Theses and Dissertations from UMD
Permanent URI for this communityhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/2
New submissions to the thesis/dissertation collections are added automatically as they are received from the Graduate School. Currently, the Graduate School deposits all theses and dissertations from a given semester after the official graduation date. This means that there may be up to a 4 month delay in the appearance of a give thesis/dissertation in DRUM
More information is available at Theses and Dissertations at University of Maryland Libraries.
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Item Core Competencies for Effective School Consultants(2012) Burkhouse, Katie Lynn Sutton; Rosenfield, Sylvia; Counseling and Personnel Services; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The purpose of this research was to develop and validate a set of core competencies of effective school-based consultants for preservice school psychology consultation training. With recent changes in service delivery models, psychologists are challenged to engage in more indirect, preventative practices (Reschly, 2008). Consultation emerges as one such recommended practice for school psychologists (Ysseldyke et al., 2006). However, despite recommendations and mandates from accrediting bodies, there is a lack of consensus to guide training in school consultation. This research involved a systematic literature review and Delphi study to determine core competencies for contemporary school consultants, specifically for school psychologists. An expert panel for the Delphi portion of the research was drawn from a consultation training interest group, a consultation research group, and editors of a consultation training journal in order to sample the leaders in the field of consultation research and training. Multiple iterations of the Delphi study, as recommended in the literature, were conducted to obtain consensus on the fundamental skills and knowledge. Four multicultural consultation competencies from previous research (Rogers & Lopez, 2002) were included to obtain current ratings, and personal characteristics from the literature were rated in terms of essentialness and "trainability." Results from two iterations of survey material indicated a list of 35 core competencies to guide training which received Essential ratings by 75% or more of participants. The four multicultural competencies were rated more highly by the current participants than by Rogers and Lopez's participants 10 years ago. In addition, several personal characteristics were identified as essential to school-based consultants; however, some of the highest rated characteristics were considered least "trainable" by the participants. Finally, implications for consultation training, limitations, and future directions were explored.Item THE MEASUREMENT OF SCHOOL CLIMATE USING SURVEYS: EXPLORING UNIT OF ANALYSIS(2009) Burkhouse, Katie Lynn Sutton; Gottfredson, Gary D; Counseling and Personnel Services; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)School climate researchers have used different units of analysis when assessing school climate features. Overall, there is little research available to understand how different levels of analysis, individual or aggregated, influence the psychometric properties of a survey instrument. The purpose of the current research was to explore the use of different unit of analysis choices in instrument development. Further, the present study sought to replicate findings that the wording of survey instruments may influence the conceptualization of school climate by survey informants. Results indicate that unit of analysis affects on the factor structure, but that there is some overlap in the factors that emerge. Further, the present research confirmed past findings that the wording of climate items appears to affect the perception of items by respondents. Limitations and future directions are discussed. Unit of analysis remains an important theoretical and methodological concept in school climate research.