Assessment and management of depression and suicidality: Pediatric resident perspectives on training and practice.

INTRODUCTION: Primary care is a common access point for children and adolescents with depression and suicidality concerns. In this setting, pediatricians typically function as front-line providers given barriers that patients face in accessing mental health clinicians. METHOD: This study surveyed chief residents from all pediatric residency programs in the United States (N = 214) to evaluate (a) their attitudes, knowledge, practices, and comfort in managing depression and suicidality concerns in primary care, and (b) the relationship between residency training processes and pediatric residents' practices, knowledge, and comfort related to identifying and managing depression and suicidality. RESULTS: The usable response rate was 37.6%. The large majority of respondents are involved in evaluation and management of depression and suicidality; yet many respondents reported a lack of knowledge and comfort in these roles. CONCLUSIONS: Recommendations for pediatric residency program training processes are discussed, including the potential added value of colocating mental health clinicians into the primary care continuity training clinic. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

The magnitude and precision of estimates of change in formative teacher assessment.

Despite growing interest in formative assessment of teacher practices, research on rates of change in teachers' practices is sparse. This is the first study to examine the characteristics of observed change in classroom practices using the Classroom Strategies Assessment System (CSAS) across alternative schedules of data collection during instructional coaching. Our primary objectives included examining (a) the magnitude, variability, and precision of estimates of average rates of change in teacher practices and (b) the impact of data collection duration (i.e., number of weeks of data collection) and density (i.e., the number of classroom observations per week) on the precision of estimates of rates of change over time. A sample of teachers (N = 63) participating in instructional coaching was observed 14 times during coaching using the CSAS. Findings revealed a significant gradual improvement in strategy use, with significant between-teacher variation in rates of change. The frequency of observations was associated with the precision of estimates for average rates of change across teachers and for individual teachers, providing initial guidance on minimum number of observations required to monitor change in practice over time. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Assessment of teaching to predict gains in student achievement in urban schools.

We examined the degree to which assessment of teachers' instructional and behavior management practices, as measured by the Classroom Strategies Assessment System (CSAS; Reddy & Dudek, 2014), relates to gains in student achievement as measured by the Measures of Academic Progress (Northwest Evaluation Association [NWEA], 2011). Two-level hierarchical linear modeling was applied to achievement scores from 2,771 students in 130 kindergarten through 8th-grade classrooms in 13 urban schools serving students in communities with high concentrations of poverty. Results suggest that teachers' use of evidence-based instructional and behavior management strategies, as measured by the CSAS, were associated with reading and mathematics gains. In general, students in classrooms with higher quality use of evidence-based teaching strategies exhibited greater gains, whereas students in classrooms with lower quality use of effective strategies exhibited lesser gains. Implications of these findings for research and educational practice are presented. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).