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A Bibliometric and Content Analysis of Best Practices in School Psychology

June 2023
School Psychology 39(1)

DOI:10.1037/spq0000546

Authors:

Randy Granville Floyd

University of Memphis

Patrick J McNicholas

University of Memphis

Best Practices in School Psychology is one of the most influential books in school psychology history. Originally published in 1985 by Thomas and Grimes, it was the first book offered by the National Association of School Psychologists. Its six editions have been revised every 5–8 years. Utilizing Publish or Perish as well as cross-referenced tables of contents from Best Practices, a bibliometric analysis of its 589 chapters and 37 appendices was completed. Results yielded 15,812 citations in Google Scholar—most citations (6,448) stem from its fourth edition, published in 2002. One chapter by Good et al. (2002) was cited more than 400 times, and five other chapters were cited more than 300 times. In all, 42 chapters were cited more than 100 times. Content analysis revealed that most chapters primarily addressed domains reflecting data-based decision making and interventions. The 79 most cited chapters generated almost two-thirds of all citations, and at least one-third of the citations to each of the 10 most cited chapters emerged from student projects, such as theses and dissertations. The editors, authors, and reviewers of Best Practices have produced a massive number of chapters across six editions, and although these publications were initially intended to guide practicing school psychologists, they have had a substantial impact on scholarship, including student projects.

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A Bibliometric and Content Analysis of Best Practices in School Psychology

Randy G. Floyd, Sequoya A. Fitzpatrick, Patrick J. McNicholas, and Nikita M. Pike

Department of Psychology, University of Memphis

Best Practices in School Psychology is one of the most inﬂuential books in school psychology history.

Originally published in 1985 by Thomas and Grimes, it was the ﬁrst book offered by the National

Association of School Psychologists. Its six editions have been revised every 5–8 years. Utilizing Publish or

Perish as well as cross-referenced tables of contents from Best Practices, a bibliometric analysis of its

589 chapters and 37 appendices was completed. Results yielded 15,812 citations in Google Scholar—most

citations (6,448) stem from its fourth edition, published in 2002. One chapter by Good et al. (2002) was cited

more than 400 times, and ﬁve other chapters were cited more than 300 times. In all, 42 chapters were cited

more than 100 times. Content analysis revealed that most chapters primarily addressed domains reﬂecting

data-based decision making and interventions. The 79 most cited chapters generated almost two-thirds of all

citations, and at least one-third of the citations to each of the 10 most cited chapters emerged from student

projects, such as theses and dissertations. The editors, authors, and reviewers of Best Practices have

produced a massive number of chapters across six editions, and although these publications were initially

intended to guide practicing school psychologists, they have had a substantial impact on scholarship,

including student projects.

Impact and Implications

We sought to identify what evidence existed to substantiate the impact of one of the most prominent

reference books in school psychology, Best Practices in School Psychology. Our analysis revealed that

Best Practices has been published across six editions from 1985 to 2014. Its editors, including Alex

Thomas, Jeff Grimes, and Patti Harrison, and 630 different authors published 626 chapters and

appendices in its pages across this span. Most entries primarily addressed assessment or intervention

activities. We identiﬁed almost 16,000 instances in which entries from Best Practices were referenced in

the professional literature. In particular, the fourth edition of Best Practices, published in 2002,

generated the highest number of these citations. Evidence shows that the most cited chapters from

Best Practices were frequently referenced within graduate students’scholarly projects (e.g., theses and

dissertations). As such, this study demonstrated that Best Practices in School Psychology has had a

substantial impact on the ﬁeld, and it serves as a model for future publications in the ﬁeld of school

psychology.

Keywords: citations, school psychology, bibliometrics, Google Scholar, National Association of School

Psychologists

Supplemental materials: https://doi.org/10.1037/spq0000546.supp

The publication of the ﬁrst edition of Best Practices in School

Psychology (Thomas & Grimes, 1985) is widely regarded as a

milestone in the history of school psychology (Burns, 2019;Fagan

& Wise, 2007), in part, due to it being the ﬁrst book published by

the National Association of School Psychologists (NASP). Since

1985, Best Practices has been revised and updated every 5–8years,

and a seventh edition was nearing completion as we ﬁnalized

this study. With a goal in mind of addressing “the growth and

diversity of the profession, the increasing inﬂuence and importance

of school psychologists, and the organizational vitality and com-

mitment of NASP”(Desrochers, 2014, p. 37), Thomas and Grimes

(1985) ﬁrst offered a single volume including 39 chapters. Since

then, Best Practices has blossomed, and its most recent edition

offered 150 chapters distributed across four volumes. There have

been no publications detailing the inﬂuence of Best Practices on

other publications in the ﬁeld. This study provides an unsolicited,

independent bibliometric analysis of the literature to address

that goal.

Following the publication of a series of books in the 1970s

and early 1980s that (a) broadly described the ﬁeld of school

psychology (e.g., Bardon & Bennett, 1974), (b) offered in-depth

analysis of central topics (e.g., Blanco & Rosenfeld, 1978;Conoley

& Conoley, 1982;Meyers et al., 1977), and (c) addressed current

issues (e.g., Kratochwill, 1981), the original Best Practices in

This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.

This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.

This article was published Online First June 12, 2023.

Nikita M. Pike https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7074-2793

Randy G. Floyd was a coauthor of a chapter found in the sixth edition of

Best Practices in School Psychology.

Correspondence concerning this article should be addressedtoNikita

M. Pike, Department of Psychology, University of Memphis, 400

Innovation Drive, Memphis, TN 38111, United States. Email: nmpike@

memphis.edu

School Psychology

ISSN: 2578-4218 https://doi.org/10.1037/spq0000546

106

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