Schools conduct comprehensive psychoeducational evaluations to identify students with specific learning disabilities (SLDs) and determine whether they qualify for special education services. This decision-making process is complex and research has documented many factors influencing SLD identification decisions. One such factor may be decision-makers’ beliefs about the underlying causes of SLD, including intrinsic and extrinsic factors. However, no studies to date have examined the underlying factor structure of the responses to prompts about the causes of SLD from intrinsic and extrinsic perspectives. This study was conducted with a sample of 521 school psychologists as part of a larger study examining decision-making during SLD identification. Using confirmatory factor analyses (CFA) to compare two theoretically plausible models, results suggested that a single latent factor best captured variability in responses to these prompts. Implications for assessing beliefs and how they impact the psychoeducational assessment process to identify SLDs are discussed, along with areas for future research.

中文翻译：

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评估关于 SLD 的内在和外在决定因素的信念：评估新工具的因子结构


学校进行全面的心理教育评估，以确定有特定学习障碍 (SLD) 的学生，并确定他们是否有资格获得特殊教育服务。这个决策过程很复杂，研究记录了影响 SLD 识别决策的许多因素。其中一个因素可能是决策者对 SLD 根本原因的信念，包括内在和外在因素。然而，迄今为止，还没有研究从内在和外在的角度来检验对 SLD 原因提示反应的潜在因素结构。这项研究以 521 名学校心理学家为样本进行，是一项更大型研究的一部分，该研究考察了 SLD 识别过程中的决策情况。使用验证性因素分析 (CFA) 来比较两个理论上合理的模型，结果表明单个潜在因素最好地捕获对这些提示的反应的变异性。讨论了评估信念的含义以及它们如何影响识别 SLD 的心理教育评估过程，以及未来研究的领域。