School Psychology Program

Educational Specialist Degree

The Educational Specialist program (Ed.S.) in School Psychology provides a solid foundation of core knowledge and skills across psychology and education. Students receive applied field-based training in assessment, consultation, and intervention. Our training model is a Data-Based, Problem-Solving Model, a variant of the Scientist-Practitioner Model. Students are encouraged to view practice and science as similar endeavors and apply the same general problem-solving steps.

A "typical track" requires approximately 70 semester hours above the B.A. or B.S. degree and requires 4 years to complete, including a full school-year internship that must be completed in the last year of training and includes a minimum of 600 hours in school settings. Students beginning the program in their first summer may be able to complete the program in 3 years. All students are required to complete a thesis or problem in lieu of a thesis and comprehensive exams. The program is designed for full-time students and includes summer courses. Full-time enrollment is a minimum of 9 credit hours. The program is not designed for part-time students; however, in exceptional circumstances, part-time students may successfully complete the Ed. S. program.

Every School Psychology student is expected to meet the University of Tennessee, School Psychology program's knowledge and skill requirements. Opportunities for students to meet these requirements will occur in the classroom and during field experiences. The School Psychology faculty, along with current and previous students, practica and internship supervisors, and various other groups who help ensure quality control within our training programs have contributed to the development of our curricula. Various accrediting and curricula oversight agencies (e.g., NASP, SDE-Tennessee; and the UT Graduate School) have their own specific goals and objectives. The School Psychology Handbook, published by the Educational Psychology and Counseling Department, describes how the School Psychology programs meet the goals and objectives of these various training groups. The program is designed to provide graded, sequential, and hierarchical training across the following areas: professional school psychology, consultation and intervention, assessment, research and statistics, psychoeducational core, and field experience and professional practice.

 

Updated 04/05/2006

 

Contact EPC

525 Jane & David Bailey Education Complex
1122 Volunteer Boulevard
Knoxville, Tennessee 37996-3452

Phone: 865-974-8145
Fax: 865-974-0135