Implementing Evidence-Based Practices in School Psychology: Excavation by De-Implementing the Disproved

The scientist-practitioner model of practice is the most common approach to the profession of school psychology and embraces evidence-based practices as foundations of clinical practice. The focus on evidence-based practices involves not only using the preponderance of research to determine what works, but also how to implement these practices effectively. An important impediment to implementing innovative evidence-based practices is that interventions and practices that have been proved ineffective or of low value continue to be used in education and psychology. What are the issues that assist in discontinuing practices that are widely used, but have been disproved or are otherwise problematic? How can room be made for more effective, innovative, and evidence-based practices? This issue of the Canadian Journal of School Psychology is devoted to exploration of different forms of disproved, low value, or problematic practices, factors that keep these practices alive in schools, and how to best de-implement ineffective, low value, and problematic practices. If the scientist-practitioner model is to be defined largely by the implementation of evidence-based practices, then de-implementation will be a critical aspect in the evolution of the profession of school psychology.

Implementing Evidence-Based Practices in School Psychology: Excavation by De-Implementing the Disproved

The scientist-practitioner model of practice is the most common approach to the profession of school psychology and embraces evidence-based practices as foundations of clinical practice. The focus on evidence-based practices involves not only using the preponderance of research to determine what works, but also how to implement these practices effectively. An important impediment to implementing innovative evidence-based practices is that interventions and practices that have been proved ineffective or of low value continue to be used in education and psychology. What are the issues that assist in discontinuing practices that are widely used, but have been disproved or are otherwise problematic? How can room be made for more effective, innovative, and evidence-based practices? This issue of the Canadian Journal of School Psychology is devoted to exploration of different forms of disproved, low value, or problematic practices, factors that keep these practices alive in schools, and how to best de-implement ineffective and problematic practices. If the scientist-practitioner model is to be defined largely by the implementation of evidence-based practices, then de-implementation will be a critical aspect in the evolution of the profession of school psychology.

When is the Evidence Sufficiently Supportive of Real-World Application? Evidence-Based Practices, Open Science, Clinical Readiness Level

The landscape of larger events surrounding school psychology has converged to present novel opportunities for narrowing the research-to-practice gap. There is widespread agreement on the value of a scientist-practitioner model and the use of evidence-based practices, yet there remain questions as to exactly how these core concepts are realized. A discussion on whether psychological science can be relied on to deliver real-world practices related to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic led IJzerman and colleagues to develop a rubric to evaluate research for real world application called Evidence Readiness Level. This model is adapted for school psychologists’ use in evaluating and implementing research for clinical practice. Clinical Readiness Level is a rubric that is designed to narrow the research-to-practice gap, provide criteria for evidence-based practices, and specify the value of a scientist-practitioner model of school psychology.

Burning the straw man: What exactly is psychological science?

Problemification: Efendic and Van Zyl (2019) argue for following open access-based principles in IO psychology following the recent crises in psychological research. Among others, these refer to the failure to replicate empirical studies which cast doubt on the trustworthiness of what we believe to be psychological knowledge. However, saving knowledge is not the issue at stake: focusing on transparency and compliance to standards might solve some problems but not all.Implications: The crisis focuses our attention on what science is and particularly science in psychology and its related disciplines. Both the scientist–practitioner model of training psychologists and the quantitative–qualitative methods polarity reveal the influence of the received or positivistic view of science as characterised by quantification and measurement. Postmodern resistance to positivism feeds these polarities and conceals the true nature of psychological science.Purpose: This article argues for a realist conception of science that sustains a variety of methods, from interpretative and constructionist approaches to measurement. However, in this view, measurement is not a defining characteristic of science, but a way to find things out and the latter supports a critical process.Recommendations: Revising our understanding of science, thus moving beyond the received view to a realist one, is crucial to manage misconceptions about what counts as knowledge and as appropriate measures when our discipline is in the crossfire. Thus, Efendic and Van Zyl’s (2019) proposals make sense and can be taken on board where measurement as one of the ways to find things out is appropriate. However, realism supports a broader enterprise that can be called scientific because it involves a critical movement of claim and counter-claim while executing its taxonomical and explanatory tasks. Thus, the psychosocial researcher, when analysing discourse, for example, can also be regarded as a scientist.

A New Kind of Song: Psychoanalysis as Revelation

Conceptions of psychoanalysis as science typically construe its key formulations as providing posits to be referenced in inferences to the best explanation of the clinical phenomena. Such was Freud’s own vision of the discipline he created, and it is reflected in his ambition to prove his fundamental formulations warranted. The first half of this chapter argues that this approach and this ambition significantly underestimate the significance of the psychoanalytic project. The suggestion is that it misconstrues foundational—and therefore unaccountable—forms of revelation, apprehension, poiesis, and grammar as merely factual claims, accounts, representations, and posits which, as such, now falsely appear to require scientific accounting. The second half of this chapter explores the significance of this for attempts to capture psychoanalytic theory and therapy within the ‘reflective scientist practitioner’ model of contemporary clinical psychology.