Improving decision making in school psychology: Making a difference in the lives of students, not just a prediction about their lives

Abstract

Assessment is fundamental to school psychology, but its purpose has shifted from making predictions about children to improving outcomes for children. This commentary on the special issue focuses on screening and progress-monitoring decisions that can be used to solve student problems. We outline several psychometric and practical issues that affect decision making (e.g., screening accuracy, the relationship between pretest and posttest probabilities, and reliable measurement of slope). We also recommend that school psychologists (a) let go of assessment practices that do not result in positive outcomes for students, (b) select assessments that directly inform intervention, (c) use a more nuanced approach to monitoring student progress that could include subskill mastery measurement, (d) stop using 3-point decision rules for high-stakes decisions, and (e) evaluate student growth in the presence of high-quality intervention delivery.