Assessment Practices of School Psychologists

The present study examined the factors related to school psychologists' use of projective tests and what trade-offs practitioners were willing to make between psychometric properties, convenience, and clinical judgment in their choices of hypothetical social-emotional tests. Further, the study explored the variables of professional identity, cognitive dissonance, extraversion, and self-efficacy as they related to practitioners' reported use of projective tests and to their preferences between hypothetical choices. Participants included 116 presenters at the 2010 Annual Convention of the National Association of School Psychologists. Data were collected with an online questionnaire that included measures of cognitive dissonance (Elliott & Devine, 1994; Matz, Hofstedt, & Wood, 2008), extraversion (John & Srivistava, 1999; Matz et al., 2008), and self-efficacy (Chen, Gully, & Eden, 2001; Huber, 2006). Correlational analyses indicated that the explanatory variables sometimes related to practitioners' use of projective tests. Conjoint analysis, using logistic regressions, indicated that when faced with hypothetical test choices, respondents generally showed a preference for the test with the best psychometric properties, most convenience, and least required clinical judgment. In general, most respondents indicated a preference for hypothetical tests that have robust psychometric properties, but they also reported using actual projective tests in practice. The constructs of professional identity, cognitive dissonance, self-efficacy, and extraversion, and the relationships among those variables and between those and the usage of projective tests provided some explanation for this phenomenon.