Parental Perceptions of School Psychological Services: One School District's Survey Method and Findings

• Published in: Special services in the schools 1995-04, Vol.9 (1), p.159-174
• Main Authors: Gimpel, Gretchen A., Huebner, E. Scott
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 0739-9820
• DOI: 10.1300/J008v09n01_09

This study involved a survey of parents of students with disabilities from a large urban school district in the Southeastern United States. It investigated parents' perceptions of the importance of selected functions of school psychologists, their ratings of problems in multidis-ciplinary team (MDT) special education placement meetings, and their overall satisfaction with psychological services. The parents' responses were examined in relation to a comparison group of parents from a statewide parent organization comprised of parents of children with disabilities. Also, the data from both parent groups were compared to studies in which school psychologists responded to similar questions. Both groups of parents rated all functions as important and assigned greater importance to all functions, except assessment, than did school psychologists. The school district sample reported a relatively high level of overall satisfaction with school psychologists' services; the statewide parent group reported a lower level of satisfaction. For the school district parents only, overall satisfaction correlated significantly with the frequency of their contacts with school psychologists. With respect to the ratings of MDT problems, differences were found between the two parent samples as well as between the parent groups and psychologists. The possible use of such parent survey methodology and data by district psychologists and other special services providers in planned organizational change efforts is discussed.