Evaluation in Consultation-Based Educational Psychology

Consultation has continued to gain popularity as an approach to educational psychology casework in the UK over the last three decades (Leadbetter, 2006; Nolan & Moreland, 2014). However, evidencing the impact of indirect educational psychology involvement, particularly in relation to outcomes for children, continues to be a complex issue and there are no evaluation approaches or tools that are consistently used across educational psychology services. There is often a lack of specificity in studies reporting on consultation practice, giving little indication of focus, form, or function (Gravois, 2012). Without clearly identifying these parameters, the processes and outcomes of consultation are difficult to define and therefore evaluate. This issue exists alongside an increased focus on accountability within educational psychology brought about by socio-legislative changes and an increase in the trading of services, both of which have implications for how educational psychology services are evaluated and by whom (Gibbs & Papps, 2017; Lee & Woods, 2017). The first phase of this study aims to create a contemporary concept definition of consultation meetings through literature review and practitioner interview (n=6). Interviews were conducted using Personal Construct Psychology (PCP) techniques in order to explore underlying beliefs about, and constructs relating to, the use of consultation with a focus on accessing accounts which “reach beyond socially desirable or common sense responses” (Burr et al., 2014, p.343). Results from this phase indicate that the characteristics of consultation fall broadly into five categories: conceptual, procedural, relational, outcomes, and external factors. The most central characteristics included viewing the consultee as an expert within their setting, being non-judgemental, creating co-ordinate power status, collaboratively exploring concerns, establishing a shared understanding, and increasing consultee capacity. Many characteristics were defined more clearly through the contrasts to certain approaches or attitudes, such as ‘giving solutions’ or ‘being an expert’. Outcomes were focussed primarily on changes for the consultee rather than changes for the focus child or young person. A ‘family resemblance’ concept definition of consultation meetings (Podsakoff et al., 2016; Wittgenstein, 1953) is proposed based on these findings. The second phase of this study aims to investigate EPs’ approaches to casework, including indirect ‘consultation’ work, and confidence in evidencing impact using a nationally distributed online survey (n = 121). Findings from Phase One were used to inform survey questions that addressed a range of casework approaches, outcomes of casework, confidence in ability to evidence impact, approaches to evaluation, and factors affecting evaluation. Results from this phase indicate that indirect approaches to casework were used more frequently than direct approaches. However, while confidence in evidencing outcomes was positively correlated with adopting a direct approach, there was no such relationship with adopting an indirect approach. Adopting a more indirect approach correlated most with expecting adult-focussed outcomes and least with expecting child-focussed outcomes. A broad range of evaluation methods were identified; many of these were seen as not suitable for capturing the type of impact that EPs have or across the time scales it takes for change to occur. This study concludes with implications for the continued use of consultation in UK EP practice, recommendations for the evaluation of consultation using a performance accountability framework (Friedman, 2009), and suggestions for future study