Universal school-wide social-emotional screeners identify at-risk students with social-emotional behavior problems (Romer et al., 2020). Identifying such students alone cannot prevent these social, emotional, and behavioral concerns from becoming problematic. However, data gathered from social-emotional screening can guide the development of strategies, supports, interventions, and progress monitoring students at risk across all tiers (Yates et al., 2008), leading to the prevention of social-emotional and behavioral problems from turning maladaptive (Humphrey & Wigelsworth, 2016; Walker et al., 2004). A school district in the Mountain West area of the United States developed a screening survey that addresses school climate, culture, and connectedness to administer to their student body. Their survey aims to identify students' needs in the following character social-emotional learning (SEL) skills that contribute to student well-being: self-awareness, compassion, resilience, and respect. Their screening survey can potentially identify the general student body's social-emotional behavioral needs. The data gathered may be used to create tiered supports that address students' needs. In this study, we conducted two focus groups that provided a forum for school psychologists in this Mountain West school district who work in an elementary school to discuss what tiered supports may be appropriate to implement in response to needs identified by the survey. The discussion also included professional development topics the participants perceived necessary for school teams responding to the survey data. The findings from this study contribute to the existing literature by recognizing that school psychologists may understand implementation science and can help lay the needed groundwork before implementing social-emotional screeners so that the process can be more efficient and effective. The findings emphasize the understanding that from the perspective of school psychologists, social-emotional learning should be applied universally and collaboratively at school and at home. School teams need to allocate time to teach social-emotional learning at school. The findings also suggest that school psychologists can determine appropriate interventions if screening data suggest a weakness in social-emotional and behavioral areas and that data collected from the screener can be used to guide topics for professional development.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:BGMYU2/oai:scholarsarchive.byu.edu:etd-11270 |
| Date | 15 March 2024 |
| Creators | Andersen, Audrey Anita |
| Publisher | BYU ScholarsArchive |
| Source Sets | Brigham Young University |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | Theses and Dissertations |
| Rights | https://lib.byu.edu/about/copyright/ |
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