Translating reports: School psychologists,knowledge-making and pedagogy

Abstract

This paper is a post-qualitative inquiry (PQI) exploring how, and with what effect, school psychologists support the translation of psychoeducational reports into pedagogy for children who experience learning difficulties. Using the knowledge-making practices of three Australian school psychologists, and my own experience as a practicing school psychologist, Rhodes & Lancaster’s (2019) evidence-making framework is utilised to analyse reports through the theoretical perspectives of relational materialism. This analysis suggests acts of translation are produced by the way in which the authoring psychologist is positioned within relational assemblages of material (e.g., report format) and psychosocial (e.g., beliefs) components found at the intersection of education and psychology. By evidencing the utility of reports through theory and practice, the inquiry illustrates how the practical meaning, value and effect of reports is not pre-determined and fixed. Instead, it suggests their utility is relational and dependent on context-specific conditions and the way in which school psychologists respond within these conditions. Implications for practice are discussed.

Keywords

psychoeducational reports pedagogy translation relational

Introduction

Research into psychoeducational reports is long standing (e.g., Cason, 1945) and on-going (e.g., Umana et al., 2020). However, the focus of most studies has been the preferences teachers, parents and psychologists have for the format and content of reports (Mallin et al., 2012; Pelco et al., 2009). This large body of work has established consensus suggesting these stakeholders prefer reports that ‘connect to the client's context; have clear links between the referral questions and the answers to these questions; have integrated interpretations; address client strengths and problem areas; have specific concrete and feasible recommendations; and are adapted to the language and literacy level of the reader’ (Wiener & Costaris, 2012, p. 119). These criteria have been incorporated into guidelines as to how psychologists can write reports that are preferred and accessible to parents and teachers (e.g., Schneider et al., 2018). It is unclear, however, if doing so ensures the meaning contained within a report is received in the way intended. How teacher preferences are associated with the use of reports within the day-to-day practice of education is also undetermined and there is little evidence of the impact reports have on children's learning and wellbeing (Mallin et al., 2012; Pelco et al., 2009).

The limited evidence for the utility of psychoeducational reports as matters of practice contrasts with the growing emphasis within Australia and internationally for accountable, socially just and evidence-informed school psychology practice (Australian Psychological Society, 2018a, 2018b; National Association of School Psychologists, 2020; The British Psychological Association, 2017). It also contrasts with the aims of critical educational psychology where determining if, and how, the application of school psychology restricts and expands the possibilities children have within education is a core aspect of both research and practice (Williams et al., 2017). This paper is a post qualitative inquiry (PQI) into how, and with what effect, school psychologists support the translation of psychoeducational reports into pedagogy within local practice settings.¹ More specifically, through an interweaving of the theoretical perspectives of relational materialism, and practitioner stories about knowledge-making practices of translating reports, it presents an experimental narrative illustrating how psychoeducational reports come to matter within education – their practical meaning, value and effect – what they are and what they do and can do within people's lives and the ‘life’ we endeavour to create through education.

The inquiry is presented in four sections. First, a summary of the practice and research within which the inquiry is situated. Second, the theoretical framework used to guide the inquiry. Third, a narrative re-telling of the knowledge-making practices gathered by the inquiry. Fourth, a relational materialist analysis and mapping of this narrative to consider how acts of translation are shaped by psychosocial and material conditions of local practice and what effects and realities are generated from doing so.

Situating the inquiry: Research and practice

Within Australia and internationally, psychoeducational reports serve several purposes including determining diagnosis, accessing resources and funding, and providing recommendations to develop targeted intervention and inform pedagogical practices (Australian Psychological Society [APS], 2018a, 2018b). To create a report that has a summative and formative function within an educational environment is demanding and time-consuming. Australian studies estimate that approximately 22% of psychologists’ time is spent on writing reports (Fletcher et al., 2015). Gilmore (2015) estimated ‘4 to 6 hours of assessment may easily equate to 8 to 12 hours of report writing!’ (p. iv).

The APS (2018b) does not recommend a specific format for reports, and there is likely to be some variation in the content and style of a report produced by any one psychologist and associated organisations (Rahill, 2018). Nevertheless, reports share a common framework (Sattler, 2018). This includes identifying information about the referred student, reason for referral, the type of assessment battery used, background information about a student's historical and current psychosocial and cognitive development, test scores and associated descriptions, conclusions, diagnostic impressions (APS, 2018a, 2018b; Fletcher et al., 2015; Sattler, 2018).

There is national variation in the professional titles taken by school psychologists in Australia including ‘educational psychologist, school psychologist, guidance officer and school counsellor’ (APS, 2018b, p. 5). The APS (2018b) describes psychologists who provide psychological services to schools as ‘psychologists in schools’ (p. 5). This inquiry uses the term ‘school psychologists’. Australian school psychologists are not required to hold teacher qualifications or have teaching experience. The application of psychology within Australian schools occurs through a variety of service delivery models. This includes school-based psychologists who work within and across different school sites, or away from schools in district offices. Non-school based psychologists contracted from government agencies such as Student Support Services also supply psychoeducational reports to schools across Australia. Increasingly, psychologists working in private practice provide psychoeducational reports to schools (Thielking & Terjesen, 2017).

Although the practice-based processes and events that constitute report writing are relatively unexplored by research, exceptions can be found in two studies by Attard et al. (2016a, 2016b). Reading the interviews of seven Maltese school psychologists through the philosophy of Jacques Derrida, both papers note the status of psychoeducational reports within the profession of school psychology and the considerable influence they have in determining learning pathways for children and access to educational resourcing. They also highlight how, irrespective of skills and experience, writing a report is always a paradoxical and ethical task that eschews linearity and certainty. In doing so the authors move beyond the ordinary face of reports to engage a critical empiricism where the personal and contextual challenges of writing reports to inform and develop socially just pedagogy are emphasised.

Attard et al. (2016a), for example, draws on Derrida's notion of aporia, where awareness of multiple and contradictory meanings found within a text generate ambiguity and unsettle how we know and what we know (Derrida, 1993). Applied to report writing aporia signifies the puzzlement and epistemological doubt inherent to the measurement of human functioning and the challenge, if not impossibility, of communicating this indeterminacy. In their subsequent paper, Attard et al. (2016b) suggest these paradoxes of practice render the report as an ‘impossible gift’ where the authoring psychologist endeavours, but never quite succeeds, in balancing or communicating the uncertainty of assessment data with the need for certainty and completeness demanded by diagnostic requirements and funding arrangements of institutions (p. 972). For Attard et al. (2016a, 2016b), awareness of this oftentimes silenced dimension points to a broader ethic of report writing. This ethic encompasses the processes that produce the report and, in turn, the professional identity of the psychologist as the provider of the report. Importantly, it is by striving to balance the competing demands placed on the written report, and acknowledging the aporia inherent in doing so, that opportunity for a report to become an ‘act of justice’ is made (Attard et al., 2016b, p. 972).

The matter of how to write a ‘just report’ is an on-going concern within my own work as a practicing school psychologist. Although psychoeducational reports remain a passport to services in many countries (Attard et al., 2016b), advances in psychometric theory and assessment practices over the past five decades support my aim of writing reports that describe the multi-faceted, situated and relational nature of cognitive ability and learning as a biosocial and dynamic phenomenon (Youdell & Lindley, 2018). At the same time the complexity of these advances (Billington, 2017), the continued use of normative and ableist language (Allen, 2017), the on-going controversies of test interpretation (McGill et al., 2021) and the evidentiary gap between psychometric assessment and treatment utility (Bond & Fox, 2015; D’Amato & Dean, 1987) raise concern. While persisting in valuing assessment and reports as a means of acknowledging and better understanding learning impairment and disability, the complex and layered meanings I hope to communicate within a report can feel tentative amongst the calculable and reductive identity constructed by the representational logic and normative measures of psychometric tests.

Writing a report which has the capability to intervene within education adds further complexity. Education is not a static and compliant space where the meaning of a report is received and translated passively and directly (Black-Hawkins, 2017; Fenwick & Edwards, 2010). While a report may present as a discrete object in the world, its meaning and translation into pedagogy is constructed within the context specific traditions and processes of schools and classrooms. There are times in my practice when teachers have emphasised diagnosis rather than the labour of intervention; formative and tentative interpretations of integrated data are overridden by the power and status of cognitive scores; new possibilities for teaching and learning fade when summative traditions prevail, and my report quickly finds an archived place within filing cabinets and stored emails.

While it is possible the concerns and paradoxes of my own practice say more about myself and my practice than the actual practice of school psychology, the experiences of colleagues, the ethical responsibility of using normative measures that ascribe learning ability and identity (Goodley & Runswick-Cole, 2012), the limited utility of reports as matters of practice documented within existing research (D’Amato & Dean, 1987; Mallin et al., 2012; Pelco et al., 2009), their monetary cost and use to make high-stake decisions about students and their education (Fletcher et al., 2015), suggests we have an ethical obligation to know more about the performative processes and events that translate psychoeducational reports into pedagogy, as well as the possibilities and restrictions these translations create for children and their learning (Billington, 2006).

Research apparatus

Although much of the existing research has sought to establish consensus about the type of report format and content stakeholders prefer and rate as useful (Mallin et al., 2012; Pelco et al., 2009), the practice-based knowledge documented above indicates the translation and utility of a report is situated, fluid and context-specific. This suggests the need for a theoretical framework that supports inquiry into the context-specific processes and events that enact reports within complex and adaptive systems such as education.

Theoretical framework

Inquiry into how, and with what effect, psychoeducational reports are translated within local practice is articulated by Rhodes and Lancaster’s (2019) framework for evidence-making intervention (EMI). Developed for use within health settings, the EMI framework is designed to support inquiry into how interventions become ‘useful locally rather than in relation to the ‘gold standard’ of realist evaluation and controlled experimentations’ (Rhodes & Lancaster, 2019, p. 8). It does so by challenging traditional evidence-based models of intervention science (EBI) where evidence is treated as stable and separate from the site of intervention. Instead, EMI broadens notions of evidence by shifting attention away from ‘evidence primarily as a matter of epistemology – the different ways interventions can be known – towards thinking with evidence as a matter of ontology – how interventions are performed, and thus come into being, through knowledge-making practices’ (p.1, emphasis in original). Within this performative framework, inquiry is concerned with the processes and practices that perform interventions locally.

Evidencing how psychoeducational reports are translated through an EMI framework is enabled by the philosophical and theoretical orientations of PQI. PQI does not provide a step-by-step guide to doing research. Instead, it is a counter to traditional methods and an invitation to ‘produce different knowledge and produce knowledge differently’ through the application of theory to inquiry (Lather, 2013, p. 635). Although evolving during the early 21st century, PQI is an approach to social science informed by ‘life-minded’ and ‘process’ orientated knowledge dating back more than 40,000 years and passed down through the heritage and knowing of indigenous peoples (Mika, 2017). In addition to these influences, PQI encompasses a variety of post-representational thinkers and theoretical orientations interested in addressing the limitations of humanism and post-modernism to account for the complexity of the world, particularly the significance of materiality and process inherent to social and cultural practices such as those found within education. In keeping with the EMI framework and the theoretical orientations of PQI, this inquiry draws on the theoretical perspectives of relational materialism.

Within the frame of relational materialism, the ontology of reports, what they are and do within practice, is not pre-determined but performed and emergent within networks of psychosocial and material elements and forces specific to each practice. They do not intervene within education as a discrete and fixed object, but as ‘becoming objects-in-practice’ that are adaptive by the relations they make with similarly unstable entities (Rhodes & Lancaster, 2019, p. 4). Their capacity to influence and create change does not occur as a direct or singular transmission of information from one mind to another (Rhodes & Lancaster, 2019). Nor does it occur through the agency of the human actor alone. Rather, all matter, both human and non-human, has the ‘capacity to affect and be affected’ in relation to the psychosocial and material networks within which they are assembled (Fox & Alldred, 2015, p. 318). Thus, the meaning of a report, and the communal acts of translation that shape this meaning, are forever in process and dependent on the relational connections and affective forces generated within networks of material (e.g., report format, educational spaces, time, technology, bodies) and psychosocial (e.g., language, discourse, culture, values, beliefs, intention) elements and forces specific to each practice setting (Fenwick & Edwards, 2010; Fox & Alldred, 2015).

PQI and the EMI framework are both ethical and political undertakings. Exploring reports through these frameworks draw attention to the politics of events, activities and interactions that translate reports within the concerns of everyday educational practice.

Data

Data for the study was generated through telephone interviews. Participants were recruited from an advertisement uploaded to the Australian Psychological Society website and the Educational and Developmental Psychologist Networking Australia (EDPNA) Facebook page. Nine participants were interviewed. Three interview transcripts were selected from this sample. The rationale for doing so was to examine in detail the practice of individual school psychologists and the psychosocial and material networks and relations that influenced this practice. The three participants selected for this purpose were suitable given their significant experience in assessment and report writing, as well their engagement with relational and systemic practice when delivering report to schools. Two participants worked as team leaders with 15+ years’ experience. The third participant had worked as a school psychologist for 4+ years; before that, in private practice writing and delivering psychoeducational reports to schools. Further demographic information is provided in each narrative.

Given my position as a practicing school psychologist who writes and translates reports into pedagogy, the interviews are professional conversations designed to gather knowledge-based evidence about how, if at all, school psychologists support the translation of report information into pedagogy. Interview questions invited participants to share their experiences of supporting the translation of reports written for children who experience learning difficulties. Example questions included ‘what challenges, if any, have you had in supporting the translation of reports into pedagogy?’ and ‘can you tell me about a time, if at all, your report has created change for the assessed child in the classroom?’ The average interview length was 67 min. Interviews were audiotaped and later transcribed verbatim. To maintain confidentiality, all names were omitted from the transcripts and pseudonyms used in the narrative and its analysis. Participants were invited to change or delete any aspect of the transcript believed to be incorrect, or identifiable, or to add anything they considered important.

Ethics approval for the inquiry was obtained from the Deakin University Human Research Ethics Committee (DUHREC).

Thinking and writing about data

PQI requires a radically different approach to the methodology of traditional qualitative inquiry (Lather, 2013; St. Pierre, 2019). It suggests knowledge about the world is not found or discovered within an external reality existing independently of the research apparatus employed, but rather exists as a product of the research itself. This suggests that the traditional but arbitrary divisions between the personal and academic, the imaginative and commonplace, practice and theory are not distinct and that all forms of evidence have equivalent ontological and epistemological status (Rhodes & Lancaster, 2019; St. Pierre, 2019). The idea that the voices of participants can ‘speak for themselves’ and that a researcher can objectively come to know and represent, or replicate, the essence of this meaning also becomes problematic.

In thinking and writing about the data of this inquiry, my aim was not to read the data for generalised meanings or to privilege voice over other sources of data, but to think with theory about the specific knowledge-making practices of each psychologist. Generating knowledge in this way does not lay claim to any universal truth about psychoeducational reports as matters of practice. Instead, the inquiry draws on Gough’s (2010) experimental narrative to think and write differently about how local acts of translation variably transform the meaning, value and effect of psychoeducational reports. While this generates a particular perspective or reality, the development of stories grounded in local practice are necessary for evidencing reports as matters of practice (Rhodes & Lancaster, 2019) and how we may progress school psychology in ways that are useful locally (Berliner, 1992; Whitburn & Goodley, 2019).

Translating psychoeducational reports into pedagogy:

Aaron's practice

At the time of the interview Aaron had been working as a psychologist within a Department of Education for approximately 15 years. He had recently been promoted as a senior psychologist and was working as a team leader as well as providing an assessment and counselling service within primary and high school settings. Aaron's schools were in a socio-economically disadvantaged area of the city. Although he did work with parents, he primarily referred to his work with teachers. Aaron had not worked as teacher, but his undergraduate degree was in sociology and education, and he had practiced as a student teacher. His partner worked as a teacher and learning specialist in a high school. Aaron's circle of friends included teachers.

When used in the way he intended, Aaron believed his reports provided understanding about a child's cognitive strengths and weaknesses, promoted empathy for the experience of learning difficulties and informed learning plans that catered for the learning profile of the assessed child. He also hoped that, in doing so, his reports would support other children within the classroom. Aaron was both passionate and cautious in this claim. Like the participant in Attard et al. (2016a, 2016b), Aaron believed the information provided in a report was always going to be incomplete and its meaning uncertain. In part, this arose from the format and content of reports. Aaron regarded assessment as a ‘snap-shot’ in time and his reports a ‘hypothesis’ rather than a statement of fact. Assessment was an on-going process ‘because things will crop up that you didn't think to assess or didn't seem to be a factor’. The difficulty of trying to incorporate what he wanted to say about a child without making the report too lengthy was an on-going challenge. The dilemma of not using technical language and jargon, while having to communicate test scores numerically and through normative and classificatory language, was also noted.

While existing literature has long suggested that technical language and jargon is a barrier to use (Harvey, 2006), Aaron was primarily concerned about the misuse of information contained within reports. He was particularly concerned about the ‘misleading’ and ‘harmful’ narratives easily generated from an untrained reading of psychometric data. Finding ways to best communicate assessment information in the format of a report was a topic of on-going debate and an area of professional development for Aaron and his team.

Navigating the paradoxical demands arising from the material restrictions of the report was a time-consuming process and one that was frustrating for Aaron. He had tried experimenting with different formats: ‘a letter to key stakeholders, a discussion document, a record of intervention’ but had yet to settle on a format that ensured the formative function he prioritised. Aaron wanted ‘to work more thoroughly case by case free from the constraints of funding’. He believed the time involved in writing reports would be better spent working in schools and classrooms understanding what was:

“happening on the ground – intervention that's going to benefit students and teachers in the classroom tomorrow … making that happen rather than these theoretical reports that someone may or may not read … dust collectors that are put in a file and forgotten”.

Despite the restrictions placed on Aaron he persistently looked for opportunities to work systemically and relationally to ‘bridge the gap’ he believed existed between his report and the pedagogy he hoped to influence. Relationships were prioritised as ‘the currency with which any work is done in education’. Through the relationships he had with teachers Aaron was able to get an understanding of how open teachers would be to the information and recommendations provided by his report:

“you really have to tap into people's belief systems … sometimes it's easy and they’re on board and they get it and other times they might be old school or have a more, I don't know, a different way of viewing the world and that's okay, but you need to hear it first. It needs to be on the table. You can't fight that which is hidden”

Although important, achieving ‘buy-in’ from individual teachers was not enough. The use and translation of reports in school had to be a ‘whole school approach – it has to come from the school’. Again, relationships are the currency through which this could be achieved. Within these relational networks Aaron aims to de-centre himself as the expert and de-stabilise the unidirectional messaging generated by his report. A report becomes a ‘conversation starter’ creating space for other sources of expertise and distributing responsibility for the learning:

“there's many minds around a problem; no one is solely accountable – the group is accountable, including the parent”.

Aaron faced barriers in realising this systemic and relational approach to practice and he often found himself working pragmatically. While he recounts times when a report had created change for students, he needed greater continuity to follow-up and review this with teachers. He said:

“I push where I can [but] we’re not necessarily in a school for any more than a day … you need someone for continuity to do that follow-up”.

Nevertheless, Aaron's practice continues to evolve and take shape within collegial practice. He noted departmental policy trending towards the relationality he champions:

“We are trying not to move [psychologists] around, keeping them in the one spot so that those relationships can develop, and they get to understand the school systems and processes and personalities and ways of doing things”.

Amy's practice

At the time of the interview, Amy was working as a school psychologist in a private school. She had been in this role for 4 years. Prior to this appointment, Amy had worked as a psychologist in private practice administering psychoeducational assessment and writing associated reports for children who experienced learning difficulties. Amy was a mother to a child who experienced learning difficulties at school. She volunteered at her child's school supporting children who had reading difficulties.

While Amy conformed with the expectation of providing summative data and prescriptive recommendations, her priority was not to prescribe intervention but to empower teachers, parents and students to be curious and experiment with their own interventions from the report's information. She described one occasion where a report achieved this:

“It moved from me being the mouthpiece to them discussing and I think that's probably the litmus test of whether you’ve done your job. If you’ve explained it in a way that let's someone else put the puzzle together”.

Amy was concerned that the technical and normative language of the report impeded this process:

“If you put numbers in people aren't reading the report, they’re just looking at the numbers. They think they know what the numbers mean and then they just work with the numbers and that's frustrating”.

Amy believed that by excluding the numerical and classificatory language from her report the reader would have to ‘work harder’ and ‘begin to think’ more carefully about what her report was saying. Despite her concerns and attempts at modification, the conventions of school psychology and the expectations of her colleagues limited her experimentation:

“It can be very hard to change tradition … when you’ve been taught there's a certain format across the profession. I think it takes a bit of courage to just say wait a minute I’m going to do something different”.

Amy regarded the production of a report as an iterative event coexisting with other assessment events within the school. She aims to work relationally with teachers, parents and students within these iterations collecting additional information and identifying ‘what I still don't know’:

For me it's about going back to teachers and saying okay … can you give me some samples of work, … can you show me what it is that you’re thinking? What is it that you tried?

Despite the many benefits of teacher consultation Amy suggested it was a ‘romantic notion’ to think you can do more when you are based at a school. She notes times when she had found it difficult to establish a common understanding with teachers. Amy's relationships with teachers were also complicated by her sense that teachers may find the questions she has about a child's learning history as threatening or critical. She did, however, suggest these inter-personal difficulties are compounded by systemic factors. Finding time, particularly the right time, to speak with a busy teacher about one child in a class of 30 or more children is a regarded by Amy as a diplomatic matter, as is asking a teacher to readily accept an individual intervention within the collective of their classrooms:

I don't know a teacher that didn't get into teaching to help an individual student do better and who wouldn't in a perfect world be able to spend lots of time with the psychologist and customising and doing their approach, but the reality is every teacher I speak to is completely overwhelmed … If there is a problem in [a teacher-psychologist] relationship, I think it's because we as psychologists have the privilege of focusing on the individual child.

Amy felt ‘jaded’ by her experiences and had come to expect minimum use of her reports. Although conflicted by her responsibility to the school, Amy encouraged parents to advocate for their child and highlighted the school's legal responsibility to be responsive to this. She spoke sensitively about the needs of parents and her hopes that the report will assist them:

“I write that report with that parent in mind saying … how do I make this parent who's confused and insecure feel taken care of and feel that they understand and feel empowered so that they can now explain what is needed next”.

Amy also noted the importance of sharing the report with students:

“I explain my findings to them because ultimately, they’re the advocate for themselves and children make all sorts of inferences about the kind of person they are based on their struggles”.

Despite the proposed therapeutic value of sharing assessment information with students, Amy said this was not always possible. Amy noted parents’ need to process the meaning and implications of a report before this was shared with their child. She also shared her own concerns about the difficulty some children may have in understanding the meaning of a report due to their age or cognitive capacity.

Anya's practice

At the time of the interview Anya was working as a senior school psychologist and team leader for a Department of Education school counselling unit. Anya had over twenty years’ experience as a psychologist at the time of the interview. She provided a counselling and assessment service within both high school and primary school settings. Anya was a trained primary school teacher and had over ten years teaching experience in Australian and UK schools.

Despite her long experience as a teacher and school psychologist, Anya was unsure if her reports had created any significant change for students:

“a lot of my time and energy, and money, goes into these expensive resources and the amount of actual practical change for the child is a pretty small return quite often to be honest”.

Anya believed this was due to the format of the report rather than the quality of its information. While she endeavoured to keep her reports to a manageable length, the task of communicating complex information drawn from multiple sources often resulted in her reports being lengthy:

“They tend to be a bit long … and that's an issue because I’m pretty sure that very few people would read through the whole thing”

Anya also believed that the written report was only a single event within an on-going assessment process. This had been made clear from interviews with parents:

“… they end up telling you quite a lot of stuff that I didn't originally know … and so I end up re-writing the report a bit after the feedback interview to integrate stuff”.

At times, information pertinent to a child's learning would remain outside of the report due its sensitive nature and need to protect the privacy of the family or even that of the teacher:

I’m conscious of not offending either the parents or the teachers … sometimes parents will get very defensive because … you’re talking about sensitive family things”

Although the communication of psychometric data was a key function of Anya's reports, she was concerned about the suitability of this content for some stakeholders. She had considered writing different versions for different audiences, but this was not a feasible option given other demands in her role. This resulted in Anya having to:

“… find that line between producing a document that's fairly professional in tone but where the language is still going to be meaningful for the parents … or trying to strike a bit of a balance and … never quite getting there because it's so easy to be either a bit too wishy-washy or a bit too kind of damming.”

Having the opportunity to discuss the report with parents and teachers was where she could ‘say more of what you really mean’, as well as gather further information not known through the formality of the assessment.

As an early-career psychologist Anya had regarded report writing as an individual activity. Over time her practice suggested the relationship she had with the people who read her reports was more important to promoting use and supporting translation than their actual content:

“… more important than what's actually in the report is the relationship I have with the people who are going to be reading it … the relationship you have with people is going to partly influence how closely they read those recommendations and how seriously they take them”.

Anya engaged in consultative activities to bridge the gap between her own knowledge of learning difficulties and that of the teachers. This became evident when she had coincidentally written a report to support a child with working memory difficulties at the same time the child's teacher had attended a professional development course on working memory. Anya believed the subsequent shared understanding she had with this teacher shifted the report from being a prescriptive document to one that became distributed within the teacher's pedagogy:

“There was a greater appreciation of why I’d be wanting to make these recommendations around working memory, greater appreciation of the impact on learning”

Team-teaching also strengthened the relationship Anya had with teachers and, in turn, fostered a mutual understanding of the report:

“I think that gave us a greater sense of teamwork and enhanced the mutual respect between us … the teacher and I discussed the child more and I think that was partly because I’d been down there doing a lesson with the teacher”.

Nevertheless, opportunities to work relationally were limited. Anya was rarely involved in developing and reviewing learning plans and had few examples of how her report had improved learning outcomes of the assessed child. The barriers identified as impeding Anya were largely systemic. This included the overwhelming demands and pressure on teachers:

“… there's just so much on them and here's somebody giving them more recommendations around another individual child that's another thing to think about, another thing to bring into their day. I get that it's hard”

Time constraints were also noted, and Anya would sometimes try and catch-up with teachers informally, but this was a moot aspect of practice:

“… consultation takes time and you’ve got to be able to grab that teacher. They’re on class through the day so the only chances really are if you can grab them either at recess break when really, they just want to sit there and have a break, that don't want to be talking too much about the kids in the class”.

Anya believed promoting the use and translation of reports was a whole-school matter that required ‘principal backing and executive backing … it just takes constant vigilance I guess’.

Translating psychoeducational reports: A relational materialist analysis

Consistent with Attard et al. (2016a, 2016b), the knowledge-making practices of the participants illustrate concerns about how the meaning of assessment data is constrained by the format and content of the report – the limited space, the inevitability of cognitive or Intelligent Quotient (IQ) scores, technical language and the unilateral communication arising from its form. The reductionism of summarising complex behaviour in purely quantitative and normative terms is evident to most practitioners (Bond & Fox, 2015) as is the potential harm created from IQ scores and systems of classification that determine and fix ‘identity in ways that come to be accepted as objective and true’ (Feely, 2016, p. 865). However, the matter of how to ensure the complex meaning of a report is received by teachers, parents and students in the way intended was an on-going matter of concern for participants.

The activities, events and processes employed to promote the translation of a report's intended meaning into pedagogy are performed differently in relation to the conditions of each practice setting and the way participants respond to these conditions. Aaron and Anya explore different report formats to safeguard and extend the meanings within their reports. However, the normative traditions of report-writing generated from the negotiated agreements of school psychology (Danzinger, 1997; Piekkola, 2017), and necessary to the communication of psychometric data and acquisition of funding, limit options available to them. For all participants service delivery models that maintain separate roles for teachers and psychologist are also performative of practices that render the report vulnerable to misinterpretation. Nevertheless, the interview with parents, teachers and, at times, the assessed student, provide ‘openings’ within this closure where participants variably extend the restricted meaning conveyed by summative data and systems of classification.

Verbally sharing reports: furthering meaning and action

The knowledge-making practices of participants suggests how verbally sharing the report with parents, teachers and students variably enacted reports as both an ‘end-product’ of assessment as well as a point within an on-going process of assessment for learning (Fletcher et al., 2015, p. 39). In the later transformation, a report is no longer a fixed object, but a temporary and open ‘text space’ awaiting further input from teachers, parents and students that may, or may not, be included (Mulcahy, 2006). Through the sharing of perspectives and expertise, the representational first nature account of learning as a closed and mechanistic process is extended into a second nature account conveying the situated and becoming nature of learning, as well as the tentative meaning of assessment data that lies outside of the report's frame (Corcoran, 2014). Rather than the centred expert, the psychologist becomes a co-inquirer and the report a reference point for qualifying what is already known, and identifying what is still yet to be known, from the multiple questions that arise from best-practice assessment (Aniftos, 2021). The physical and psychological space generated by verbally sharing the report facilitates professional and personal dialogues about children and their learning as an open and tentative matter.

Aaron's practice highlights how a report becomes an intermediary device that generates and strengthens the performative networks of reports (Fenwick & Edwards, 2010; Michael, 2016). This is particularly evident within the multi-vocal and material-discursive spaces of report sharing, learning support team meetings and teacher-psychologist relationships when shared concern for the meaning and translation of a report generate a collective responsibility, and learning difficulties simultaneously become a teachers’ teaching difficulties (Williams, 2013). Learning becomes a distributed matter, not something bounded within the individual (Gergen & Gill, 2020).

Amy's practice illustrates how the intimacy of conversations and empathetic regard enact the therapeutic potentialities of reports and assessment information (Finn & Tonsager, 1997). However, the narratives of all three participants suggest such interactions often occur as one-off events. The complexity of information contained within a report, and its power to ascribe children's identity and worth (Goodley & Runswick-Cole, 2012), suggests such interactions should occur over time as a negotiated dialogue with multiple stakeholders – parents, students, teachers, principals, learning support officers, other professionals. Yet finding opportunities to maintain on-going engagement with the learning journey of the assessed child appear tentative and marginalised by traditional psychosocial and material networks that enact the short-term engagement and individual focus of school psychology.

Negotiating the collective and individual networks of psychoeducational reports

Existing literature often characterises the barriers that impede school psychologists’ engagement with systemic and relational practice in discrete and general terms, such as widespread demand for individual assessments (Bell & McKenzie, 2013; Eckersley & Deppeler, 2013). However, the relational framework of this inquiry, and the narrative of each knowledge-making practice, suggests that while participants faced common barriers, they are not stable or structured universally across all practices. Limited time, restricted access to teachers and learning support teams, teacher-psychologist relationships and on-going associations between reports and funding are factors identified within existing literature and by the analysis of this inquiry. However, when considered relationally in the context of each practice these factors are assembled differently, as are the psychologists and their orientation and response to practice. Extending Attard et al. (2016b), it is possible that the professional identities of school psychologists are constructed not only in the writing of the report, but also by how they respond to, and within, the network of relations that shape if, and how, a report is translated into pedagogy.

Aaron is the psychologist who strongly advocates for relational practice, despite the restrictions shared with others. His recent promotion to senior psychologist, his undergraduate training in sociology, his experiences as a student teacher and current connection with working teachers, along with the social, economic and political complexity of his communities collectively shape his orientation towards relational and systemic practice rather than an individual focus on the child. Amy and Anya endeavour to work relationally within their schools but struggle to consistently shift their practice towards the collective. The precarious but important relationship between teachers and psychologists is highlighted in Amy's practice as well the more nuanced affective and intersubjective flows that impact their development (Gergen & Gill, 2020; Rhodes & Lancaster, 2019).

Although the psychosocial and material arrangements of each practice generated different openings for the participants to sustain engagement with their reports and teachers, finding opportunities to review the effectiveness of their reports was limited for all participants. Access to funding, accommodations, and the promise of tailored interventions were assumed to have occurred, but awareness of the effects and realities produced by the powerful discourses set out in their reports, and what they included and excluded while supporting the learning and wellbeing of the assessed child overtime, had not been widely evaluated. Despite the documented errors in the formulation of reports (Wilcox & Schroeder, 2015); risk of misinterpretation (Michaels, 2006) and the potential harm of representative and abstracted information (Billington, 2018), the translation of the report was not supported by the psychologists ongoing engagement. Although it is unclear if this is typical of practice, commentators within Australia and internationally suggest service delivery models often leave the report to ‘do the talking’ and restrict the authoring psychologist's involvement in intervention planning (Attard et al., 2016a; Billington, 2018). On-going engagement with a report beyond its delivery may also be discouraged by current Australian guidelines that do not reference any obligation for a school psychologist to do so (APS, 2018a, 2018b).

Concluding comments

The interweaving of theory and knowledge-making practices highlighted by this inquiry suggests the meaning, value and effect of psychoeducational reports are not singular or pre-determined by format and content alone but by the translations and adaptations of local practice (Rhodes & Lancaster, 2019). Concerns for the mutability of reports, and how to safeguard the intended meaning of the information they provide, is prioritised by the knowledge-making practices of this inquiry. By remaining engaged with reports beyond delivery, participants aimed to support the report's formative potential and transformation as an assessment tool for learning, rather than a prescriptive summary of learning identity and educational opportunity.

The complex contingency through which participants supported the translation of their reports, and the variable way they are transformed and made to matter, contests evidence that treats reports as stable and separate from the site of their use. It also extends existing concerns about the paradoxical role reports have in supporting the learning and wellbeing of children. However, research into the enactment and effect of reports within educational settings is in its infancy, and further research is needed to evidence the variable ways in which psychoeducational reports matter locally. Extending this research by identifying the knowledge-making practices of Australian school psychologists working in different settings and those working internationally is required. Gathering data through case studies or ethnographical methods will assist in building knowledge of who, or what, acts within the context-specific relations of practice to influence if, and how, school psychologists support the translation of reports. However, the narratives presented by this study begin to explore how an individual psychologist may respond within the parameters of their own practice settings. This includes being curious about the specific arrangements of practice and how they enable and restrict the utility of reports. How, for example, does the individualised information contained within a report translate within the complex and collective relationality of everyday classrooms? What effects and realities are generated and what impact do they have on the learning and wellbeing of the assessed child? Who benefits?

On-going engagement with a report is aligned with Cameron (2017) who states school psychologists and educators ‘have a responsibility not merely to observe, to deliver and describe tests results or to suggest plans for action, but to critically interrogate their own practice and assumptions which will influence the student's possibilities for being and doing’ (p. 223). It suggests ensuring the validity of any assessment requires evaluation of the inferences and uses made within the context of practice (Bowles et al., 2016). As proposed by Dewey (1938/1997), ‘there is no such thing as educational value in the abstract’ (p. 46) and we cannot determine the value and efficacy of reports as a means of informing targeted instruction and inclusive pedagogy without understanding how they become meaningful and matter within local practice settings.

Realising such changes within practice will also require a critical orientation where researchers and practitioners examine the beliefs, values, ideology and political and economic forces assembled within psychoeducational reports and the performative effect these assemblies have on teaching and learning. Finding pathways where the noted benefits of transdisciplinary practice between psychologists and educators may also generate new possibilities (Youdell & Lindley, 2018). The application of a broader ethic concerned with what is produced, and what may be produced, by the conditions of local practice, and how school psychologists respond within these conditions, must also extend existing obligations. As suggested by Attard et al. (2016b), it is by grappling with the complex and uncertain meanings communicated in each unique report that they may become ‘acts of justice’. This inquiry further suggests that school psychologists must also grapple with how the intended meaning of a report is translated, and the impact this has on the learning and wellbeing of the assessed child, to be assured of reports that contribute to socially just pedagogy and enrich the lives of children and their communities.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

I acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land on which this research was conducted and pay my respects to their Elders, past and present. I thank the participants who took part in this inquiry and Associate Professor Tim Corcoran and Dr Ben Whitburn for their guidance.

Declaration of conflicting interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Ethics approval

Ethics approval for the inquiry was obtained from Deakin University Human Ethics Committee (DUHREC), Approval No. 2020-060.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Joanne Lindelauf

Notes

Author biography

Joanne Lindelauf is a practicing school psychologist working in secondary and primary school settings. She is interested in understanding how the application of psychology within schools supports the learning and wellbeing of children and young people. She is a PhD candidate at Deakin University in Melbourne, Australia.

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