School psychologists wear many hats. One of the many roles of a school psychologist is to be a consultant for teachers and school personnel. School consultation is the process in which an expert in a particular field or a specialist (consultant; e.g., school psychologist) works collaboratively with a school staff member (consultee) to provide educational or psychological support to improve the functioning of a student (client). At its roots, consultation is a problem-solving approach, and may also serve as prevention. Many studies have shown school consultation as an effective approach to addressing student and classroom problems (Bergan & Kratochwill, 1990). Though consultation has a long history in an educational setting as an indirect service delivery model, the introduction of the federal law IDEIA 2004 made way for greater use of school consultation services (Erchul & Martens, 2010). However, teachers are frequently unmotivated to engage in school consultation with a school psychologist. This literature review will attempt to answer the question: What are the sources of teachers’ motivation to utilize school consultative services?
Arriving at a decision to seek help through consultation is likely a complex process for teachers. Developing an understanding of this process and what motivates teachers to utilize consultative services can assist school psychologists in filling their role as a consultant and in motivating teachers to seek their services. Depending on the sources of motivation for consultation, school psychologists can adjust their approaches. Ultimately, the more a school psychologist is able to consult with teachers, the more students and classrooms will benefit.
Teacher-Related Sources of Motivation
Teachers’ sense of self-efficacy, or the perception of one’s competence and ability to complete a task, is one source of motivation for teachers utilizing consultative services. A study by DeForest and Hughes (1992) examined the effect of teacher self-efficacy on ratings of consultant effectiveness and intervention acceptability. The authors hypothesized that teachers with higher levels of personal teaching efficacy would rate the consultant as more effective and the intervention as more acceptable than teachers with lower levels of personal teaching efficacy. Personal teaching efficacy was defined as a teacher’s sense of personal responsibility in student learning and/or behavior,” and was measured using a self-report survey (DeForest & Hughes, 1992, p. 306). Based on ratings of their self-efficacy, 60 teachers were placed into a high- or low-personal self-efficacy group. These groups were asked to watch videos of consultation between a school psychologist and teacher and rate the consultant’s effectiveness and intervention’s acceptability. The authors found that teachers with higher levels of personal teaching efficacy rated the consultant as significantly more effective and the intervention as more acceptable, compared with teachers with low personal teaching efficacy (DeForest & Hughes, 1992, p.311). This finding suggests that teachers’ self-efficacy affects their reactions and impressions of consultation, indicating that self-efficacy is a likely source of teacher motivation to use consultation services.
An experimental study expanded on the findings that teacher self-efficacy affects perceptions of consultation by examining whether self-efficacy perceptions pertaining to working with difficult-to-teach children could be increased for teachers using vicarious experience and verbal persuasion (Hagen, Gutkin, Palmer Wilson, & Oats, 1998). Researchers hypothesized that teachers’ self-efficacy would increase as a result of vicarious experience and verbal persuasion, which would influence teachers’ future use of consultative services. Participating teachers were assigned to an experimental group or a control group. The experimental group watched a video which modeled the use of various behavioral procedures in a classroom (vicarious experience) and gave teacher testimonials on the effectiveness of the procedures (verbal persuasion). The control group watched a placebo videotape that gave a historical overview of the mistreatment of children and adults with various disabilities. After watching the videos, the teachers completed a self-efficacy rating scale. Teachers were also asked to read vignettes of common classroom problems and indicate their degree of confidence in being able to solve each problem. The authors found that the experimental group had higher ratings of personal teaching self-efficacy and classroom management self-efficacy than the control group. Given the results of previous studies suggesting teachers with higher self-efficacy are more likely to be receptive to consultation (e.g., DeForest & Hughes, 1992), vicarious experience and verbal persuasion may be used to increase the probability that previously reluctant consultees would utilize consultation. The authors suggest that school psychologists might use vicarious experience and verbal persuasion to “prime the pump” for consultative services (Hagen et al., 1998, p. 175).
Gutkin (1980) examines another potential source of teacher motivation to utilize consultation, that is, teachers’ belief that consultation would increase their professional skills. The purpose of the study was to investigate whether teachers felt that their professional skills would improve as a function of working with consulting school psychologists. Gutkin hypothesized that teachers would believe that engaging in consultation would improve their professional abilities. In the study, 12 consultants worked with 120 teachers. The consultants engaged in face-to-face consultations for 14 weeks to address a problem in each teachers’ classroom. At the end of consultation, teachers were asked to complete a survey indicating their reactions to the consultation. The majority of teachers (81%) indicated that working with a consultant would result in improved professional skills. This finding suggests that teachers may be motivated to engage in consultation if they perceive the consultation to improve their professional abilities. Thus, teacher perceptions of a change in professional abilities may be a source of motivation to use consultation services.
Another source of teacher motivation includes teacher mind-set. In a qualitative study, Pohlman, Hoffman, Dodds, and Pryzwansky (1998) explore the teacher beliefs that influence teachers to use school psychological services. The authors hypothesized that a compensatory mind-set, characterized by assigning low personal attributions for the causes of problems and high personal attributions for the solutions to problems, would lead to higher use of consultation. Qualitative data were collected from 26 teachers via a semistructured interview. The interview was to assess teachers’ perceptions of factors related to their use of services. The authors concluded that the teachers generally identified the cause of their classroom problems as the breakdown of the family structure of the problem student, thus not attributing the problem to themselves. The authors also found that teachers largely felt responsible to solve the problems in their classrooms. These findings were indicative of the compensatory mind-set. They found that teachers with this mind-set were more willing to be proactive in addressing problems and were more likely to seek consultative interactions (Pohlman et al., 1998, p. 359). Thus, in addition to teacher self-efficacy and teacher beliefs of skill improvement, another within-teacher factor contributing to teacher motivation is teacher mind-set.
Similar to a teacher’s mind-set as being influential for their motivation, a teacher’s level of autonomous motivation, rather than controlled motivation, may influence whether they choose to participate in consultation. In a study on teacher participation in trainings and innovation, Gorozidis and Papaioannou (2014) examined which types of motivation optimally influence teacher intentions for future involvement in training and innovation. Although not explicitly emphasizing consultation, the findings of these studies have implications for exploring teacher motivation for consultative services. The authors proposed that teacher autonomous motivation (i.e., intrinsic motivation and self-identified) would predict future participation, while controlled motivation (i.e., introjected and externally regulated) would not. In this study, teachers were invited to attend a training program. Teacher motivation and training/innovation participation was measured at two time points following the training via surveys. The findings of the study aligned with the authors’ hypotheses. Thus, the study indicates that if teachers are autonomously motivated toward training, they are more determined to participate in the future. Therefore, school environments, administrators, and school psychologists should promote autonomy development in teachers to internally motivate teachers. This would potentially result in more use of services and training.
School Psychologist-Related Sources of Motivation
Behaviors and perceptions of the school psychologist (consultant) may be another possible source of motivation for teachers to utilize consultation services. In a study utilizing survey methodology, Stenger, Tollefson, and Fine (1992), examined variables that distinguished teachers who participated in consultation from those who did not. The authors hypothesized that perceptions of the psychologists’ training and psychologists’ help offering behaviors would be variables that influence teachers’ use of consultation. Surveys were distributed to 352 teachers. Teachers completed questionnaires regarding their problem-solving abilities, their perceptions of their school psychologist, and their participation in consultation. The results indicate that being in a building where the school psychologist offered help was the variable that contributed the greatest to teachers’ use of consultation. Additionally, teachers’ perceptions of school psychologists’ training as being different than the training of teachers also contributed to participation in consultation. These findings suggest that school psychologists have an influence on teachers’ motivation. Through offering help and informing teachers of their training, school psychologists can motivate teachers to use consultative services.
Another behavior of school psychologists that might influence teachers’ motivation for consultation involves topic determination. That is, the amount of control over the consultation topic the school psychologist grants the teacher may influence teacher willingness to engage in consultation. Witt and colleagues (1991) explored whether teachers and consultants had equal control over their interactions, and whether the amount of control impacted consultees’ willingness to implement the plans developed in consultation. It was hypothesized that equal control of the consultation topic will result in teachers being more willing to engage and rating the consultation as more effective. In this study, eight teachers participated in consultation. The authors measured topic determination in all consultant-consultee interactions to determine who had greater control over the conversation. The results of the study indicate that when consultants take more control over the consultation, the consultee was more willing to implement the intervention plans (Witt et al., 1991, p. 113). This might suggest that the distribution of control in consultation influences teachers’ behavior and motivation. That is, teachers may be more motivated to engage in consultation when consultants determine the topic of the consultation.
Problem-Related Sources of Motivation
Another potential source of motivation for teachers’ use of consultative services is teacher perceptions of the problem severity. That is, how teachers perceive the student’s problem is likely to influence if they seek consultation to address the problem. Gutkin, Singer, and Brown (1980) examined whether teacher perceptions of problem severity were associated with teacher service preference. In this study, 96 teachers were randomly assigned to a treatment or control group. In the treatment group, teachers received consultation services. After 14 weeks, all teachers were asked to complete the Pupil Problem Behavior Inventory (PPBI). Teachers in both the treatment and control group indicated a preference for consultation rather than referral services (i.e., referring students to be evaluated for special education) for all types of student problems. Researchers also found that teachers who perceived student problems as being severe preferred referral services, rather than consultation. Thus, teachers’ motivation for consultation may be influenced by the student’s problem severity.
Similar to problem severity impacting teachers’ use of consultation, the type of problem may also be a source of motivation for teachers. Alderman and Gimpel (1996) conducted a study to examine the behavior problems that teachers perceived as needing consultation to address. Additionally, authors sought to determine who teachers perceived as the most effective consultant. The authors did not specify their hypotheses. Data from 122 teachers were collected via surveys. Results indicate that teachers are most likely to seek help for aggressive behavior problems. Additionally, teachers rated that consulting with any other school personnel is less effective than handling the behavior problem on their own (Alderman & Gimpel, 1996, p. 311). These findings suggest that the typology of the problem is likely to influence whether or not a teacher seeks consultation.
In conclusion, there appears to be three categories of sources of motivation for teacher use of consultation services. These categories are: 1) teacher-related sources, 2) school psychologist-related sources, and 3) problem-related sources. Studies have demonstrated that teacher self-efficacy, teacher belief of skill improvement, teacher mind-set, and teacher motivation type (autonomous vs. controlled) have the potential to be motivational sources for teachers (DeForest & Hughes, 1992; Hagen et al., 1998; Gorozidis & Papaioannou, 2014; Gutkin, 1980; Pohlman et al., 1998). Furthermore, behaviors and perceptions of the school psychologist consultant are another source of motivation for teachers. Studies demonstrate that the help offering behaviors of the school psychologist, the perception of the school psychologist’s training, and the amount of control the school psychologist has over the consultation interactions are all potential sources of motivation (Stenger et al., 1992; Witt et al., 1991). Finally, characteristics of the teacher’s problem likely differentially motivate the teacher to seek or to not seek consultation. Studies reveal that teacher perceptions of problem severity and the type of behavior problem potentially influence whether or not teachers seek consultation (Alderman & Gimpel, 1996; Gutkin, Singer, & Brown, 1980). School psychologists can use this information to adjust their approaches to school consultation with teachers. In order to motivate teachers to seek consultation, school psychologists may need to consider within-teacher factors and factors within themselves.