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Our codes of ethics also encourage practitioners to engage in the lifelong learning that is necessary to achieve and maintain expertise in the field of school psychology (Welfel, 2012). School psychologists are obligated to “engage in continuing professional development” and “remain current regarding developments in research … and professional practices that benefit children, youth, families, and schools” (NASP Standard II.1.3). They are encouraged to recognize that “professional skill development beyond that of the novice practitioner requires a well-planned program of continuing professional development and professional supervision” (NASP Guiding Principle II.1; also APA Standard 2.03).
Responsibility
As noted previously, in all areas of service delivery, school psychologists strive to maximize benefit and avoid doing harm. To do so, school psychologists must “use scientific knowledge from psychology and education to help clients and others make informed choices, and accept responsibility for their work” (NASP Broad Theme II). As Lilienfeld et al. (2012, p. 8) observed, all school psychologists, “regardless of the setting in which they operate, need to develop and maintain a skill set that allows them to distinguish evidence-based from non-evidence based practices.” This means consulting scholarly sources (journal articles, reference books, APA and NASP websites) to identify empirically-supported assessment tools and interventions. In addition, in decision-making, practitioners engage in scientific thinking, and are skeptical of, but open to, new tools and techniques. They are advised to learn about and be aware of common cognitive errors such as confirmation bias (the tendency to seek out evidence consistent with our beliefs, and deny, dismiss, or distort evidence that is not), belief perseverance (tendency to cling to beliefs despite repeated contradictory evidence), hindsight bias (error of perceiving events as more predictable after they have occurred), and base rate neglect (neglecting or ignoring the prevalence of a characteristic in a population), among others (from Lilienfeld et al., 2012, p. 15).