Abstract

Many schools advocate for addressing the diverse needs of students through a multi-tiered model of prevention and intervention known as the Multi-Tiered System of Supports (MTSS) framework. This framework often incorporates the use of universal screening to obtain data concerning students' academic and/or social-emotional and behavioral needs. School teams are expected to design and implement tiered strategies in response to data concerning students' social-emotional needs; this can be a challenging facet of MTSS. To aid in this endeavor, this qualitative study elicited school psychologists' recommendations for (a) tiered interventions that target secondary students' social-emotional competency needs and (b) professional learning opportunities that may be helpful in responding to the data from a district-designed social-emotional competency survey. Participants included 15 school psychologists from a school district in a northwestern state in the United States. Two focus groups were conducted using a video conferencing online platform. Focus group transcripts were used to identify emergent themes that were relevant to the purpose of the research. Four primary themes were identified as being important in designing, implementing, and meeting secondary students' social-emotional competency needs: (a) instruction, practice, and reinforcement in each social-emotional skill; (b) the building of staff-student and student-student relationships; (c) staff efforts being consistent, integrated, simple, and unified; and (d) adaptation of fundamental interventions by tier and social-emotional skill. To date, it is believed that school psychologists' ideas concerning tiered social-emotional interventions in response to data are not a part of the extant literature. The findings of this study build upon the current literature concerning the importance of collaboration, prioritization, alignment, explicit instruction, and professional learning opportunities in addressing students' social-emotional needs, suggesting that school psychologists are familiar with and apply current, verifiable research to their practice. The results of this study can aid school and district teams in designing, implementing, and meeting secondary students' social-emotional competency needs.

Degree

EdS

College and Department

David O. McKay School of Education; Counseling Psychology and Special Education

Rights

https://lib.byu.edu/about/copyright/

Date Submitted

2023-08-14

Document Type

Thesis

Handle

http://hdl.lib.byu.edu/1877/etd12923

Keywords

multi-tiered systems of support, school psychologists, social-emotional competencies, tiered interventions, professional learning opportunities

Language

english

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