Validation of the Moral Disengagement for Adolescent Dating Violence Prevention Scale With Teacher Trainees

Once in the workforce, teachers are often asked to participate in school-based adolescent dating violence prevention efforts. However, our understanding of how willing and able future teachers are to engage in dating violence prevention is limited. This may be due, in part, to the lack of available measurement tools. Understanding willingness before teachers are in the classroom is key to exploring how to help future teachers be more ready and able to engage in prevention efforts once they are in the classroom. Thus, the purpose of the current study was to develop and test a measure that assesses one aspect of teacher trainees’ willingness to engage in dating violence prevention efforts: moral disengagement. Using two independent samples of teacher trainees ( N = 400; 64.5% White, 75.0% female, 84.5% heterosexual), we explored the factor structure of the Moral Disengagement for Adolescent Dating Violence Prevention (MD-ADVP) scale. We conducted exploratory factor analysis (Sample 1, n = 222) and confirmatory factor analysis (Sample 2, n = 178), and also examined the factor structure across sub-groups and assessed internal consistency reliability and construct validity evidence. Analyses suggest the MD-ADVP is unidimensional, and that this factor structure holds across sub-groups. We found strong evidence of both reliability and construct (convergent and divergent) validity. As hypothesized, scores on the MD-ADVP demonstrated significant negative bivariate associations with scores on three measures of adolescent dating violence prevention-related beliefs, and no association with scores on a measure of weight bias. The MD-ADVP will advance research investigating teacher preparation for adolescent dating violence prevention efforts. For example, use of the MD-ADVP can illuminate whether teacher trainees’ moral disengagement is an indicator of future implementation success. Further testing of this measure in racially and gender diverse samples is needed.

Achievement Goal Theory Review: An Application to School Psychology

Achievement Goal Theory (AGT) is one of the most popular theoretical frameworks in motivation research. Despite its application to a variety of contexts, including, school, work, and sport, it has not yet been referenced in the field of school psychology. First, we review the theoretical underpinnings as told through the theory’s evolving models, explore its impacts on cognition, emotion, and behavior, and introduce a multiple goals perspective. Second, we outline the leading research supporting AGT, both in terms of structural and individual intervention studies. Third, we apply the principles of AGT to the primary tasks of school psychology professionals, including assessment, intervention, and consultation practices. The students we support can greatly benefit from gearing our approaches toward ones that foster self-improvement and interest.

Mindset Theory and School Psychology

Mindset theory is an achievement motivation theory that centers on the concept of the malleability of abilities. According to mindset theory, students tend to have either a growth mindset or a fixed mindset about their intelligence; students with a growth mindset tend to believe that intelligence is malleable, whereas students with fixed mindsets tend to believe that intelligence is unchangeable. As described in many empirical and theoretical papers, the mindset a student holds can influence important psychological and behavioral factors, including reaction to failure, persistence and level of effort, and expectations of success, which ultimately impact academic achievement. Importantly, mindsets can be changed, and interventions have been developed to promote a more growth mindset. A growth mindset allows students to view challenges as an opportunity for improvement, is linked to enjoyment of learning, and increases motivation in school. School psychologists are often working with students with learning differences and/or mental health concerns who are particularly at-risk for poor academic achievement, and researchers have demonstrated the important impact a growth mindset can have for these vulnerable students. School psychologists are well-positioned to incorporate mindset theory into the school environment in order to best support the students they serve. In this paper we provide a theoretical overview of mindset theory and mindset interventions, and specifically review the literature on mindset theory for individuals with learning disabilities and mental health challenges. We discuss how school psychologists can incorporate mindset theory into their practice to support the shift from a fixed to a growth mindset for all students.

Motivation From a Self-Regulated Learning Perspective: Application to School Psychology

Self-regulation of learning involves developing metacognitive awareness (planning, monitoring, and evaluating) of (a) cognition—motivational beliefs, (b) behaviors—persistence, effort, engagement, and (c) affect—enjoyment, interest, and other emotions. Metacognitive awareness creates opportunities to exert metacognitive control as needed, which may involve sustaining or manipulating motivational cognition, behavior, and affect. By adopting a self-regulation perspective, this paper discusses the ways motivation develops within and across academic tasks and situations, as well as the ways learners can be supported to take control of their motivation in those contexts. Applying self-regulation principles in the practice of School Psychology means to consider the role of situation, context, and learners’ socio-historical experiences while empowering learners to focus attention on things they can control.

Integrative and Theoretical Reviews of Achievement Motivation for School Psychologists: Introduction to the Special Issue

A theoretically grounded understanding of achievement motivation appears to be largely overlooked in both initial education programs and ongoing professional development of school psychologists. This is unfortunate because motivation constructs such as perceived control, value, and self-beliefs predict students’ academic performance in a way that complements the variance explained by intelligence tests. This empirical evidence is rooted in long-standing theorizing that motivation constructs hold an important role alongside cognitive constructs in understanding student learning. Moreover, because motivation constructs are viewed as malleable, they provide an untapped source of intervention for school psychologists in supporting students. For these reasons, this special issue presents five review articles that integrate discrete theories of achievement motivation to the practice of school psychology. Largely representing Canadian expertise, the articles describe the potential for the control-value theory of emotions, achievement goal theory, mindset theory, self-determination theory, and self-regulated learning in the work of school psychologists. The final commentary article explicates a whole-child framework to highlight the role motivation can hold alongside cognition and guide school psychologists to partner these constructs for the betterment of children.

Control-Value Theory of Achievement Emotions and Its Relevance to School Psychology

The control-value theory (CVT) of achievement emotions is a well-established theoretical framework which delineates the predictive relationships among distal and proximal antecedents, academic emotions, and student engagement and achievement. Although most research anchored in CVT is conducted by educational psychologists, the theory is arguably applicable to the field of school psychology. In this article, we first provide a brief overview of the theory, with a specific focus on the proximal antecedents (i.e., cognitive appraisals), as well as academic emotions and performance. Given that school psychologists are often consulted with strategies regarding students’ emotional challenges exhibited in the classroom, we then discuss empirical evidence of control- and value-based interventions (e.g., attributional retraining, utility-value), both of which can be posited to address the cognitive appraisals of achievement emotions. Lastly, we discuss the implications of CVT and control- and value-based interventions to school psychologists’ work.

Applying Self-Determination Theory to Education: Regulations Types, Psychological Needs, and Autonomy Supporting Behaviors

The self-determination theory (SDT) has been used to understand students’ motivation at school in general as well as in various school subjects. This literature review conducted on a number of SDT studies showed that (1) autonomous types of extrinsic motivation as well as intrinsic motivation leads to positive consequences for students; (2) the types of goals and the regulation behind them are also important to predict school outcomes; (3) when the psychological needs for competence, autonomy and relatedness are satisfied this leads to autonomous motivation or autonomous goals endorsement; (4) autonomy supportive practices by parents and teachers are important catalyzers of needs’ fulfillment; (5) intervention programs designed for teachers or parents focusing on these psychological needs usually lead to greater autonomous extrinsic motivation and intrinsic motivation and better adjustment outcomes. The implication of this theory for school psychologists is underscored as well as its implications for the practice of teaching.

The Cognitive-Affective-Motivation Model of Learning (CAMML): Standing on the Shoulders of Giants

The Cognitive-Affective-Motivation Model of Learning (CAMML) is a proposed framework for integrating contemporary motivation, affective (Big 5 personality) and cognitive (CHC theory) constructs in the practice of school psychologists (SPs). The central tenet of this article is that SPs need to integrate motivation alongside affective and cognitive constructs vis-à-vis an updated trilogy-of-the-mind (cognitive, conative, affective) model of intellectual functioning. CAMML builds on Richard Snow’s seminal research on academic aptitudes—which are not synonymous with cognitive abilities. Learning aptitude complexes are academic domain-specific cognitive abilities and personal investment mechanisms (motivation and self-regulation) that collectively produce a student’s readiness to learn in a specific domain. CAMML incorporates the “crossing the Rubicon” commitment pathway model of motivated self-regulated learning. It is recommended SPs take a fresh look at motivation theory, constructs, and research, embedded in the CAMML aptitude framework, by going back-to-the-future guided by the wisdom of giants from the field of cognition, intelligence, and educational psychology.

A Historical Review and Analysis of Impact Factors Across School Psychology Journals from 1977 to 2019

School psychology journals yield hundreds of articles each year. As these journals are often evaluated based on the impact factors they produce, the aim of this study was to provide a historically complete record of the five impact factor values for the generalist school psychology journals that yield them. This study identified impact factors beginning in 1977, 20 years earlier than previously reported, and ending in 2019. Across all years and journals, the average Journal Impact Factor (JIF) was about 1.0, the average Immediacy Index was less than 0.4, the average 5-year Impact Factor was about 2.3, the average original CiteScore was 1.8, and the average new CiteScore was about 3.0. Increases in values were evident across time, and the highest recorded values across journals are held by the Journal of School Psychology (for the JIF, 5-year Impact Factor, and both CiteScore metrics) and School Psychology Review (for the Immediacy Index). Most impact factors, with the exception of the Immediacy Index, were moderately to highly correlated. The new CiteScore values were always the highest, and Immediacy Index values were always the lowest. School psychology has added journals to the list of those indexed by major databases, and these journals have increased their impact over time.

Evaluating the Potential for Correspondence Between Brief Functional Analysis and Interview-Informed Synthesized Contingency Analysis Procedures

School Psychologists regularly conduct Functional Behavior Assessment (FBA), though, most FBA are completed using indirect procedures, which are inadequate for creating function-based interventions relative to experimental measures, such as functional analysis (FA). However, traditional FA may be considered arduous in the school setting. Alternative procedures like brief functional analysis (BFA) and interview informed synthesized contingency analysis (IISCA), may be as effective and more efficient than FA. Limited research exploring the correspondence of these procedures exists. The current study used an alternating treatment design across eight school aged children to compare control and test conditions for each measure. A within subjects approach was also used to compare the results of BFA and IISCA. Correspondence across the two measures was 54.17%. With average correspondence yielding just over half, the results indicate the two FA methods did not reliably identify the same function. Implications for practice are discussed.