A descriptive analysis on the effect of the congruency between national and state guidelines for school psychology training programs

Each of the 50 states has independently developed guidelines for the minimum training required of school psychologists, providing for variation among the required curriculums. NASP has developed guidelines for training and experience at a national level as a means of establishing uniformity in training. The purpose of this study was to determine whether the congruency between national and state training guidelines has an effect on the percentage of nationally approved school psychology programs. The training guidelines of the 50 states were obtained. A listing of school psychology training programs as well as those nationally approved by state was acquired. The percentage of programs with NASP approval within each state was then calculated. The training guidelines of the states with the highest percentage of NASP approved schools were compared against the guidelines of the states with the lowest approval rate. The findings indicated that those states whose requirements for school psychology training programs are more congruent with the national requirements tend to have a higher percentage of school psychology training programs with NASP approval