A Case Study of the Coding Workbook for Evidence-Based Interventions in School Psychology

Abstract

The Procedural and Coding Manual was developed by the Task Force in school psychology for the identification of psychological and educational intervention studies with empirical support (Kratochwill & Stoiber, 2002). The Coding Workbook (Shernoff & Kratochwill, 2004) was later designed to supplement the Manual with more explicit coding directions and illustrations for application of the coding criteria. The Coding Workbook has yet to be published or studied through formal research to determine its usefulness for the training of school psychologists. The present study evaluated Workbook effectiveness by conducting the training and measuring pre-and post-training differences in inter-rater correspondence and coding time. In addition, reviewers evaluated the merits and challenges of the training process in detailed observation logs. Results of the study demonstrated that enhanced coding instructions and examples are needed to increase usefulness of the Workbook for training school psychologists.