2023 OSPA Omnibus Survey, Part I: Individual & Work Setting Characteristics

As professional practitioners who value data-based decision-making, school psychologists have an extensive history of assessing their own professional practices. The field is notable for its periodic volumes that assess and report the state of the profession in this regard (e.g., Fagan & Wise, 2007; Harrison, Proctor, & Thomas, 2023). The OSPA Omnibus Survey (Thomas & Mcloughlin, 1992, 1994) was conceived in the early 1990s by its authors and the Executive Board of the Ohio School Psychologists Association as a comprehensive study about the practice of school psychology in Ohio. It was the first such statewide survey of Ohio school psychology practitioners to contain such a breadth and depth of data regarding the professional practice of school psychologists. The modifier adjective of "Omnibus" was intended to describe the survey as "of, relating to, or providing for many things at once" as it pertained to the state of the profession. Initially, the authors (Alex Thomas of Miami University and Caven Mcloughlin of Kent State University) envisioned that this survey project would be conducted approximately once every decade. About 15 years later, in separate conversations, those authors impressed upon OSPA colleagues Rob Kubick and Jeff York the need to reengage with the project and issue another survey to Ohio practitioners.