Book highlights flawed strategies in educational psychology

In schools across the world, certain psychology practices have become almost as traditional as school uniforms and parent-teacher meetings. However, just because something is a staple doesn't mean it's beneficial. A new book from the Taylor & Francis Group has explored this very idea.

Shaking up the status quo, the book attempts to expose how some of the well-rooted educational strategies in place might actually be harming students more than helping them.

Entitled Investigating School Psychology, the book examines current literature and syllabus to uncover if various educational strategies still popular in schools today actually work.

Edited by Stephen Hupp, a Professor of Clinical Child and School Psychology at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville (SIUE), the publication takes a somewhat unconventional approach by focusing not on the knowledge typically imparted to school psychologists but on the myths and misconceptions they are often taught in the classroom.

"Almost every other school psychology book in the world focuses on what school psychologists should know," explains Dr Hupp. "Our book, on the other hand, takes the extremely rare approach of focusing on what school psychologists should not know, or at least what school psychologists should be cautious about."

'Misleading information to students'

The book criticises a range of "deeply entrenched in school culture" practices, from abstinence-only sex education to zero tolerance policies. According to the research, these approaches not only misdirect funds from evidence-based strategies but also provide misleading information to students.

The study highlights how zero tolerance policies, although aimed at preventing school violence and believed to make students feel safer, actually fail to deter misbehaviour and don't contribute to academic success. In fact, the book cites studies suggesting that these policies may encourage further misbehaviour rather than curbing it.

Another issue addressed in the publication is the effectiveness of certain academic interventions that are still in use, such as the belief in learning styles. It suggests that teaching students according to their supposed preferred learning style has "serious conceptual and methodological weaknesses," and is not supported by any actual evidence.

The book's co-editor and Director of the Human Development Center at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, Michael I. Axelrod, is using his work on the subject to advocate "solid science", keeping school psychologists clear of pseudoscience and messy controversies.

With that, the editors hope that by exposing these flawed practices, their book will encourage a shift towards more evidence-based methods in education, ensuring that harmful and useless strategies don't find their way into classrooms in the future.