needed materials so the planning and logistics will hopefully be easier a second time around. Another important research consideration is how to handle grant-funded research and the associated procedures. The Institute of Education Sciences and National Institute for Health have released guidance to help grantees navigate the pandemic. If your funder hasn’t released guidance yet, you may reach out to your program officer to see if they can provide guidance on how you should move forward regarding grant administration and completion, including the research itself. Staff at your university or college a grants office may also be able to provide guidance on how you should handle the disruption to your work (e.g., requesting a no-cost extension). Even if they may not readily have the answers, they may have relationships with or understanding of funding agencies to help you navigate the process of obtaining relevant information. Regardless, your grant manager’s role is typically to facilitate the acquisition, administration, and maintenance of grants for the university, and maintaining contact and communication with them may make the process much easier. Alternatives to Data CollectionWhile it is perfectly reasonable (and likely expected) to see a drop in your productivity during this time (I’m sure we’ve all had about enough of the memes about Shakespeare’s and Newton’s quarantine productivity), some of you may be looking for ways to remain active even though you may not be able to  collect data through your typical means or otherwise engage in your typical research activities. This may be the time to turn to an existing dataset, an unfinished manuscript, archival data, secondary data (you can find some helpful sources here and here), systematic reviews, meta-analyses, or non-empirical pieces. The important thing to keep in mind is even if your research agenda has been stalled, there are many other ways to engage in meaningful scholarly contributions. If keeping busy is your goal but you’re struggling to engage in research, perhaps skill building to support your research in the future is a viable option.  At times, I (Ryan) have felt taxed by the constant news and the physical distancing, and that’s made it so that I struggled to write or think clearly. I spent several hours the first week of physical distancing completing modules on scientific writing  and peer review. A quick search of Coursera or other sites reveals a variety of options (I highly recommend the courses by Daniel Lakens on statistical inference and questions). Another alternative is to dedicate time (or more time) to reading journal articles and other professional resources.Another option, particularly if you just aren’t up to engaging in research from home, is to work on other tasks in the next few months that would take away from your research time in the fall when you might be able to restart projects. For example, you might conduct more prep for course work for the fall or ramp up graduate student mentorship, helping students deal, or support for vulnerable colleagues (particularly if you are less junior), to name a few.Communicating with Your UniversityLooking toward the future, pre-tenure faculty are no doubt wondering how all of this will affect their annual or tenure reviews, promotion (e.g., publication expectations or teaching evaluations), and so forth. While some universities are pausing tenure clocks or offering faculty the option to extend their tenure clocks , some may not have issued a statement or policy. Jody Greene, associate vice provost for teaching and learning at the University of California at Santa Cruz wrote in the Chronicle that we should “be prepared to tell the story of the semester” including explaining this semester’s teaching strategies, and potentially addressing negative teaching evaluations, but her advice rings true for the range of academic activities we engage in. It may be worth documenting now how you are navigating the pandemic with regard to disrupted research, supporting your students, transitioning your classes to online, and preparing future research and teaching plans. It’s also wise to maintain open and honest communication with your program colleagues, unit administrators, and mentors. Now may be a good time to reach out to them and seek their advice on how to move forward. Hopefully, your senior colleagues and mentors are compassionate, accommodating advocates or provide you with information regarding how to advocate for yourself. Let’s remember, though, that everyone is dealing with their own complexities now; kindness and patience toward these folks should be our default.A Note for Student ScholarsThis is a challenging time for everyone, but graduate scholars are likely to feel these are especially precarious times, particularly those who’ve seen their thesis or dissertations projects upended. If you’re early enough in the process, hopefully a slight to moderate course correction via modified research questions or methods will allow you to salvage as much of your work to date. If you’re less far along, we hope you can use the recommendations above for secondary analysis or review methods (this is a great book to get started) to craft a pandemic-friendly research project. (And we hope advisors appreciate the severity and implications of this pandemic and help student scholars adjust course without major delays or unwanted extensions of time to degree because of preferences against more accessible methods such as systematic review or secondary analysis)

I am advising all doctoral students to come up with 3 different dissertation plans right now.

Tier 1: "normal" lifeTier 2: significantly restricted/delayed data gathering. Tier 1, but later, or fewer peopleTier 3: a dissertation you can write using ONLY remote resources.— wikipedia brown, socially distant OG (@eveewing) April 16, 2020

An Appeal to No-So-Early Career ScholarsAs mentioned in Part 1, this bears repeating: 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 if/when we return to business as usual, so our grace must extend beyond the crisis. What we are seeing now isn’t simply several week’s disruption of study implementation but a global pandemic and multigenerational traumatic event that will reverberate for months and years to come. As such, even if university and school operations resume fully in the fall (unlikely given the many scenarios most universities are considering), the effects will not be as simple as a pause in research projects or the extra writing time some might frame it as or wish it to be. The setbacks to early career scholars’ research programs may be especially protracted because they don’t have the robust pipeline, collaborative network, or general experience to fall back on.Although some scholars are experiencing increased writing time, many more are not and will not for some time given increased and unevenly distributed caregiving, teaching, administration, and service needs and obligations that are disproportionately restricting women’s research productivity, not to mention disproportionate effects of this pandemic of minoritized communities that will inevitably detrimentally affect scholars who are Black, Indigeneous, people of color, or immigrants. We must apply an intersectional approach to understanding this pandemic and be reflective and compassionate as we evaluate scholars’ accomplishments and contributions in the months and years to come.

Equity in Academia "For the next few years, there should be a letter added to every tenure application," ....consider how the “fallout [from C19] has very different effects across gender and race.” Evaluators should consider each applicant’s individual set of circumstances."

— Bryn Harris (@bryncolorado) April 25, 2020

ConclusionIf you’re tired of hearing about how Shakespeare wrote King Lear or how Isaac Newton discovered gravity during quarantine, remember that back then, Netflix was still only doing DVD delivery. In all seriousness, we are in the middle of a pandemic where caring for our family, our friends, and ourselves should be our top priorities. However, if research serves as a helpful outlet or you want to remain productive in light of continued expectations from your university, focusing on available tasks, adapting questions or methods, skill building, and planning for the future may be ways you can continue to be research active while caring for yourself and others.

Update: @BLCKSMTHdesign made this tweet into awesome art https://t.co/M56c4PfXt2 pic.twitter.com/LmyQz1bJN1

— Jenny Jaffe (@jennyjaffe) April 26, 2020

What other suggestions do you have for early career scholars seeking to revive or re-envision their research agendas? What questions or comments do you have for the ECF?

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.

Resolutions to Improve Your Statistics Fitness This New Year

By Ethan Van Norman, Lehigh UniversityMany topics on this blog are dedicated to helping early career faculty identify, develop, and sustain a productive program of research. As with most things in academia, navigating this process seems to become easier with time as we learn strategies and habits to remain productive and free up our time. However, there is one arguable advantage that researchers just out of graduate school hold over more experienced faculty. Recent graduates are likely to have received the most up-to date training in cutting-edge statistical analyses. The more seasoned veteran may have not have run a given statistical test for well over half a decade or are using an expired SPSS license while the newest hire is explaining how R works to the rest of their colleagues. Fortunately, there are ways to ensure that your statistics muscles do not completely atrophy. The purpose of this post is to describe potential strategies, and associated considerations, to keep up to date with your quantitative training.Paid Seminars and Classes Demands from associate editors and reviewers for sophisticated quantitative analyses seems like an ever rising tide. Given that many researchers lack training in analytic approaches only recently made accessible via commercially available software for personal computers (e.g., Bayesian analysis, multilevel modeling, item response theory, etc.), many companies have stepped in to offer paid trainings on these analyses in a condensed class format. Often, you may required to pay upwards of multiple hundreds to thousands of dollars to enroll in a class to learn a given set of analyses. Course formats can be face-to-face, online, or hybrid. One such provider charges $1,295 to participate in a three day face-to-face training. Depending on your geographic location, there may be other options that are less expensive. For instance, there are training options that last two days face-to-face and start around $900. Sometimes you can receive a discount (sometimes upwards of $300) if you attend the training online rather than face-to-face. Another option is to check university websites as summer approaches, as many institutions offer statistical training over a 1-2-week period during breaks. Briefer trainings are frequently available in conjunction with annual meetings and conventions.In terms of paid online courses, many of the providers listed above will offer access to previously taped trainings or offer live-streaming synchronous options if you are unable to attend in person. A google search provides other online-only options for training.Things to ConsiderFirst, it is advisable to consider costs other than registration fees to attend such training, such as airfare, hotel, meals, and if applicable missed time from work when making your decision. Further, if the analyses you want to learn require specialized software, find out whether the software will be provided at the training or if you are expected to have purchased and downloaded the software prior to arriving. Some software packages cost more than the laptops you’re reading this post on. Using start-up funds to cover these costs may be a wise investment if the software is not something your unit, college, or university provides. Also, be sure to verify the level of familiarity with the software needed to participate in the training.It goes without saying that paid seminars and classes are expensive! Therefore, it is in your best interest to make sure that the training is worth your money and time. The best advice is to talk to colleagues about their impressions of trainings they have completed (please comment below!). In addition, it may be worthwhile to search reviews or message board posts about attendees’ experiences. Be sure to seek out information from websites unaffiliated with the company as a common marketing tactic is to selectively post positive testimonials from customers. Relatedly, make sure that the training you are considering is appropriately geared towards social scientists or educational researchers. Statistics training is a rather nebulous term and any topic can be approached with different levels of breadth and depth. While it may be nice to understand the matrix algebra behind a new-to-you analysis or to delineate each assumption associated with a given probability density function, this information may not be crucial to your needs. Ensure that you will be equipped to carry out the research you wish to pursue after completing the training.For any training that you pay to attend, make sure that course materials will be made available to you after the training has ended. In the midst of the all-day training you may feel extremely confident that you’re absorbing all of this new information without a problem. Once you come back to reality and are pulled in 100 different directions, it may be difficult—if not impossible—to retain all that new knowledge. Being able to revisit lecture notes, activities, and videos from that seminar will be invaluable to ensure you retain everything you have learned.Auditing/Sitting in ClassesAnother option may be to sit-in on a class being taught by a colleague at your university. This may be beneficial in that the content of the course is not condensed into a few rapid-fire daylong classes. As one can imagine, this option is dependent on you having a positive relationship with the instructor of the course. In addition, there may be other institutional considerations within the department or university at play. Generally, you can be clear this up by having a discussion with the instructor of the course.Things to ConsiderIt goes without saying that one of the biggest perks of our jobs as instructors is academic freedom. To that end, it is imperative that if you are to sit in on someone’s class you (a) ask them beforehand, (b) not take up space or resources that would otherwise be used for students paying tuition, and (c) not act in an evaluative manner regarding the instructors teaching. A little bit of perspective taking can go a long way. Ask yourself how you would feel if a colleague sat in on your course for an entire semester and act accordingly. If you are a more senior faculty member, recognize the power differential that may be at play if you make the request to a newer colleague. While they may have the option to decline, they may feel uncomfortable doing so to someone that holds a vote as to whether they will keep their job in the next few years.Another consideration relates to the method of delivery. Be sure that you have the time to dedicate to the course throughout the entire semester (to both make the scheduled class time and work needed outside of class). The optics of treating a class that your colleague has invested substantial time and energy into as a drop-in service can be a very bad look. In addition, if you truly want to get the most out of the course, be prepared to do any reading and assignments given to students. While it may not be possible to receive graded feedback from your efforts (again, think about how you would feel if you had another paper to grade from a non-student), actually practicing the skills being demonstrated is critical.Self-Study A third option is to engage in self-study. There are no shortage of textbooks covering novel statistical analyses. The most straightforward method would be picking up a book and working through it. Building upon the previous point, many faculty are willing to share a reading list or syllabus regarding an analytic method if attending a class is not feasible. Having an annotated bibliography can also help in conducting a self-assessment to determine where you may have more or less conceptual and procedural knowledge about a given approach.Things to ConsiderThe feasibility of engaging in sustained self-study is almost entirely driven by your level of personal accountability. Although you may buy a book with the best of intentions, without a clearly defined schedule for completing readings—and intentionally blocking out time each week to complete those readings—it is very likely that it will end up on your shelf collecting dust. In addition to finding a book geared toward a social science or educational audience, it may be beneficial to seek out textbooks written with the intent of self-study. That is, some authors have written resources in the prologue or foreword with recommended reading order and practice exercises with answers to assist in mastering the content. However, in this case, it is critical that you actually do the exercises. Building upon the broader open-science movement in psychology and educational research, some authors will record and distribute lectures from classes that the textbooks are based on for free. Again, creating and sticking to a pre-determined schedule to watch each lecture on a specified date and time will increase the probability of following through with the endeavor.Another strategy could be to engage in a book club in which colleagues with similar interests also read and work through the book on a common schedule. Having regular conference calls or discussions can help maintain accountability.Conclusion All of the options discussed thus far have a common shortcoming: each lack an expert instructor to actively monitor your mastery of the content and provide corrective feedback. The reality is, absent actually enrolling in graduate-level statistics classes, you are unlikely to be exposed to such a highly structured environment with frequent feedback to learn a new statistical analysis at this point in your career. For the vast majority of the readers of this blog, their PhD is their terminal degree. Therefore, before undertaking any endeavor to broaden your statistical toolbox, it would be wise to critically evaluate how acquiring this new skill will help further your career. That is, you should weigh the potential return on investment of learning a new statistical strategy. Will this new set of skills help maintain or propel your research agenda? Or is the desire to learn a new strategy driven by a one-off study? If the reason is the latter, your time may be better spent seeking collaborations with colleagues that have expertise in that analytic strategy. It goes without saying that being able to read, understand, and execute the statistical analyses underlying your research is crucial. However, it is important to remember there are multiple ways to contribute to a research project. What have been your experience with the approaches discussed here? Are there other factors to consider? Feel free to discuss these points in the comments section below!

Publishing Open Access Research as Early Career Scholars

by Bryn Harris, University of Colorado Denver; Ryan Farmer, Oklahoma State University, & Sally Grapin, Montclair State UniversityThe landscape of Open Access (OA) research has changed enormously over the past decades and is gaining visibility and impact across all fields of study. Researchers in the field of school psychology can benefit from learning more about OA publication opportunities as these emergent venues grow in popularity. While there are challenges to OA publications, there are also numerous benefits. The authors of this post reached out to three OA experts help us better understand the implications for early career school psychology researchers. Our panelists include: Clarke Iakovakis, Scholarly Services Librarian at Oklahoma State University, Shea Swauger, Head of Researcher Support Services at the Auraria Library at the University of Colorado Denver, and Dory Rosenberg, English & Psychology Library Liaison for the Merrill-Cazier Library at Utah State University. We asked them to define OA research and publications, ground OA within the field of school psychology, and provide guidance for distinguishing reputable OA journals from predatory ones.What is the definition of an OA publication?Dory Rosenberg: Peter Suber, one of the foremost leaders and experts on OA, defines OA as literature that is “digital, online, free of charge, and free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.” For more info on OA, I’d suggest checking out Dr. Suber’s overview at the following link: http://legacy.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/overview.htm. Also, for a media option, PHD Comics has a great YouTube video that defines OA and reviews the history of this model.Shea Swauger: I like SPARC’s (2019) definition of OA: OA is the free, immediate, online availability of research articles combined with the rights to use these articles fully in the digital environment. I’ll add that the ‘free’ part means at minimum free to the person reading it. Some kinds of OA make the author, their institution, or grant funder pay the publisher to make an article OA. Other kinds of OA are free end-to-end.Clarke Iakovakis: OA (OA) journal publishers deliver peer-reviewed research articles online and free of charge to readers. Whereas subscription-based publishers require payment in exchange for access—typically paid and provided by libraries—OA publishers fund their operations in other ways, including charging authors article processing charges (APCs) for articles accepted for publication. Several OA publishers do not charge APCs, instead covering costs through subsidies by universities, libraries, funders, governments, non-profit organizations, and academic societies, or through other funding models.OA means anyone can read the journal; it does not mean that anyone can publish in the journal. OA journals earn prestige the same way all journals do: through the quality of their content and the expertise of their authors, editors, and reviewers. Reputation takes time to accrue, and OA is relatively new. The large, commercial, subscription-based publishers have been in the field for several decades, and are often contracted by respected academic societies to publish their journals.The proportion of research articles available OA has dramatically increased (H Piwowar et al., 2018) over the last two decades. OA publishing has emerged as a viable and sustainable means of disseminating peer-reviewed research, as indicated by the thousands of reputable and high-quality OA journals. There is, however, substantial variation in the number of established OA journals between and within disciplines, with many more in STEM fields than social sciences, humanities, and the arts. The growth of OA is a result of the advocacy and work of many thousands of researchers, funders, librarians, and citizens from across the world from the mid-1990s.OA publishers generally permit authors to retain their copyright, and publish the work under the terms of a Creative Commons license, which allows both authors and readers to share the work without fear of infringing copyright. In contrast, subscription-based publishers typically require authors to transfer copyright to them exclusively, using that legal protection to create an artificial scarcity and restrict downstream dissemination and reuse, even for authors themselves.Philosopher and OA advocate Peter Suber sums the issue up well in two separate quotes:

• “The idea of OA is to stop thinking of knowledge as a commodity to meter out to deserving customers, and to start thinking of it as a public good, especially when it is given away by its authors, funded with public money, or both.”
• “Publishers deserve to be paid for the value they add. But it doesn’t follow that they deserve to control access or that they deserve a package of exclusive rights that bars author-initiated OA”

How do researchers differentiate between reputable OA publications and those that might be predatory? And relatedly, is there a good source you can provide that delineates the types of OA?Dory Rosenberg: It’s important to be aware of what questions to keep in mind when trying to identify a predatory journal, and that predatory journals aren’t just an OA problem - a journal can be predatory whether it publishes via a traditional model or via OA. Below are a handful of questions that the Digital Initiatives Unit at USU Libraries shared with USU faculty and librarians to help develop a greater awareness of predatory journals within the USU community:

1. Analyze the scope of interest. Is it too wide-ranging? Does it include unrelated fields of study?
2. Are there spelling and grammatical errors present on the website?
3. Do they utilize unauthorized and low-quality images on their website?
4. Does the homepage language target authors and focus on (often rapid) procurement of articles?
5. Is there a lack of clarity surrounding manuscript submission and processing?
6. Does the journal advertise rapid publication?
7. Are the processing and/or publication charges low?

If you can answer yes to several of these questions, then the journal might be predatory.You might also hear OA described as either “Gold OA” or “Green OA.” In understanding the difference between the two, Gold OA is when an author publishes in an OA Journal, and Green OA is when an author archives a version of their work in an OA repository. To learn more about these differences, I’d suggest checking out the “OA journals” and “OA repositories” sections of Peter Suber’s OA overview (2015).Shea Swauger: It’s not always easy to do, and unfortunately, I don’t think there’s ever going to be one stable way to check for validity or authority because what those mean looks different for different disciplines and changes over time. I’ve written about this more here (Swauger, 2017). Using tools like the Directory of OA Journals (DOAJ) can be a good start, but it’s not always going to be perfect. In general, I support using OA journals that don’t have an article processing charge (APC) and who engage in peer review (open peer review if possible). If you have questions about a specific publication, ask a librarian! We love this stuff.Clarke Iakovakis: "Predatory publishers" are scammers; not publishers. They collect article processing charges from authors and post the article PDF to their website, without selectivity, editing, or peer review. If authors catch on, the scammers will often then charge them again to remove it. They seek money only, not to advance knowledge.There is no clear definition (Cobey, Lalu, Skidmore, Ahmadzai, & Moher, 2018) of "predatory," which makes it hard for stakeholders to establish policies on what to avoid. It's also important to differentiate (Eriksson & Helgesson, 2018) between "deceptive" publishers--who lie outright about their quality control, editors, citation metrics, and APCs—and journals that may be run by graduate students and/or scholars with good intentions but less experience and time. Typically, a deceptive predatory publication will have a vaguely-defined and/or unenforced scope, unrealistically rapid editorial and review time, lack of clear information on APCs, or an unknown or falsified editorial board. They also often are not indexed in databases relevant for their field and have an abundance of articles that don’t meet the standards of the discipline.On the one hand, deceptive publishers can undermine public trust in research and can serve to legitimize fraudulent schemes and spurious ideas. On the other hand, research indicates that citations to these publications are minimal (Frandsen, 2017) and restricted mostly to inexperienced researchers. Nevertheless, publishing in such journals can be damaging to the careers of authors; therefore, education and vigilance are called for in evaluating journals for publication. There is no substitute for conducting your own critical analysis, referring to indicators of quality or lack thereof. Below are some useful indicators to use in evaluating journal quality:

• Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing (https://oaspa.org/principles-of-transparency-and-best-practice-in-scholarly-publishing/)
• Grand Valley State University OA Journal Quality Indicators. https://www.gvsu.edu/library/sc/open-access-journal-quality-indicators-5.htm
• “What is a predatory journal? A scoping review”: https://doi.org/10.12688/f1000research.15256.2

Predatory publishers should not be cited to undermine OA publishing nor to bolster subscription-based publishing. In the words of Professor Michael Eisen (2013, October 4), “To suggest…that the problem with scientific publishing is that OA enables internet scamming is like saying that the problem with the international finance system is that it enables…wire transfer scams.” There are larger issues contributing to the phenomenon, including pressure to publish, academic gatekeeping, and the overestimation of pre-publication peer-review in itself as a sole and sufficient validation of quality.There is an enormous literature on OA. I include three excellent reviews below:

• Suber, P. (2012). OA. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. http://bit.ly/oa-book
• Tennant, J.P., Waldner, F., Jacques, D.C. et al. (2016). “The academic, economic and societal impacts of OA: An evidence-based review.” F1000Research, 5(632). https://doi.org/10.12688/f1000research.8460.3
• Piwowar, H., Priem, J., Larivière, V., et al. (2018). “The state of OA: A large-scale analysis of the prevalence and impact of OA articles.” PeerJ, 6, e4375. https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.4375

How do you recommend that researchers in school psychology learn more about OA journals in the field?Dory Rosenberg: The DOAJ is an independent database of OA journals and it can be a useful way to learn about different OA journal options. The DOAJ doesn’t have school psychology listed as a specific subject area, but it does include a variety of psychology and social sciences content. Many involved in the OA realm are often also involved in social media, and being aware of what’s happening on Twitter or other social media avenues can be a useful way to learn about OA conversations in psychology, and academic disciplines more broadly.Shea Swauger: You could check DOAJ (see above), library guides, request a consultation with a librarian, or see if your advisor or department chair knows much about them.Clarke Iakovakis: In addition to keeping up with research in your field, seek out research about publishing in your field. For instance, a superb article reviewing OA to education research, including obstacles and opportunities, was published last year in Educational Researcher entitled “Changing the Default to Support OA to Education Research” (Roehrig, Soper, Cox, & Colvin, 2018).The authors argue, “Despite the many benefits of OA and policy initiatives to encourage it, OA is still underutilized in education research: The majority of high-ranked education journals are not available via OA, and [author self-archiving] practices are neither widespread nor well understood.” Nevertheless, the role of authors and editors involves fulfilling our shared responsibilities as stewards of the academic record, asserting greater control over the rights to our work, taking an interest in how our scholarship is disseminated (and how we can broaden its impact), and pushing ourselves to question the status quo prescribed by commercial publishers. By embracing and acting on these principles, we perform a valuable service to the academy, insisting on the broadest possible readership for our work and contributing to the collective change that will eventually lead our colleagues, editors, and scholarly associations to adopt more open research practices.Another insightful article surveying OA in the field of education was published earlier this year in SAGE Open by Phillips (2019): “Readers and Authors of Educational Research: A Study of Research Output on K-12 Education Policy.” The author examined the proportion of articles in ERIC available OA, and the ideological nature of the work. She found that that “65% of the journal literature conducted by scholars was locked behind paywalls,” and 25% of the “freely available reports in ERIC are produced by organizations with a decidedly neoliberal or free-market perspective.” The article closes with a quote from an exasperated high school teacher: “If scholars are doing educational research, why would they publish it where teachers can’t even read it?”Spend some time reviewing the set of education journals indexed in the Directory of OA Journals. See also this list of OA educational psychology journals maintained by the SCImago research group.Talk to a librarian. Librarians specialize in discovering research, and can often point you to tools and resources for effectively finding publications. Some universities employ scholarly communications and/or copyright librarians who can help you review your publication contracts to ensure you are retaining your right to self-archive. They may also manage an institutional repository to help you disseminate your work.Are you aware of any differences between OA journals and traditional journals with respect to the review and publication process? If so, can you please describe them?Dory Rosenberg: Instead of thinking about OA and traditional journals as separate entities, I think it can be useful to approach both with the same questions. For example, when considering a journal for publication, questions to consider could be: is it well known for quality research, does it state clear guidelines, and is the peer review process understandable?Shea Swauger: Honestly, it’s a mixed bag for both kinds of publishing. There are some traditional and OA journals who have solid peer review processes, relatively quick turn arounds, and policies that support author rights. On the flip side, there are traditional and OA journals who engage in negligent or discriminatory peer review practices, can takes years for answers, and take away every author right possible under the law. The publishing model of a journal doesn’t indicate its quality. I support the use of embargos when there are issues of privacy that are time-sensitive. Otherwise, most publisher-mandated embargoes are just a way for them to make more money by disallowing competition.Clarke Iakovakis: In terms of the review process, OA journals generally tend to follow the same process as subscription-based journals. There have, however, been some experimentations with new models of peer review. These have included open peer review (both anonymous and credited), review for soundness only, publication of referee reports, post-publication review and commentary, and some others. Though these models are not restricted to OA, both are related to shifts towards open scholarship broadly speaking. An excellent review of these can be read in the article, “A multi-disciplinary perspective on emergent and future innovations in peer review.”An OA journal does not necessarily have a faster review process, but it does make the article openly available immediately upon publication, without embargo. Also, as OA publishers generally permit authors to retain their copyright and publish articles under the terms of Creative Commons licenses, they tend to have rather liberal self-archiving policies. This means repositories have the right to archive the article, providing another layer of preservation and access for future readers.What are the reasons you might recommend publishing in OA journals over traditional journals?Dory Rosenberg: OA journals may not have the same traditional impact (like impact factors) that many universities’ promotion and tenure committees look for, but the greater and real impact of OA publishing is that your research and work can reach wider audiences. For me, publishing OA also has an ethical value in that when we publish openly, we are reducing barriers to accessibility for those who aren’t in privileged and funded university systems or countries.Shea Swauger: Firstly, publishing in an OA journal means that more people can access your work. This is especially important for people who aren’t affiliated with an academic institution to get access through their library or who’s library can’t afford access to a closed journal. There are millions of people around the world trying to do research but who have limited access to the scholarship in their area. OA means they can read your work, which can help them do theirs, which means more people contribute to research and that’s good for everyone.Having more people access your work can also be helpful to you if you’re trying to show that your research is impactful. When you control for other factors, OA and Open Data practices tend to increase the number of citations an article gets, which makes sense as more people can read it.Lastly, most research is funded by the public through taxes and tuition, which means that we shouldn’t have to pay for it twice in order to read it. The publishing pipeline is scandalous when you lay it out. Research is mostly publicly funded, is conducted and written by the people in higher education, is reviewed and edited by other people in higher education, is then submitted to publishing companies that essentially just host websites, and then sell our own work back to us with a 36% profit margin (Buranyi, 2017). That’s a higher rate of return than Apple, Google, or Amazon. OA is an alternative system that is more equitable and fiscally sustainable.Clarke Iakovakis: In short, greater access to research is likely to lead to better-informed research, which is likely to lead to better research in general. The primary direct beneficiaries are students and faculty at other colleges and universities that cannot afford subscriptions to a large set of journals. This includes, but is not restricted to, small universities or those in the Global South. Given that serials prices keep increasing (Bosch, Albee, & Henderson, 2018)—substantially—while library budgets are often flat or decreasing, even the largest research universities have gaps in their collections.Authors may also benefit. The magnitude varies by discipline, but a substantial number of studies (Lewis, 2018) have found some association between OA publishing and increased citation counts—but this is still an emerging field of research (Daniel, Nicolás, & Henk, 2018). Nevertheless, OA articles are undoubtedly more visible, and easier for those who are interested in your research to read. Authors also benefit from retaining their rights and controlling reuse, including the right to distribute the work to colleagues and students, translate it to other languages, use it in conference presentations, and self-archive it.There is really no restriction on who can benefit from greater access to research. Practicing school psychologists, teachers, schoolchildren, social workers, journalists, Wikipedia contributors, politicians, voters, and more. Essentially, “public access to scientific research makes all our lives better: it makes us healthier, better governed and better educated; it lets us live in a cleaner environment, a more civilized society and a healthier economy.” (whoneedsaccess.org).Some funders, both public and private, recognize the value of OA and require publications to be made available. The Institute of Education Sciences (2016) Policy Regarding Public Access to Research is worth quoting at length (see also the Grantee & Contractor Requirements FAQ):The Institute of Education Sciences (IES) is committed to improving the public’s access to the direct results of Federally funded research. By facilitating access to findings presented in peer-reviewed scholarly publications as well as the scientific data used to generate the findings, IES supports the scientific process and maximizes the impact of its investments…Through successful implementation of this policy, IES intends to increase researchers’ opportunities for collaboration and scientific discovery, thereby increasing the volume of research that addresses the largest challenges in education.Grantees and contractors must submit the electronic version of their final manuscripts to ERIC upon acceptance for publication in a peer-reviewed journal or as a final deliverable by the Department. The author's final manuscript is defined as the final version accepted for publication (or delivery) and includes all modifications from the peer (or program office) review process. ERIC makes citation of submitted studies available shortly after submission. ERIC makes the final manuscript available 12 months after the publication of the article, unless the publisher allows for earlier display. Grantees and contractors should ensure that publishing agreements stemming from IES-funded research, including copyright assignments with publishers or other third parties, are consistent with the requirements of this policy.What is the impact of hybrid journals (i.e. traditional journals that permit authors to pay article processing charges to make their individual article OA) on university libraries?Dory Rosenberg: Hybrid journals are a great stepping stone in contributing toward OA. However, since libraries pay subscription fees for hybrid journals, they are still part of the same publication loop where researchers and libraries are in a tug of war with publishers over rising subscription costs. I think it’s important that researchers pay attention to what’s happening in the news around publisher negotiations and events (for example, the University of California’s recent break with Elsevier), so that researchers can be savvy in addressing change and demand in their professional associations and in their own research practices.Shea Swauger: Not much. I mean, they’re theoretically good for users who don’t have to pay for access, but the publishers don’t reduce their prices for us to buy them. I’m not a fan of hybrid OA journals. They feel inherently disingenuous to me. Like, if they really cared about access, they’d just go full OA. I get the sense that they want to seem progressive and flexible for the OA enthusiasts but they still want to make a profit and this model seems to work for that end. In the meantime, researchers end up paying very expensive APCs, often thousands of dollars, out of small budgets intended for getting their research off the ground.Clarke Iakovakis: Hybrid OA allows for subscription-based publishers to charge both subscription fees as well as APCs, in a model that has been characterized as “double dipping”—though select publishers will offset an institution’s subscription fees according to the APCs expenditures of that institution’s authors. Some academic libraries have developed “OA funds” to pay APCs on behalf of authors, though many of these libraries will not fund hybrid APCs. Similarly, some research funders will pay APCs for articles resulting from their funding to be published OA, on the condition that they are published in fully OA journals, not hybrid. OA advocates seeking a future wherein all research articles are made available generally see hybrid OA as entrenching subscription-based publishing. Additionally, as described below in question 7, the hybrid APC cost is significantly higher than APCs for fully OA journals.There is an alternative for scholars who want to publish their article in a subscription-based journal while still providing OA to it. The majority of publishers allow authors to provide OA to the accepted version of their manuscript (i.e. the version following peer review but prior to typesetting into the final version)(B. C. Björk, Laakso, Welling, & Paetau, 2014). They may upload it to their personal website, or to an institutional repository. This is sometimes referred to as “self-archiving.” I would encourage everyone reading this to review your publication contract to see if this is permitted and, if so, to exercise your right to share your research. You can also check the SHERPA/RoMEO database of publisher access policies.What types of fees can researchers expect when they publish in open-access journals? What advice do you have to researchers who want to pursue OA but don’t have funding to do so?Dory Rosenberg: Researchers might need to pay an Article Processing Charge (APCs) when publishing in OA journals, and depending on the journal they can be anywhere from a couple hundred dollars to several thousand dollars, or more. APCs are used to cover the publishing costs of the article, which can include work like editorial costs, and other administrative tasks. One thing to note though is that APCs (for traditionally published journals) have been around in many of the sciences for decades, so the APC model is not new. Also, while many OA publications use the APC model, almost two-thirds of the journals in the Directory of OA Journals do not charge APCs.While finding funding for APCs can be daunting, there are useful strategies to consider. First, make sure to keep OA costs in mind when applying for grants and when thinking about developing your project’s data management plan. Also, check to see if your university or library offers an OA fund and consider negotiating before you sign your contracts. For example, you could negotiate for Green OA; alternatively, some journals will consider waiving or reducing fees for student authors or authors in developing countries.Shea Swauger: I’ve seen APCs ranging from $500 to $6,000, but I can’t distinguish a pattern yet by discipline. Other people might have, but I haven’t looked. I’d recommend submitting to an OA journal that doesn’t charge an APC if possible. If you can’t find one you like, there are often closed journals that allow you to submit a copy of your article to a repository (like the Auraria Institutional Repository) which is fully OA. You can use a tool called Sherpa/Romeo to check and see if your publisher allows this, also that information is usually buried in the author submission pages of the publisher website. Often at universities there are research officers (e.g., University of Colorado Denver’s Research Office) that can provide grants to cover the APC, so definitely check there before you pay.Clarke Iakovakis: According to work published by B. Björk and Solomon (2014), average APCs are as follows:

• Full OA journal–published by “non-subscription” publishers: 1,418 USD
• Full OA journal –published by “subscription” publishers: 2,097 USD
• Hybrid journal–published by “subscription” publishers: 2,727 USD

The Open APC initiative provides some raw data on fees paid for OA by universities and funders, and this APC Briefing Paper (Guy & Holl, 2016) provides a good introduction to the concept and practice. Solomon and Björk (2012) found that authors paid APCs themselves only 12% of the time, with funders paying the cost 59% of the time and universities 24%. A majority of publishers (Lawson, 2015) offer fee waivers for authors who cannot obtain funding via funders or their institutions.If you do opt to publish in a subscription journal, exercise your right to self-archive the accepted version of your manuscript, either on your own website, an institutional repository, or in the ERIC database (see above question 6, and ERIC’s FAQ on author submissions).If you could predict the future of OA journals, what do you think it would look like?Dory Rosenberg: I think negotiation and mediation skills are crucial to the future of OA. Scholarly communication, and the creation of research in general, revolves around the interactions of many stakeholders, and OA advocates are well-skilled in balancing the needs of these different stakeholders in designing policies and collaborations. However, as evident in recent breaks between library systems and publishers, negotiation can only get us so far.One thing we can do to contribute to a culture of OA is to think about how our daily work practices can have greater impact. As a small example, instead of only using traditional journal articles as class readings, you could also assign high-quality OA publications.Shea Swauger: I’m an optimist, so I hope that researchers, colleges, universities, and libraries will unite to advocate for open scholarship, including OA, to become the default practice. This will include building infrastructure to support OA publishing, review, dissemination, and preservation. I want see a community-owned, community run, not-for-profit publishing ecosystem that values openness, equity, and transparency in research.Clarke Iakovakis: In widely publicized news, earlier this year the University of California (UC) system chose not to renew its contract with Elsevier. UC sought to pay for both access to Elsevier articles, and for all articles published by UC corresponding authors in Elsevier journals to be published OA, but an agreement could not be reached. This bears some similarity to an agreement successfully concluded between Wiley and all German universities, called Projekt DEAL. It is yet to be seen whether such “publish and read” agreements will become more widespread.The Plan S initiative in Europe is a movement to require publications resulting from research funded by public grants be published in OA journals or made available in OA repositories. While some funders in the United States have moved in that direction—most notably the National Institutes of Health—many have yet to implement and follow through on compliance.It is also important to point out the widespread piracy of scholarly research (Himmelstein et al., 2018). Publisher paywalls do not represent the barriers they once did. As stated in the article just linked, piracy “is not the answer, but it is a wake-up call...There is one clear avenue available for those publishers, librarians and researchers who wish to make the results of scholarship as widely available as possible but without resorting to breaking copyright law, and that is OA.”The current scholarly publishing system has changed dramatically since the Second World War (Buranyi, 2017) and it will continue evolving. OA is a part of a larger movement towards greater access to research and teaching resources, enabled by digital distribution mechanisms, led by grassroots advocacy, and supported by institutions to varying degrees. This includes open educational resources (OER), open peer review, open data, open software, and open & reproducible research. Tools such as the Unpaywall browser extension demonstrate the clear value of seamless OA and show that it is increasing and showing no signs of slowing down.As researchers, funders, and universities see the value of providing access to a range of scholarly contributions beyond the peer reviewed article, the behaviors, extrinsic/intrinsic incentives, and reward structures should theoretically shift in turn. There are multiple intervening variables, including overdependence on citation metrics as proxies for quality, overreliance on university rankings, and overemphasis on quantity of publications. Given that academics do the work of researching, reviewing, and editing the work without earning royalties for publishing, it makes logical sense to provide the work at no charge; but there are clearly a number of other factors at play here. The Society for the Study of School Psychology is providing its readers a service in asking this series of excellent questions, and I appreciate you providing me the venue for answering them.ConclusionIn school psychology, we are often concerned with research that impacts the lives of students; however, practicing school psychologists struggle to access research pertinent to their day-to-day activities (Kratochwill, 2007). OA publishing and the use of repositories for accepted versions of manuscripts may provide one avenue for addressing this barrier. Additionally, research conducted thus far demonstrates that articles published in OA outlets or on author’s repositories are cited just as much or more than traditionally published articles (Lewis, 2018; H. Piwowar et al., 2018). However, navigating OA may be challenging due to APCs (B. Björk & Solomon, 2014; Guy & Holl, 2016; Lawson, 2015; Solomon & Björk, 2012) and (potentially unfounded) concerns about predatory journals (Berger & Cirasella, 2015a; Eriksson & Helgesson, 2018; Frandsen, 2017; Houghton & Houghton, 2018). Additionally, navigating the various levels of open access (B. C. Björk et al., 2014; Daniel et al., 2018; SPARC, 2019; Suber, 2015) may be daunting at first, but given the potential benefits and calls from education researchers and organizations (Roehrig et al., 2018; Sciences, 2016), moving toward OA practices, including self-archiving, may greatly reduce barriers for researchers and practitioners in school psychology.To our readers: Have you published in OA journals? What were your experiences? What other questions do you have about OA publications?ReferencesBerger, M., & Cirasella, J. (2015a). Beyond Beall’s List: Better understanding predatory publishers. College & research libraries news, 76(3), 132-135.Berger, M., & Cirasella, J. (2015b). Beyond Beall’s List: Better understanding predatory publishers. 76(3), 4. doi:10.5860/crln.76.3.9277Björk, B., & Solomon, D. (2014). Developing an effective market for open access article processing charges. Retrieved from London, UK: https://www.fwf.ac.at/fileadmin/files/Dokumente/Downloads/Dev_Effective_Market_OA_Article_Processing_Charges.pdfBjörk, B. C., Laakso, M., Welling, P., & Paetau, P. (2014). Anatomy of green open access. Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology, 65(2), 237-250.Bosch, S., Albee, B., & Henderson, K. (2018). Death by 1,000 cuts | Periodicals price survey 2018. Library Journal. Retrieved from https://www.libraryjournal.com/?detailStory=death-1000-cuts-periodicals-price-survey-2018Buranyi, S. (2017). Is the staggeringly profitable business of scientific publishing bad for science? The Guardian. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/jun/27/profitable-business-scientific-publishing-bad-for-scienceCobey, K. D., Lalu, M. M., Skidmore, B., Ahmadzai, N., Grudniewicz, A.,, & Moher, D. (2018). What is a predatory journal? A scoping review [version 2; peer review: 3 approved]. . F1000Research, 7:1001. doi:https://doi.org/10.12688/f1000research.15256.2Daniel, T.-S., Nicolás, R.-G., & Henk, M. (2018). Disentangling gold open-access.Eisen, M. (2013, October 4). Open access is not the problem – my take on Science’s peer review “sting”.  Retrieved from https://blogs.berkeley.edu/2013/10/04/open-access-is-not-the-problem/Eriksson, S., & Helgesson, G. (2018). Time to stop talking about ‘predatory journals’. Learned Publishing, 31(2), 181-183. doi:10.1002/leap.1135Frandsen, T. F. (2017). Are predatory journals undermining the credibility of science? A bibliometric analysis of citers. Scientometrics, 113. doi:https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-017-2520-xGuy, M., & Holl, A. (2016). Briefing Paper: Article Processing Charges. Retrieved from http://pasteur4oa.eu/sites/pasteur4oa/files/resource/PASTEUR4OA_Briefing%20Paper_APCs_FINAL.pdfHimmelstein, D. S., Romero, A. R., Levernier, J. G., Munro, T. A., McLaughlin, S. R., Tzovaras, B. G., & Greene, C. S. (2018). Sci-Hub provides access to nearly all scholarly literature. eLife, 7, e32822.Houghton, F., & Houghton, S. (2018). "Blacklists" and "whitelists": a salutary warning concerning the prevalence of racist language in discussions of predatory publishing. Journal of the Medical Library Association : JMLA, 106(4), 527-530. doi:10.5195/jmla.2018.490Kratochwill, T. R. (2007). Preparing psychologists for evidence-based school practice: Lessons learned and challenges ahead. American psychologist, 62(8), 829-843. doi:10.1037/0003-066X.62.8.829Lawson, S. (2015). Fee Waivers for Open Access Journals. Publications, 3(3), 155-167. Retrieved from https://www.mdpi.com/2304-6775/3/3/155Lewis, C. L. (2018). The open access citation advantage: Does it exist and what does it mean for libraries? Information Technology and Libraries, 37(3). doi:10.6017/ital.v37i3.10604Phillips, M. (2019). Readers and Authors of Educational Research: A Study of Research Output on K-12 Education Policy. SAGE Open, 9(2). doi:10.1177/2158244019853901Piwowar, H., Priem, J., Larivière, V., Alperin, J. P., Matthias, L., B, N., . . . S, H. (2018). The state of OA: a large-scale analysis of the prevalence and impact of Open Access articles. PeerJ, 6:e4375. doi:https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.4375Piwowar, H., Priem, J., Larivière, V., Alperin, J. P., Matthias, L., Norlander, B., . . . Haustein, S. (2018). The state of OA: a large-scale analysis of the prevalence and impact of Open Access articles. PeerJ, 6, e4375-e4375. doi:10.7717/peerj.4375Roehrig, A. D., Soper, D., Cox, B. E., & Colvin, G. P. (2018). Changing the default to support open access in education research. Educational researcher, 47(7), 465-473. doi:10.3102/0013189x18782974Sciences, I. f. E. (2016). IES policy regarding public access to research. Retrieved from https://ies.ed.gov/funding/researchaccess.aspSolomon, D. J., & Björk, B. C. (2012). Publication fees in open access publishing: Sources of funding and factors influencing choice of journal. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 63(1), 98-107.SPARC. (2019). Open access. Retrieved from https://sparcopen.org/open-access/Suber, P. (2015). Open access overview. Retrieved from http://bit.ly/oa-overviewSwauger, S. (2017). Open access, power, and privilege: A response to “What I learned from predatory publishing”. 2017, 78(11). doi:10.5860/crln.78.11.603The@accessworkinggroup. (n.d). We have a problem. Retrieved from https://whoneedsaccess.org/

Making the Most of Student Research Teams

By Lindsay Fallon, University of Massachusetts BostonContributors: Drs. Bridget Dever (Lehigh University), Bridget Hier (University of Buffalo), Shane Jimerson (University of California – Santa Barbara), and Faith Miller (University of Minnesota – Twin Cities)Early career faculty may enter into an academic position excited to have student support to assist with research activities. Yet, as the semester begins, questions may surface -- including what projects to tackle, how to divide tasks, and what level of supervision is needed. As a result, early career faculty may wonder how to make the most of their research team experience. I asked four faculty members who have found success in this area to share their tips. Overall, their message was simple: a productive, efficient student research team is often the result of organization, effort, and time.Specifically, our experts suggested that early career faculty might

• Build students’ research skills strategically. Teach concrete tasks initially (e.g., how to conduct a literature search) and strive to mentor students to engage in more complex processes (e.g., conceptualizing a research study) when ready and appropriate.
• Invest time in organizing and planning research team systems (e.g., regular meeting time, structure, agenda, shared cloud space) to maximize productivity.
• Have clear team/lab goals that can be tracked with data.
• Be explicit about expectations and lead by example.
• Train students to engage in vertical mentorship across cohorts as it can be mutually beneficial. Consider opportunities for leadership on the team, too.
• Find interested student collaborators by spreading the word about your work. If you are without funded research assistants, seek student volunteers by visiting classes and talking with students about your projects.
• Celebrate successes and show appreciation! Enjoy and acknowledge the team’s collaborative efforts.

Below are the panel’s complete thoughts. (Also, a pro tip from Dr. Dever is to start at the end of this post and work your way backwards. She reminds us that building a research team is indeed a deliberate, comprehensive process!)

1. How would you describe your research team or lab? How many students are involved, how frequently do you meet, and what is your focus?

BD: My research team is large and vibrant, including nine doctoral students and two undergraduate students. This semester we have a new and substantial data collection project, so we have been meeting weekly for an hour as a team.  During [our weekly] meetings, we focus on issues related to [the] new project for the most part, but I also try to leave 10-15 minutes at the end for students to raise questions or concerns “for the good of the group.”  I feel that this has been helpful for group advising, as students will typically bring up questions that are useful to discuss as a group in order to get other students’ perspectives.BH: My research team currently consists of three Ph.D. students, eight master’s students, and 14 undergraduate research assistants (RAs). We meet weekly so that I can review what was completed the prior week, discuss what needs to be completed in the upcoming week, provide direct training on new tasks when needed, provide feedback and reminders, and answer questions.SJ: I would describe my / our research team as a group of vibrant, passionate, curious problem solvers who are committed to applied scholarship that advances science and informs practice to promote the social, cognitive, and academic development of all children (with a particular focus on students from disadvantaged backgrounds). Team members include graduate students, undergraduate students, and often includes visiting scholars and collaborations with other colleagues.Our research team motto is -- Show Me the Data. Some of our guiding principles include Data over Dogma, Reality over Rhetoric, and What's next? We meet at least once a week (have met almost every Friday for the past 22 years, and I had met for research team meeting every Friday in graduate school for the preceding 5 years), and typically have subgroups of the team who also meet separately each week.In addition, I meet individually with research team members each week, typically more meetings with the graduate students. The focus of each of our meetings addresses contemporary topics related to each of the projects. For instance, depending upon the particular project, we may discuss theoretical foundations, relevant research, literature review, methods, institutional review procedures, data collection procedures, measures, collaboration with administrators/teachers, key questions, hypotheses, data collection, data management, analyses, interpretation of findings, preparation of posters and paper presentations, and preparation of manuscripts. Often our weekly meetings will include several of these topics across multiple projects.FM: My lab, the School Mental Health AIMS (Assessment and Intervention in Multi-tiered Systems of Support) Lab, focuses on advancing evidence-based practices in early identification and intervention for social-emotional and behavioral difficulties in schools. My group typically consists of four to nine graduate students, and we have a standing meeting throughout the academic year that occurs bi-weekly for two hours. The purpose of my lab is twofold: 1) to support students’ independent research and 2) to provide scaffolded opportunities for students to gain research experience with my projects. To this end, my team engages in all stages of the research production process – from conceptualization to dissemination.

2. Tell us a little about the type of research students conduct and/or coordinate.

BD: This answer depends on the students’ experiences and also the source of the students’ funding. Students coordinate projects [from which funding is derived] and supervise data collection and entry efforts, which are largely already in place from work done in previous years.In terms of independent research projects for students, this very much depends on student experience/years in the program. Keep in mind that for graduate students, most of Year 1 is spent learning the basics – yes of research, but also of [my] research team, mentoring style, the program, the University, and in many cases a new area. By the end of Year 1, my hope is that doctoral students have started to develop their own independent research question(s) using one of my datasets, so that we can work together to draft a NASP proposal early that summer. This looks similar for Ed.S. students who are involved with my research as well. In Year 2, students flesh their ideas out further, and if all goes well, they present their research project at NASP. For doctoral students, the goal is to have a compete manuscript written late in Year 2 or early in Year 3, as an independent research paper is one of the requirements of our program. That manuscript then gets revised in Year 3, and I work with my students to aim for publication in Year 4. That is typically simultaneous with thinking about their own dissertations, for which the students really “take the wheel.”  All of these are rough estimates of course, but I think having a roadmap in mind helps to keep both you and the student on track.Usually once students have their first NASP experience, they also work on smaller projects along the way to get more conference opportunities, and often these are collaborative efforts on posters and papers that are led by myself or another student. The goal is to scaffold research experiences so that each student is developing the skills that match with his/her own level of expertise with data management, analysis, technical writing, and research goals during any given year. For doctoral students, the expectation is that by the time they begin their dissertation they will have the skillset to work on their research fairly independently, with guidance and feedback from me as needed along the way.BH: The students’ research responsibilities vary as a function of training and experience.  Generally, the graduate students are trained to implement the intervention protocols in the schools, and the undergraduate students are trained to conduct fidelity assessments.  Everyone is trained to score our dependent measures, and a subset of the research team is trained to enter the data.SJ: Students participate in all aspects of the research initiatives. Each of these are field-based, applied, developmental science initiatives focused on promoting the social, cognitive, behavioral, and academic development of children. Granted, their participation and contributions vary by their level of development and previous experiences. For some, specific content is way beyond their zone of proximal development, however, I believe that being involved in the discussions and then subsequent tutorials / collaboration with more advanced students provides the necessary scaffolding to facilitate their development of the skills.When discussing topics with team members, I expect that those with knowledge and understanding of the specifics will be highly engaged during the group discussions and that they will also spend additional time with other team members outside of the team meeting to help further develop relevant skills and knowledge. Each member of the team brings specific skills, knowledge and experiences. Each of the graduate students typically have many more research related skills compared to the undergraduate students, however, this is not always the case for specific skills. The emphasis of our research team is to embrace the strengths that each team member brings to the table, and engage all in activities that will further develop their knowledge and skills.FM: Within my lab, we use diverse research methodologies ranging from single-case design intervention studies, to meta-analyses, to large N assessment studies. Consequently, students are exposed to a variety of different research methods and approaches, as well as the strengths and difficulties associated with them. I think this exposure is really important from the time students start attending graduate school. When it comes time for them to conduct their first original independent research project (their thesis), they will have a better understanding of the kinds of research questions that can be answered using different methods. This exposure is also beneficial in helping to train well-rounded scholars who can advance the science and practice of school psychology. In addition to exposure to diverse research methodologies, I aim to tailor student research experiences based on their current developmental level and training. Given the scaffolded and vertical mentoring structure of my research team, experiences are appropriately matched to the student’s developmental level. For example, first year graduate students often complete relatively concrete activities, such as conducting literature searches, creating annotated bibliographies, reviewing psychometric properties of assessments, and building tables and figures, while advanced students complete more complex and abstract activities.

3. How is mentorship built in to your research team structure?

BD: Mentorship is the thing that holds the team together, and keeps us moving forward both individually and as a system. I work to provide students with opportunities to not only assist with tasks such as data collection and entry, but also to include them in conference presentations and as coauthors on manuscripts. I take a mentorship role in my students’ independent research, which includes encouraging them to take on their own projects or pieces of projects, setting clear and meaningful deadlines, and holding myself accountable to students for timely feedback. Of course, it is also important to provide opportunities for face-to-face mentorship as well. Some students meet with me individually as often as twice a month, depending on their own needs and projects. I also rely on my more experienced students to provide mentorship as appropriate to newer students on the team.In addition, as needed, I provide opportunities for students to practice presenting to the group before conferences or proposal meetings so that they can get feedback on their research and presentation skills from me and their peers in a non-evaluative setting. Finally, I try to meet with my research team off-campus once a semester both as a celebration and as an opportunity for cross-cohort advising and mentorship. Sometimes I think we all get so wrapped up in our work during the semester, so it’s nice to take some time socially away from the classroom setting to get to know each other and connect as human beings. The cross-cohort connections are especially critical. Students earlier in their trajectories benefit from hearing about how others made it through their classes, milestones, etc. (and relatively unscathed, we hope!) in order to demystify the process of grad school. I also host a similar social event for my research team at NASP -- it’s a huge accomplishment for students to present their work to a national audience, and I think it’s important to celebrate that success as a team.BH: Graduate students, and even undergraduate RAs, who perform strongly in terms of their accuracy and reliability with research tasks are selected for leadership roles within the team. Those individuals gain experience training the other RAs, monitoring accuracy of the research tasks, and holding feedback meetings.Students also gain mentoring experience with conference presentations.  The doctoral students are expected to present our research at NASP as well as local conferences.  Through that experience, they mentor master’s students in how to conceptualize a research question, conduct analyses, and prepare for a presentation.Aside from mentorship around research tasks, we also provide undergraduate RAs with mentorship around applying to graduate school.  Each year, I conduct a seminar during one of our research team meetings on considerations for graduate school, how to apply, and what to expect.  The graduate students edit the undergraduate students’ CVs and personal statements, and they conduct mock interviews to help the RAs prepare.SJ: Mentoring on my / our research team is characterized by being both sensitive and responsive to the individual strengths and needs of each of the students. Mentorship is the core of all our collaborative activities. Those with more experience, skills, and knowledge with particular activities/topics are expected to provide leadership. This includes active participation during team meetings, arranging for additional sessions with others who are ready to engage in further learning to build their knowledge of particular skills and knowledge. As a faculty member, I intend to mentor each of the graduate and undergraduate students in both personal and professional development. It is also expected that the graduate students will mentor each other as related to specific tasks, skills, and knowledge throughout graduate school. In addition, graduate students are expected to mentor undergraduate students collaborating with us on various projects. Also, experienced undergraduate research assistants are expected to mentor incoming undergraduate research assistants. Mentoring and support is emphasized throughout all team activities. I provide specific direction and support for graduate students and undergraduate students regarding mentoring other students, and I am also sensitive and responsive to their mentoring challenges and needs to help support them in this process.FM: In addition to the mentorship that I provide to students directly, I have found that a vertical team structure is helpful. Within this structure, more advanced students in the program serve as mentors to students who are newer to the program. I have found this vertical peer mentoring structure beneficial in numerous ways: in enhancing the capacity of our team, in building a sense of camaraderie as opposed to competitiveness, in reducing anxiety surrounding conducting independent research, and in learning vicariously from others’ experience. Vertical mentoring occurs in a few different ways in my lab, including: (a) in advanced students sharing their progress, successes, and challenges with the group, (b) in novice students asking process-oriented questions to advanced students, (c) in viewing my role as facilitator to these interactions and in building these connections through our group discussions, and (d) encouraging students to support each other in their work, including peer-review of written products and assisting with data collection efforts. Essentially, the giving and receiving of mentorship has become a group norm in my lab.

4. How do you maximize efficiency and productivity with your team?

BD: Full disclosure – I think we are all constantly trying to improve our efficiency and productivity, and I’m not sure that ever goes away. I’m excited to see what others say about this, because I feel like there’s still a lot for me to learn as well. That being said, here are some strategies that have helped me to feel somewhat more efficient and productive as a mentor. First, meet only when you need to meet. Just as faculty members get frustrated with service commitments that just check a box, our students’ time is valuable and should be respected. Sometimes this means canceling a team meeting or just meeting with a small subset of team members. Second, when you do meet, take the time to draft an agenda or list of goals for the meeting in advance. Having even an informal agenda in mind helps make efficient and productive use of everyone’s time in each meeting. Third, have mechanisms in place for students to transfer knowledge to one another; once you have an advanced student or two on the team, allow them to take more responsibility for training and mentoring the others. Finally, envision each students’ independent research projects as publications, and keep that vision in mind every step of the way. Treating those posters, presentations, qualifying projects, etc. as future publications from the beginning will help everyone’s productivity, as well as structure your mentoring of students through the entire process from research idea to seeing their work in print. From day one, I ask my students to consider what they want to be “the expert in” when they graduate. Of course that may change along the way, but I think helping students to see that their posters, papers, projects, presentations, and other research activities should tell a story about them as a researcher empowers students to see how these experiences are linked and map onto a larger goal (rather than being isolated events/experiences).BH: I typically prefer to have roughly six undergraduate RAs on my team at a time to maximize efficiency, as more RAs equals more training, more supervision, and more double-checking of accuracy. However, I currently have more than double that amount due to the nature of a large, labor-intensive longitudinal RCT I am completing. To be able to manage that amount of people, I created three sub-teams, which each have specific tasks and are each managed by two graduate students. The Scoring Team is responsible for scoring our research participants’ weekly CBM-writing progress monitoring data. Once that is complete, they give the data to the Data Entry team for initial entry and double-checking. The Dissemination Team is then responsible for graphing the student participants’ progress monitoring data so I can share those data with our school partners for instructional decision-making (which is cleared by the IRB in advance). The graduate students who lead each of those teams are responsible for training their teams, monitoring task accuracy, conducting feedback meetings with the RAs, and holding weekly meetings to review upcoming tasks. I meet weekly with the graduate students to supervise their supervision of the RAs.SJ: Excellence is expected -- anything worth doing is worth doing well. There are 86,400 seconds each day, therefore, we establish clear timelines and objectives and communicate frequently. It is expected that tasks will be completed on-time, and when needed, additional support and scaffolding is provided to actualize each objective in a timely manner. The weekly meetings and mid-week meetings between individuals is helpful to establish clear timelines and being certain that activities are completed in advance of the upcoming team meeting.FM: Building a structure to support these efforts is really important. So, for example, we always start lab meetings with student updates on independent research projects, which includes discussion of progress, successes and challenges, and an opportunity for group problem-solving. Next, we move to lab projects currently in progress, with a point-person assigned to each project who is responsible for updating the team and developing action items regarding next steps to move the project forward. Organization is also key to facilitate efficiency and productivity: we have a Google Team Drive for our lab with all materials readily accessible, we keep detailed meeting minutes, and review action items at the end of every lab meeting.

5. What is important for early career faculty to consider when starting their research team or lab?

BD: As an Early Career faculty member, you may only have one or two students and you will be the sole mentor on the team. I think a trap a lot of us fall into (myself included) is doing a short-term cost-benefit analysis and deciding that rather than delegate to students, “it’ll be quicker to just do it myself.” This is particularly true when beginning a research team, as you are likely trying to develop your own research agenda and may feel like you don’t have the time to invest in training a student from the ground up. In the short-term, you may be right – in fact, you may be able to crank out the output you need much more quickly than it would take to both train the student and then have the student do the task independently. However, I strongly recommend shifting your perspective to the long game, as you’re likely going to be at this whole research thing for a while. In the long-term, it will be much more efficient and productive to sit with your students and involve them in every step of the research process early on. Not only will they appreciate the experiences and learn so much from you, later on down the road they will be able to share their expertise with other students, lightening your load as a mentor. As you are getting started, it would be ideal if you could choose an incoming student or two to work with you based on matched research interests – but that doesn’t always work out. If your program does provide a graduate assistant, often Early Career faculty think that requesting a more advanced student would be best in order to get someone on board who has already developed some research skills. Again, I’m going to encourage you to play the long game, and to see your new graduate assistant as someone who ideally would be with you for four or five years. So if you’re given the opportunity, request a student who is at the beginning of his/her training, and really spend the time training that student and encouraging him/her to get excited about research. This will require an investment of your time now, but in two or three years you will be in a great position to delegate and expand your research team.I know that not all early career faculty members are in the position of having a funded graduate assistant. Don’t let that derail you from starting your research team! In my first year, the majority of my research team included graduate students who were volunteering their time to work on my project. As you’re starting out, talk to current students about your research.  Make shameless plugs about volunteer opportunities in your classes or larger program meetings that include students. Invite students to come talk with you about your work and how they might be able to connect and contribute to it. Keep in mind that while you are somewhat of an “unknown” among students when you are starting out, they are excited about a new faculty member joining the program. Making yourself approachable and giving students opportunities to work with you will go a long way in developing your reputation as a collaborator, which will encourage more students to want to work with you in the future.BH: I find that the assistance of undergraduate RAs is imperative for getting my research completed. Oftentimes psychology majors are looking for research experience, and you may be able to send an email blast through the Psychology Department at your institution to recruit RAs. Most universities allow you to offer course credits for their work. I often try to recruit sophomores because once they are trained, they typically remain on the research team for three years and then are set up to enter graduate school with a fantastic skill set.SJ: Be thoughtful and intentional about your infrastructure and expectations. Meet with your team members at least once a week as a group. Establish smaller group or individual meetings with team members each week, as there are some activities that are more efficient to address in a smaller group / individual context. Expect and scaffold more advanced research team members in mentoring and supervising activities of other team members. Be sensitive and response to individual strengths and needs. Maintain and encourage frequent communications among team members. Clearly delineate weekly / monthly objectives and monitor progress on each of these activities. Celebrate successes (e.g., data collected, highlighting findings, conference proposals accepted / presented, manuscripts submitted / accepted, defenses, orals passed). Start small and build from a strong foundation. Ultimately you are responsible for the well-being of every team member, therefore, do not expect that more team members will necessarily be better. Add undergraduate research assistants who are highly motivated, skilled, and can be responsive to supervision from the graduate students (and transition team members who are not contributing to the team dynamic and productivity). Develop a series of questions that you will ask of any undergraduate students who are interested in applying to work with your research team. If you teach an undergraduate course, you can highlight the opportunities for students to apply to become a team member. Including questions about their future education / career aspirations is very important, as those students seeking to attend graduate school and careers related to the research are often the most highly motivated and highly engaged in all team activities.FM: I think that research labs are really critical in socializing students to the research production process. That is, they provide a “behind the scenes” look at just how difficult it can be to conduct high-quality original research. To me, that modeling of best practices, instilling of passion for conducting research, normalization of challenges and difficulties, and work-shopping of ideas is time very well-spent. For me personally, as a first-generation college graduate, I realized how important it is to demystify the process and make conducting rigorous research approachable to everyone, regardless of prior opportunities that students may or may not have had access to.

6. Do you have any other advice about making the most of student research teams that may benefit early career faculty?

BD: Mentorship is not easy, but it’s incredibly rewarding.  Please know that it is worth the effort to scaffold meaningful research experiences that meet each student where he/she is. Always remember that as a mentor, you are given the opportunity to shape your future colleague, your future coauthor, or your future ambassador in the field.BH: It is crucial to provide student research teams with adequate support to be successful. For undergraduate RAs, one of the most common strategies I use is to review behavioral expectations early and frequently. Even when I am initially interviewing undergraduate RA candidates, I review the basic behaviors that I expect of my team members should they be selected for the position. I then explicitly teach those behavioral expectations to all RAs who newly join the team, and I ask them to sign a behavioral contract agreeing to those expectations. With both my undergraduate and graduate team members, I find that simply providing pre-corrections is a small but powerful tool to prompt successful completion of the research tasks.SJ: Be the change and lead by example. Providing a positive experience is important to further engage and motivate research team members. Through your collaborative activities and leadership, aim to prepare team members to be the best possible faculty colleagues and graduate students that you can imagine.  The team’s success is dependent upon your leadership. Embrace the skills, competencies, and knowledge of each team members, and aim to maximize the participation and contributions of each. Be prepared to take care of any and all tasks that any research assistant is not fulfilling. In some instances, still requiring the team member to complete the task and providing scaffolding, but, getting things completed so that all moves forward. Be an inspiration to team members, highlighting the contributions that emerge from the research to help benefit children, families, schools and expressing gratitude for individual and collective efforts.FM: The time and effort spent in setting up your lab up front is well worth it! Take the time at the beginning of each year to map out a general plan for the year, keeping in mind that it will be a bit of a moving target as the year progresses. By having several projects going and at different stages of development, adjustments can be made to prioritize tasks as needed and keep the work moving forward.--My thanks to the contributors of this post. I’ll conclude with a few comments. In a 2013 Gallup report on workplace productivity, the main message was to build structure that can stretch, and to remember four “needs” as a leader. That is, individuals need (a) to know what’s expected, (b) the right materials and tools, (c) the skills to achieve, and (d) recognition for accomplishments. Build on successes and, as Dr. Dever advised, play the long game!To make the most of your research team, take advantage of other resources the ECF has made available, including blog posts such as a 2014 entry titled, “Developing a Research Agenda” as well as conference materials, such as handouts from a NASP 2019 presentation titled, “Hitting the Ground Running: Maximizing Your Early Years in Academia”.Have you had experience leading or participating in a research team? If so, what facilitated or hindered the success of that team? 

Methods matter: The promise of empirical research to inform practice (NASP 2019 Handout)

Access the handout here.Session: Pendergast, L. L., Hier, B. O., Klingbeil, D. A., & Ysseldyke, J. (2019, Feb.). Methods matter: The promise of empirical research to inform practice. E. R. Van Norman (Chair). Symposium presented at the National Association of School Psychologists Annual Convention, Atlanta, GASummary: The purpose of this symposium was to gain insight from early career scholars and a senior scholar regarding: (a) how to acquire the necessary skills to perform empirical research, (b) strategies to establish a productive line of research using various methodologies, (c) pitfalls to avoid when preparing manuscripts that use a given methodology, and (d) the outlook for research conducted using each of the methodologies discussed. The focus of the symposium this year included latent variable modeling techniques (led by Laura Pendergast from Temple University), randomized control trials (led by Bridget Hier from the University at Buffalo), and single-case experimental designs (led by Dave Klingbeil from the University of Texas-Austin). Given the positive response from this session, the ECF plans to submit another symposium that focuses on three different methodologies for NASP 2020. Please feel free to contact erv418@lehigh.edu to recommend specific methodologies you would like to see discussed.

"Revise and resubmit"...Now what?

Perspectives on Preparing Your Revised Manuscript from Associate Editors in School PsychologyBy Laura Pendergast, Temple UniversityContributors: Stacy-Ann January, University of South Carolina; Lyndsay Jenkins, Florida State University; Renee Hawkins, University of CincinnatiImagine that you are new author and you are ready to publish. You’ve worked hard to conduct your research and prepare your manuscript. You’ve carefully selected a journal. You’ve followed all of the instructions for publishing in said journal, navigated the online submission portal, and submitted your paper. You’ve waited patiently (or not so patiently) for weeks. Then, all of a sudden, an email from the journal with a subject line that reads “Manuscript Decision” pops into your inbox. You cannot wait any longer! You read the email discreetly (or not so discreetly) while holding your phone under the table during a faculty meeting. With a sigh of relief, you see that your manuscript was not rejected outright. However, it wasn’t accepted either….You received a “Revise and Resubmit.” Now what? If you are an early career scholar, and you recently received a “Revise and Resubmit,” you are in luck! Three Associate Editors from top school psychology journals have teamed up to provide advice for early career scholars on revising and resubmitting their work. Dr. Stacy-Ann January is an Assistant Professor at the University of South Carolina and an Associate Editor at School Psychology Review. Dr. Lyndsay Jenkins is an Assistant Professor at Florida State University and an Associate Editor at the Journal of School Psychology. Dr. Renee Hawkins is a Professor at the University of Cincinnati and an Associate Editor at the Journal of School Psychology. An overview of the steps for revising and resubmitting your work, along with key pieces of advice from each Associate Editor, is provided below.Step 1: Celebrate a little! But recognize that your journey isn’t finished yet. SAJ: First, celebrate a little! I remember feeling a little disappointed when I received my first Revise and Resubmit (R&R). But my mentor reminded me that this decision is typically what one can hope for, as manuscripts are rarely accepted on the first submission. An R&R means that the journal may be interested in publishing your manuscript, but that there are a number of changes you to need make before it is in a potentially publishable form.RH: A ‘Revise and Resubmit’ decision suggests that the reviewers and action editor see the potential for your manuscript to make a contribution to the literature, which alone can be reinforcing as it can reaffirm the significance of your research agenda. It is also important to keep in mind that how you respond to the feedback provided on your submission plays a critical role in determining whether or not your manuscript is ultimately accepted. There is no guarantee that a “Revise and Resubmit” will automatically lead to acceptance but if you are thoughtful with your approach to integrating the editorial feedback, you can greatly increase your chances for a positive outcome.Step 2: Read the reviews. Manage your emotional response to critical comments. Be ready to write your response to reviewers using a respectful, appreciative tone and to use the feedback to improve your work.RH: Don’t take the feedback personally. The reviewers aren’t out to get you. They are trying to advance our field by helping improve the quality of manuscripts published in our journals. Avoid being defensive in your responses to reviewer feedback.LJ: Feedback about your work from other researchers is an opportunity to make changes that can improve the quality of your paper.  Though it is tempting to get defensive or upset about the feedback provided, it is important to keep in mind that overall a R&R is good news!!RH: The tone of your response should be respectful. Remember the reviewers have provided a valuable professional service by taking their time to review your manuscript and provide their suggestions for improvements. Your response should reflect that you value their time and ideas, even if you do not agree with everything they have to say.Step 3: Revise the manuscript, and write the point-by-point response letter. In most instances, you should make the changes suggested by reviewers. SAJ: To the extent possible, try to make the changes suggested by the AE and reviewers. In your response letter, detail exactly what you did to address the suggested change. Reviewers may make several suggestions in one numbered comment; be sure to address each of them.RH: Take the feedback in the spirit it was intended – to improve the quality of your manuscript. In this spirit, try to incorporate as much of the feedback as you reasonably can, even if some of the suggested revisions seem unnecessary to you. If a revision does not substantially change the meaning of your manuscript, I would go ahead and make the changes. In my opinion, digging in your heels over feedback that does not impact the overall message and contribution of your manuscript seems to be a waste of energy that could potentially jeopardize the editorial decision on your manuscript.LJ: I would say one of the most common mistakes I see is that authors do not fully address an issue raised by the reviewers.  This mistake is particularly problematic when they say that they have addressed it. For example, an editor may note that References are not in APA style in the initial submission.  Upon resubmitting the manuscript, the authors may say in the response letter that they addressed the APA style issues in the References, but, in fact, many errors are still present. If you say you addressed something, be sure that you actually did address it.RH: It is helpful to reviewers if you describe specifically how and where in the manuscript you made revisions in response to the feedback. For example, rather than responding simply with, “We have incorporated this feedback in the manuscript,” provide a more detailed description of your revision with a statement such as, “On, p. 10, we have added the following paragraph…In many journals, the action editor will act as a filter for the comments provided by individual reviewers. The feedback highlighted by the action editor should be prioritized in your revision. Generally, these are the changes that the action editor thinks are most important for you to make in your revision. Given that the action editor will ultimately recommend to the editor whether or not to publish your work, it is critical that you attend to this feedback.SAJ: The number of revisions that are requested can be daunting. If you’re the lead author, don’t go at a revision alone! Review the suggested revisions and determine how you might engage your co-authors in revising and resubmitting the document.Step 4: Do not ignore feedback. If you choose not to make a suggested change, provide a thorough and respectful rationale explaining why you declined to make the edit. Provide empirical support if applicable. RH: One common mistake that authors make when revising and resubmitting their work is to ignore feedback with which they do not agree.SAJ: If you disagree with a change, you should have a strong rationale for not making it. Thank the reviewer for the comment, and eloquently provide the rationale (supporting your argument with science is always a good idea if you’re able to).RH: If the reviewers make a suggestion that you cannot address (i.e., you don’t have the additional information they are requesting), not only should you explain why you cannot integrate the feedback in your response but also consider raising the issue as a limitation or discussion point in your revised manuscript.LJ: Be nice: It can be easy to slip into a defensive tone when writing these response letters, particularly if you do not agree with some of the reviewer feedback.RH: Don’t use page limitations as a reason not to make a revision. This is a pretty weak excuse for not making a suggested revision. I would err on the side of making the revision as efficiently as possible and explaining to the action editor that, in your effort to be responsive to reviewer feedback, you are over the page limit.SAJ: When preparing your response letter, make it clear and easy to read.Step 5: Follow all instructions for resubmission, and proofread, proofread, proofread!  LJ: You should strive to submit an immaculate manuscript. You should spend a couple hours editing and proofreading before submitting a manuscript and ensure that you are following the journal’s formatting guidelines… Pay special attention to use of headings/subheadings, page numbers, references, and correct use of parenthetical and in-text citations.  Typos, grammar, English language issues, and the misuse of APA guidelines are distractions to the content of the paper!!! Even if you have done THE COOLEST study of all time, it will be rejected if it is poorly written.Follow all resubmission guidelines! Every journal has different guidelines for submitting a revised manuscript. Read the instructions in the editor’s letter very carefully before re-submitting.SAJ: Often when making revisions, you’re adding and deleting text. It is very easy to miss things, as you’ve been entrenched in it for so long. One of the best pieces of advice I got about writing from my mentor was to read my work out loud. I still read every manuscript I author/coauthor out loud before I submit/resubmit it, and I always catch something I previously missed. I also recommend having someone not involved with the writing of the manuscript read it as well.Other points to considerLJ: Though in general a R&R is good news, on occasion you may receive a Reject after submitting revisions. There are a number of reasons why this happens.  First, you may not have appropriately addressed reviewer feedback. Second, new reviewers may have been invited to review the new manuscript and these new reviewers may bring up issues not previously noted. Third, a statistical or methodological consultant may have reviewed the second version of the manuscript and identified problems that were not previously brought up.SAJ: Often, AEs will invite you to contact them with questions about the revision. Feel free to do so, if you have clarifying questions that the AE can address. It is better to ask for clarification regarding a suggested revision than to make an incorrect assumption.ConclusionsIn summary, a decision of “Revise and Resubmit” is something to celebrate – while recognizing that there is more work to be done. When you receive a “Revise and Resubmit,” you receive an important gift along with it: feedback. You have the opportunity to improve your work, and, often, to think about your research in a new way. I can honestly say that every manuscript that I have published is better as the result of peer review. Treat the feedback that you have received as a valuable resource. Respond to the feedback thoroughly and thoughtfully. In many cases, doing so will strengthen your skills as a researcher, improve your manuscript, will put you closer an ultimate decision of “Accept,” and, most importantly, enhance the impact that your research has on the field.Special thanks to Dr. Stacy-Ann January, Dr. Lyndsay Jenkins, and Dr. Renee Hawkins for their important contributions to this post.

Where Should I Send My Manuscript? Journal Options for Researchers in School Psychology

March 22, 2017

A common concern among early career researchers is how to identify appropriate journals for their work. Researchers in school psychology publish in a broad range of journals – from school psychology, to general and special education, educational psychology and other subfields of psychology, public health, prevention science, and other fields depending on the topic of a given manuscript. Productive scholars know it is essential to understand the nuances of potential outlets and their respective audiences when before submitting a manuscript. Even within a relatively small field like school psychology, each journal is unique, so a manuscript should be tailored to the journal to which it is submitted. The flip side is that barring fatal flaws, there is a fitting outlet for most manuscripts.How do you identify potential publishing outlets?

• Check your reference list. If you cite multiple papers from a given journal or subfield, it’s likely your paper will fit in that journal or subfield as well.
• Consider where similar scholars publish their work. If others in your area publish in particular journals, you can infer that you work might also have a home there.
• Search the Journal Citation Reports.Web of Science’s JCR allows you to search for all journals indexed by category and rankable by journal metrics. There’s no category for school psychology, but most school psychology journals are include in the category, Psychology – Educational. Other categories that may be of interest to school psychology researchers are Education & Educational Research; Education – Special; Health Policy & Services; Psychology – Applied; Psychology – Developmental; Psychology – Multidisciplinary; and Social Issues.
• Ask your colleagues, collaborators, and mentors. This can be especially helpful for early career scholars. Many publications have reputations independent of journal metrics. Colleagues in your department, field, or area of study can help you to understand the stature of specific journals or subfields of journals within school psychology or your institution. Colleagues can also be helpful in understanding the idiosyncrasies of the journal scope, expectations, and review process, which may inform your decision about whether or not to submit your work to an outlet.

How do you select the best fit for your manuscript?

• Review journal websites. Most journals have a website where the purpose, scope, author guidelines, editorial board, and other journal-specific information is provided. When preparing a manuscript submission to a journal, it’s important to ensure your manuscript is consistent with the scope and type of manuscripts accepted (e.g., original study, review, brief report, commentary) and follows the author guidelines or submission requirements (e.g., implications for specific audiences).
• Peruse recent issues and online first publications. You can gain insight into the types of work regarded favorably by an editor and editorial board by considering the topical areas and types of papers recently published. These articles can also provide clues about stylistic idiosyncrasies of the journal.
• Read the editor’s commentaries. Most editors serve discrete terms and it’s common for an incoming editor to publish a commentary on their vision for a journal at the beginning of their term. It’s a great resource when considering fit, particularly if there have not been multiple issues published under the new leadership.
• Check out the editorial boards. It’s likely that a submitted manuscript will be reviewed by one or more members of a journal’s editorial board. You can gauge the applicable expertise of board members, and often even suggest specific reviewers. The constituency of the editorial board provides indication of the expertise—and by extension, the scholarship—valued by the editorial team.
• Review journal metrics. There are a variety of metrics used to evaluate journal stature (e.g., impact per publication, source normalized impact per paper, SCImago journal rank, total cites, eigenfactor score, h-index, immediacy index, article influence score). Select journal metrics are included in the Journal Citation Reports and are often reported on journal websites. Many institutions value publications in high status journals and make inferences about the quality and impact of an article based on select metrics of a journal.  Consequently, the journals in which a scholar has published are often taken into consideration in review of researchers during hiring, promotion/tenure process, grant reviews, and selection for honors/awards. If you are in a unit or institution where journal metrics are a focus, it may be important to consider journal metrics when selecting outlets for your work.

It’s not uncommon for early career scholars to wonder what the journals in school psychology are as a starting point. Here’s a list of several peer-reviewed school psychology journals: Journal of School Psychology, School Psychology Review, School Psychology Quarterly, Psychology in the Schools, School Psychology International, Journal of Educational and Psychological Consultation, Journal of Applied School Psychology, School Psychology Forum, Contemporary School Psychology, International Journal of School and Educational Psychology, and The Trainer’s Forum. keep in mind, however, that most school psychology scholars publish in a wide array of journals, so don’t limit yourself to school psychology journals.So, there are a variety of strategies you can use to determine potential outlets for your work. We invite others to share recommendations and reflections on these tips. Have a question? Post below and we’ll provide more information.

Forming a Healthy & Productive Relationship with Your Office of Research Compliance

April 18, 2016

By Dan Gadke & Kasee Stratton, Mississippi State UniversityAs a researcher, there is a strong likelihood that you are familiar with the Institutional Review Board (IRB) and your University’s Office of Research Compliance (ORC). There is no doubt you are up to date on your institutional training requirements, whether they be from the Collaborative Institutional Training Initiative (CITI; www.citiprogram.org) or a program your university has put together. And, you are well versed in the importance of the IRB for the protection of potential participants. Each time you design a study, you make sure to follow the appropriate IRB submission protocols and wait for approval prior to beginning the project, which is exactly what you are supposed to do—at least in most cases.That being said, many folks are unaware or unfamiliar with other IRB options outside this most common submission procedure; however, there are two other options that are of particular use to school psychology faculty: (1) the use of archival data sets and (2) the development of a memorandum of research understanding with your ORC. While both of these may look slightly different at your respective institutions, we provide our experience as an example. The ORC at Mississippi State University has full accreditation by the Association for the Accreditation of Human Research Protection Programs (AAHRPP; http://www.aahrpp.org), following the most rigorous of standards for ethics, quality, and protection of human subjects.

Archival Data

From a bare bones perspective, archival data is exactly what it sounds like, existing data. These data may have originally been collected with no intention what so ever of being used for research purposes. Given our field is driven on data-based decision making and treatment questions are often analogous to research questions (e.g., which intervention is most effective for this child?), it is no surprise we might have data lying around that was not originally intended for research. We have found valuable use of archival data sets in school and clinic settings.Schools. Often we have graduate students out in the school setting for practicum and other field-based experiences conducting evidenced-based assessments and interventions. At our institution, when students are on practicum they are required to complete what we refer to as a data-based project in either academic or behavioral intervention, assessment, or consultation. Students are expected to provide services under a best practice model, which often involves measuring treatment integrity, interobserver agreement, comparing interventions to choose the most effective and efficient one (e.g., experimental analyses), and so on. In some cases, these projects, which were originally designed for training purposes related to service delivery, yield novel and unique data that are dissemination-worthy, particularly when we think about presenting (i.e., poster or paper) or publishing in the world of research-to-practice.When data are generated in the school setting during routine practicum training requirements that you decide you would like to use for dissemination, it is time to prepare an IRB application for the use of archival data. At Mississippi State University, we have an approved “data agreement form” we worked to create with our ORC for these specific instances. In short, the data agreement form is used to obtain parent or administrator consent for data collected on-site might be used for scholarly dissemination. If it is used for these purposes, the data are di-identified (i.e., stripped of any direct identifiers) and the university ORC reviews the use of the dataset prior to dissemination. When our students are working with a child in the schools, we often send the form to their parents/guardians to sign in the event that their child’s data are ever pursued for research use. Additionally, a school administrator signs the form and agrees to release a de-identified (i.e., no direct identifiers) version of the dataset to us. After supplying the ORC with the IRB write-up, the data agreement form(s), and evidence of de-identified data, we are often then able to use those data for presentations or publicationsClinic. Like many other programs, at Mississippi State University we have our School Psychology Services Clinic (SPSC), to provide our students with additional training opportunities. At the SPSC we provide supervised intervention (i.e., academic and behavioral) and assessment services. These include individual services, groups, and summer camps. Similar to what was outlined in the school setting section above, the data collected during treatment may be dissemination worthy. In these cases, we follow the same protocol mentioned before, without an administrator. Parents are asked to sign a data agreement form during the intake appointment. That being said, our MOU (described below) provides an exception for data collected from 3 or fewer participants in our clinic.Other. There are large existing data sets available through different organizations (e.g. NCES) or even your university that may be of interest to you. For example, we wanted to evaluate college satisfaction differences between college students who had a registered disability on campus to those who did not. Many university exit surveys conducted through the Office of University Effectiveness (or a similar entity) ask students these varied questions (i.e., do you have a register disability with the university and satisfaction related questions). Many of these surveys also have a question(s) indicating if their data can be used for research purposes in the future. In this situation, we had university administrators sign the data agreement form and we completed an IRB application. After receiving approval, we requested the de-identified data sets be sent to us. In a single day, we had approximately 14,000 data-points from the previous five years to analyze.Key points on use of school-based archival data:

• Great option for data collected in schools and clinic but not originally intended as a research project.
• Great option for large existing data sets.
• Make sure to have a data agreement form providing permission for data to potentially be used in the future.
• Make sure to complete an IRB application as soon as you decide to use data for dissemination purposes.
• Meet with your ORC representative to discuss how to best use archival data sets from your institution.

Memorandum of Understanding

A memorandum of understand (MOU), which may be called something entirely different by your ORC, is essentially an agreement that outlines the parameters of research activities allowed in the absence of an IRB application submission. MOUs are particularly useful for individuals conducting single-subject, clinic-based research. We modeled our MOU after Johns Hopkins Medicine IRB policy and their Behavioral Psychology Department (for their full policies, see here).Our MOU has several key features, including:

• Clear overview and break down of the services provided at our clinic (i.e., School Psychology Service Center; SPSC).
• Clear policy on research and publication of data
  • All research requires Human Research Protection Program (HRPP) approval
  • Boundaries between research and practice
• Guidelines for use and publication of clinical data
  • Defining “clinical data”
  • Defining “single case report” (i.e., clinical data collected from 3 or fewer participants)
  • Defining “case series” (i.e., clinical data from more than 3 participants)
• Reporting requirements to the HRPP

Essentially, our MOU states that as long as we follow all procedures as outlined in the MOU, when using data from 3 or fewer participants, we do not need to submit for HRPP review; however, bi-annually, we need to report all projects disseminated this way. If a project has more than three participants, than we have two options: (a) if it was a pre-planned research project, submit IRB first as you typically would; (b) if it is archival clinical data, submit an archival data IRB request. In all instances, regardless of the number of participants, data need to be consented for use using the approved data agreement form mentioned under archival data.While the MOU is particularly handy for disseminating single-subject design data involving 3 or fewer participants, it also makes all other IRB (i.e., traditional and archival) applications easier because the ORC had a clear understanding of your procedures.

MOU Use Examples

Single Case Report – 3 or fewer participants not requiring HRPP review. You have 3 children come to your clinic, all needing reading interventions. You have parents/guardians complete the data agreement form prior to beginning treatment.  You conduct a brief experimental analysis comparing the effectiveness and efficiency of a non-electronic intervention to an iPad app. You find the non-electronic intervention is more useful than the iPad app. You deliver the non-electronic intervention across several weeks, alternating its use with a control to ensure long-term effectiveness. In the end, you realize you have interesting data that are unlike anything currently in the literature. As long as all procedures were followed as outlined in the MOU, you have consent to use the data, and you report this project in the bi-annual report to the ORC, you can disseminate the data without HRPP review.Case Series – more than three participants. You do the same intervention outlined in the single case report above, but it turns out you have 5 clients the intervention worked for. You decide after finishing the intervention that the data are worthy of dissemination, you must submit for IRB review of archival data.Thus, with some advanced planning, researchers can put into place procedures that allow for efficient segueing class, fieldwork, and clinic activities into research publications and presentations (see a list of the scholarship that has resulted from these efforts). This is particularly valuable where practices are implemented systematically as part of training and lend themselves to analysis of effectiveness. This also presents an ongoing opportunity to integrate teaching and research activities and model a scientist-practitioner orientation to professional development and teaching for our students. We hope that you find this information useful when working with your ORC and IRB.  If you are interested in seeing an example of our MOU, please email us and we would be happy to share.