A Future of Possibilities

Educational Psychology Department Looks to a Promising Future Post Pandemic

by Christopher Reichert

2020 was a year of uncertainty, struggle, and triumph; for the Department of Educational Psychology, it was also a year of possible new beginnings. With new programs, funding opportunities, and faculty projects currently awaiting approval, the department has its sights set on continued growth and development.

The first is a new Ph.D. program in school psychology, which department chair Sharon Nichols, Ph.D., says will prepare a new generation of scientist-practitioners to work in a variety of settings from schools to hospitals, while being eligible to earn both state and national licensure. This program is in its final stage of approval, and the department hopes it will be able to admit its first cohort in fall 2022.

The department is also working on a new master’s degree. It currently offers a masters in school psychology and a masters in educational psychology, which has two distinct concentrations. This proposal would seek to split those concentrations, resulting in an M.S. in Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA). According to Nichols, ABA trains practitioners to treat children with developmental disabilities, specifically those with behavioral challenges.

In addition to new programs, the department is also anticipating the approval of new grants. One is called DEEP Impact, a continuation of the Deaf Education and Educational Psychology Learning in Texas Project that launched in 2017. This grant allowed UTSA to partner with deaf educators from the UT Health Science Center. For UT Health students earning their Master of Deaf Education and Hearing Science, this partnership gives them some training in school psychology. Conversely, it provides UTSA’s school psychology students with specialized training in deaf education.

The department was also awarded $250,000 through the university’s strategic investment fund grants. This money is intended to support the development of an augmented reality lab for ABA training and supervision.

“We’re so excited about this opportunity and to Dr. Neely’s efforts securing this grant. It’s going to be a very interdisciplinary effort,” Nichols said, “especially when it’s all up and running. That will hopefully lead to other grants and innovative cutting-edge projects utilizing that technology.” 2020 has also been a year of successes for several of the department’s faculty. Nichols, for one, was elected vice president of Division 15 of the APA. However, shortly after, she was selected as a co-editor of a new academic journal, tentatively titled Educational Psychology for Policy and Practice. Feeling this could present a conflict of interest, she and the division decided she would step down from her role as vice president and focus on the journal instead. This means Nichols is once again in an all-too-familiar situation.

“The APA requires newly proposed journals sponsored by APA divisions go through a lengthy approval process before the division to start it in earnest. So far, we’ve made it through the first three rounds of approvals.”

The department and its faculty have seen numerous other successes over the last year. Castro-Villarreal’s master’s program was awarded for innovations in its admission process (htps://education.utsa.edu/ news/2021/innovation_in_admissions_award.html) and was a 2020 Excelencia in Education program finalist. In addition, she notes there are a significant number of her colleagues also involved in grant work, such as Leslie Neely, Ph.D. Neely is the director of the Child and Adolescent Policy and Research Institute. She runs Project PLAAY (Parent-Led Autism treatment for At-risk Young infants and toddlers), which seeks to identify and treat children at risk of developing autism spectrum disorder, as well as the Autism Research Center Lab.