Ethics in school psychologists report writing: acknowledging aporia

Translating reports: School psychologists, knowledge-making and pedagogy

“…Consistent with Attard et al (2016aAttard et al ( , 2016b, the knowledge-making practices of the participants illustrate concerns about how the meaning of assessment data is constrained by the format and content of the reportthe limited space, the inevitability of cognitive or Intelligent Quotient (IQ) scores, technical language and the unilateral communication arising from its form. The reductionism of summarising complex behaviour in purely quantitative and normative terms is evident to most practitioners (Bond & Fox, 2015) as is the potential harm created from IQ scores and systems of classification that determine and fix 'identity in ways that come to be accepted as objective and true' (Feely, 2016, p. 865).…”

“…Although the practice-based processes and events that constitute report writing are relatively unexplored by research, exceptions can be found in two studies by Attard et al (2016aAttard et al ( , 2016b. Reading the interviews of seven Maltese school psychologists through the philosophy of Jacques Derrida, both papers note the status of psychoeducational reports within the profession of school psychology and the considerable influence they have in determining learning pathways for children and access to educational resourcing.…”

“…In doing so the authors move beyond the ordinary face of reports to engage a critical empiricism where the personal and contextual challenges of writing reports to inform and develop socially just pedagogy are emphasised. Attard et al (2016a), for example, draws on Derrida's notion of aporia, where awareness of multiple and contradictory meanings found within a text generate ambiguity and unsettle how we know and what we know (Derrida, 1993). Applied to report writing aporia signifies the puzzlement and epistemological doubt inherent to the measurement of human functioning and the challenge, if not impossibility, of communicating this indeterminacy.…”

“…In their subsequent paper, Attard et al (2016b) suggest these paradoxes of practice render the report as an 'impossible gift' where the authoring psychologist endeavours, but never quite succeeds, in balancing or communicating the uncertainty of assessment data with the need for certainty and completeness demanded by diagnostic requirements and funding arrangements of institutions (p. 972). For Attard et al (2016aAttard et al ( , 2016b, awareness of this oftentimes silenced dimension points to a broader ethic of report writing. This ethic encompasses the processes that produce the report and, in turn, the professional identity of the psychologist as the provider of the report.…”

“…Aaron was both passionate and cautious in this claim. Like the participant in Attard et al (2016aAttard et al ( , 2016b, Aaron believed the information provided in a report was always going to be incomplete and its meaning uncertain. In part, this arose from the format and content of reports.…”