Publication Date

Summer 2021

Advisor(s) - Committee Chair

Tracy Inman (Director), Carl Myers, Adam Lockwood, Sarah Ochs, and Tyler Clark

Degree Program

Doctor of Psychology in Applied Psychology

Degree Type

Doctor of Psychology

Abstract

School psychologists are specialists in educational assessment, consultation, youth mental health, and social-emotional-behavioral development. As a result of their training, school psychologists are positioned to serve students with exceptionalities, including gifted students. However, research indicates that school psychologists' familiarity with gifted issues is lacking and that information regarding school psychologists' self-efficacy for working with this population is nonexistent. Therefore, the aim of the present study was to create a tool to assess school psychologists' self- efficacy for working with gifted populations. The Dodds Inventory of Gifted Self- Efficacy for School Psychologists (DIGS-SP) was developed and administered to 229 practicing school psychologists within the United States. Results of an exploratory factor analysis (EFA) suggest that the DIGS-SP may comprise a total of 29 items and four subscales: Gifted Counseling, Gifted Assessment, Gifted Knowledge, and Gifted Consultation. Internal consistency was high for all subscales (a = .86 - .95). Finally, school psychologists' gifted self-efficacy was found to have a low-to-moderate positive relationship with general self-efficacy (r = .24 - .47). Although further research is needed to confirm the factor structure and psychometric properties of the scale, the DIGS-SP may prove to be a useful tool in evaluating and further understanding school psychologists' self-efficacy for gifted practice.

Disciplines

Educational Assessment, Evaluation, and Research | Gifted Education | School Psychology

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