The Nebraska Rural Mental Health Practitioner Survey was created to provide complimentary data to the Prairie Nebraska Project, a grant submission aiming to help address the current shortage of school mental health personnel in rural Nebraska. This survey was created by graduate student researchers at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, advised by Dr. Beth Doll, in order to assess the training and work experiences of rural school psychologists and school counselors. Survey questions asked about rural school mental health practitioners' perceptions of their graduate training, their insight on how to adapt graduate programs for candidates who will work in rural communities, and their descriptions of their work environment. The information collected highlights how new training programs will emphasize the needs and functions of rural school districts. This study is a potential model for other states and graduate training programs to evaluate the shortages of school psychologists and school counselors in rural school districts.
The ClassMaps Survey. Resilient Classrooms is a strategy that supports classroom teachers in creating a classroom learning environment that reinforces student autonomy and fully engages students in caring interactions with classmates and the teacher. The strategy uses data based problem solving in which a brief ClassMaps Survey is completed anonymously by all students in the class. Results of the survey are graphed and shared with the teacher who, in turn, shares some of the data with the students in a classroom meeting, and uses student comments to make sense of the data. These insights identify simple modifications in routines and practices that 'correct' the points of friction in the class. The students complete the ClassMaps Survey again in 6-8 weeks to determine if the modifications were successful. The current year's Resilient Classroom project is to create a virtual module to train Resilient Classrooms consultants, to evaluate this training in graduate research seminars in school psychology, and examine the impact that these newly trained consultants have on the students' experiences in those classrooms.
Playground Maps Study. Elementary students tell us that the school playground is the most likely place for peer aggression and bullying to occur. Nevertheless, most studies rely on adult observers to examine the prevalence and effects of peer conflict on playgrounds. This study compared adult observations of playground conflict with reports from the students themselves. During the weeks when adult observers were collecting systematic recess observations, the students marked maps of their playground with three green dots on the places where 'kids get along' and three red dots on the places where 'kids do not get along.' Surprisingly, results showed that these were the same places.
NU Data Project. This project developed the NU Data intervention, a professional development course for teachers on ways to collect and use classroom data to answer their questions about their students and their learning. A premise of the course is that changes in educators’ data practices are dependent on changes in their knowledge about data use, their beliefs that data-based problem solving is likely to be effective, and their skills at using data to address their own students’ educational needs. The year-long course blended virtual and in-person teaming, coaching, and guided practice to build teachers' skills in six DataBasics: (1) Knowledge of diverse data collection protocols; (2) Selecting protocols that are best suited to answer questions; (3) Collating and graphing data; (4) Discerning trends and differences in data; (5) Using data and data trends to make decisions; and (6) Planning interventions to match the data.
Shared perceptions of the classroom environment. This 2018 dissertation by Brooke Chapla examined how well teachers were able to predict how their students would rate the classroom learning environment using the ClassMaps Survey. The question is important because there would be no reason to ask students to complete the survey if teachers already knew what results would show. Chapla's results showed that teachers were not adept at estimating the results of the ClassMaps Survey completed by their students. They were more likely to rate the learning environment more negatively than their students reported.
Readability of the ClassMaps Survey. This 2018 dissertation by Erika Franta examined the readability of the ClassMaps Survey by asking 2nd through 5th grade students to read aloud and define the words of the survey. Results showed that 90% of 4th and 5th graders were able to read and understand the survey independently, but fewer 2nd and 3rd graders could independently read the survey. It would be appropriate to read the survey to the younger students, before depending on the reliability of their responses.