Citation

Strait GG, Turner J, Stinson D, Harrison S, Bagheri R, Perez T, Smith BH, González J, Anderson JR, Simpson J, McQuillin SD. Psychol. Sch. 2020; 57(9): 1492-1505.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2020, John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

10.1002/pits.22417

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Many schools use paraprofessionals to implement and monitor interventions. Though paraprofessionals are cost-effective, many questions remain about the training and skills they need to implement a wide array of school-based interventions. In this study, we compare paraprofessionals' (i.e., undergraduates) implementation of the Group-Academic Mentoring Program for Education Development (Group-AMPED) to school psychology graduate students' implementation of Group-AMPED. Ten paraprofessionals and five school psychology graduate students provided approximately eight sessions of Group-AMPED to 35 sixth-grade students.

RESULTS indicated no significant differences between middle school students' engagement when groups were led by either school psychology graduate students or paraprofessionals. Similarly, self-reports of fidelity and supervisor postsession implementation confidence indicated no difference between paraprofessionals and graduate students' implementation of Group-AMPED. Follow-up measures indicated that mentors and proteges perceived Group-AMPED as feasible, acceptable, and understandable. Most importantly, middle school students participating in Group-AMPED had significantly higher second-semester grades in comparison to a small control group.

Language: en

Keywords

academic mentoring; paraprofessionals