Spotlight on School Psychology Researcher Kathleen Aspiranti, Ph.D.

Kathleen Aspiranti, Ph.D., is an associate professor in the Department of Educational, School, and Counseling Psychology and program chair for both the Ed.S. and Ph.D. school psychology programs.

UK Counseling Psychology doctoral scholar Jasmine Jester recently interviewed Aspiranti about her work.

Jester: Tell me about your research.

Aspiranti: My research is mostly focused on academic and behavioral interventions in schools for kids that are in tiered interventions. We work with kids, either with academic problems or behavior problems, to help bring them up to speed to where they should be for their grade or age, and help keep them out of special education services. Usually, that means individualized interventions, but we also work on class-wide interventions, especially if they are behavioral. Sometimes we notice that one kid has some difficulties in the classroom, but it is something that the whole class could benefit from. We do a lot of applied interventions within the school setting.

Jester: So far in your career, you have contributed to over fifty peer-reviewed publications, over twenty funded and non-funded grants, and over eighty national research presentations. What have you been most proud of during your time at UK?

Aspiranti: One of my proudest accomplishments is doing the Fulbright award I received to go to Hungary. I spent the fall of 2021 in Budapest with my family, and I taught at Eötvös Loránd University for their graduate program. I connected with researchers there to look at classroom management in Hungary and in cultures other than the United States and see how those are similar or different across cultures. That led to some other international inquiries and hopefully I will continue to connect with more international school psychologists looking at classroom climate and classroom management and other practices that we use. We use a lot using positive behavior intervention supports that are not as common in other cultures.

Whenever I was asked to give a talk in Hungary, overwhelmingly, the topic they wanted was classroom management. So, I did a lot of talks to people in Hungary, to people in Bangladesh, and some other settings about classroom management styles and how that could work within different settings.

Jester: What impact do you hope your work will have?

Aspiranti: Since my research is applied, I hope it makes a difference in the types of interventions teachers choose to implement. Right now, there are interventions that teachers use that might not be evidence-based. Somebody told them, ‘hey, I do this and it was great.’ But then we say, well, where's the research that's backing that up? There's not a lot of research there to say, ‘yes, that works’ or ‘yes, that's a really good practice to do.’ So, for me, it's looking at the research and doing some meta-analyses to try to find themes within the research, doing novel applications of different interventions, or even coming up with different applications of interventions. Research can show that it works with certain populations, certain kids with certain types of disabilities, or that it works with kids that are English language learners. Then when a teacher decides to choose an intervention, they can say, ‘hey, this one has research backing it, and so I'm going to use that.’ We need to break down the gap between research and practice and make sure that we're able to get the interventions that are researched into classrooms and really start to wean out those that aren't shown to be best practice.
 

Jester: What are your future goals for your work?

Aspiranti: My future goals are to take this research more internationally. I want to look at not only how it works in the states, but also how we can apply it to other settings. I use the color wheel a lot. It’s a classroom behavior management intervention that's starting to gain a little bit more momentum. In a physical education class in a country in Africa, they were able to publish an article on that. I talked with them as they were writing this article. It was great to see the research that I'm doing here being cited internationally, being applied internationally. We can say, ‘hey, look, it's not just me and my research group that's doing this and showing that it has good effects, it’s people across different countries.’ I want to collaborate more in applying these interventions and projects across cultures and international areas, so they are not just something that we do here in the middle of Kentucky or in the southeastern United States.

Jester: A deep motivation clearly undergirds your rise through the ranks of academia. What cultivated that?

Aspiranti: I came in with a completely different research line when I started in grad school. This is why I tell my students, ‘yes, this might be what you're interested in right now, but you might be interested in something completely different in five years, so keep your options open.’ Some of my own children have learning differences and being able to see what's working helps me be the best advocate for my own kids. I want this work to help all kids that may have difficulties either in academics or in behavior within the classroom.

Jester: Thank you for all your groundbreaking research, Dr. Aspiranti. You are making great strides for students.