Aims & Scope
Scope
As the flagship journal of the Trainers of School Psychologists, SPTP plays a pivotal role in guiding future teaching, education, and pedagogy in the field. Our vision for SPTP is to create a leading journal in school psychology graduate training. SPTP content will focus on what we teach (Training) and how we teach it (Pedagogy). Our goals are ones of diversity and inclusivity, highlighting the many different contexts and needs of school psychology training programs.
Aims
Advance pedagogy and training through reflection and practice
Supporting graduate training in school psychology is where SPTP has the largest positive impact. To ensure that the profession is armed with the knowledge necessary to shape the field, it is paramount that we reflect on where we are as a field, understand the strengths and weaknesses in ourselves, our trainees, our training programs, and our profession, and provide applied strategies to move ourselves forward. Accordingly, SPTP welcomes position articles that debate key issues in our field, innovation articles that highlight emerging practices, and best practices articles integrating available conceptual and empirical literature.
Encompass the varied levels, settings, and topics represented in school psychology graduate training
SPTP recognizes that school psychology programs represent varied training levels (e.g., high research activity, teaching university), regions (e.g., rural, urban), and philosophical approaches (e.g., ecological, behavioral). The journal welcome topics that are broad (e.g., applies to multiple settings and context) or more focused in nature (e.g., exemplars) so that we can expand our range of applicability within our profession and resonate with our multifaceted membership.
Examine and respond to the sociocultural context in which training occurs
SPTP strives to be timely, responsive, and cognizant of the current trends in school psychology. Disparities and inequities need to be challenged and intentional efforts to promote structural competence and cultural humility in ourselves, our trainees, our training programs, and our profession need to be advanced. The journal welcomes articles that discuss how training and pedagogy are affected by societal issues, and how our profession can make positive impacts through training practices.
Article Types Accepted
SPTP invites original articles related to the scholarship of teaching and learning in school psychology. Articles that are both data driven and conceptual, but consistent with best practices in the training of school psychologists are accepted. SPTP has a 30% acceptance rate. A strong preference is given to applied manuscripts that link theory to practice.
The journal publishes six major types of articles: (1) pilot and small-scale studies; (2) theoretical articles integrating available conceptual and empirical literature; (3) empirical qualitative, quantitative, or mixed-methods analyses of promising practices; (4) systematic scoping reviews of training topics; (5) position articles that debate key training issues in our field; and (6) exemplars of evidence-based strategies for teaching of school psychology.
Coverage may include such topics as:
Student learning
Professional challenges
Supervision theory, process, and procedures
Training activities (e.g., remote learning, licensure, capstone ideas, anti-racist framework)
Curriculum design (e.g., how to teach topics, such as research methods, introductory course material, assessment, counseling)
Ethical and legal aspects of training, graduation programming, and accreditation
Training in research and scholarly activity