Volume 29, number 1 - January, 2002

World*Go*Round, Vol. 29, No. 1, January, 2002

Letter from the President

Can you answer the following questions about the practice of school psychology in your country?

What is the average age of school psychologists in your country?
Are there more female than male school psychologists?
What is the average salary of school psychologists in your country?
What percent of school psychologists belong to ethnic minorities, and is that number in equal proportion to minority representation in the population as a whole?
What degrees do typical school psychologists in your country hold? How many years of training did they receive? How many years of experience do they have in the field?
What percent of the time do school psychologists in your country spend doing assessments? Individual counseling? Group counseling? Consultation? How often do psychologists in your country do workshops or inservice training for parents, teachers, or other school professionals?

Do you think these questions matter? Why?

In the United States, we have been gathering answers to these questions and others for over 10 years now. Collecting this data at two points in time (1989-1990 and 1999-2000) has enabled the National Association of School Psychologists (NASP) to better understand the nature of the profession and the people who practice it, and to track trends over time in order to understand how the field is changing. Here are some things NASP has learned:

School psychology in the United States is becoming a field increasingly dominated by women.
The number of school psychologists over age 50 is increasing; this age group now represents more than 30 percent of practitioners.
93 percent of school psychologists in the U.S. are white - in a country that is becoming increasingly ethnically diverse.
The ratio of school psychologists to students has decreased: More than 50 percent work in settings where there are no more than 1500 students assigned to each school psychologist.
School psychologists are evaluating fewer children for special education than they did 10 years ago, but they are spending significantly more time engaged in the special education assessment process. The amount of time spent in consultation and counseling has diminished in the past 10 years.

School psychology in the United States is facing a growing shortage. Because NASP has been collecting this kind of data, we have some understanding of the nature of that shortage. We can also use this information to better understand what we do, how we might be able to do things better, and how we might begin to attract new professionals to our field.

ISPA's Research Committee, in a joint effort with the International Affairs Committee and the Research Committee of NASP, is this year embarking on a data collection process that will enable us to begin to assemble an international data base similar to what NASP has collected in the United States. At the Leadership Workshop last summer in Dinan, members of the Research Committee met with representatives from several affiliate organizations and began the process of adapting NASP's survey to fit an international sample. So far, three countries (Estonia, Greece, and the United Kingdom) have agreed to pilot this survey in their countries. We hope to add more countries as we go along. Each country will invite members of their country association to complete the survey, which will include a core set of questions common to all countries as well as a subsample of questions designed to address concerns that might be unique to each country.

What benefit will this serve? We see many potential benefits to having this data. Among them:

The survey results will give ISPA a clearer picture of the practice of school psychology throughout the world, including similarities and differences between countries.
The data can be used by individual countries both to understand the practice of the profession in their own countries as well as present alternative models of practice to help move the profession forward.
Survey results can be used to communicate with educational policy makers, legislators and the public at large, better informing them about the practice of school psychology and benefits to schools and society.
As ISPA engages in strategic planning, we can develop goals and objectives that match the needs of our members.

This project is in its early stage, but we are excited about the possibilities for using the survey results to inform the practice of school psychology internationally and to further the development of ISPA.

For more information about this survey, please contact Shane Jimerson, ISPA Research chair at jimerson@education.ucsb.edu. To learn more about NASP's survey, contact Michael Curtis at curtis@tempest.coedu.usf.edu.

Peg Dawson,
President ISPA

Note: Curtis, M.J., Grier, E.C., Abshier, D.W., & Sutton, N.T (2001). School psychology at the millennium: Demographic characteristics and professional practice. Presentation at the Annual Convention of the National Association of School Psychologists, Washington, D.C., April 2001.