School Psychology is offering a new Special Issue focused on the Impact of Generative AI on School Psychology Research, Practice, and Policy.
MacKenzie Sidwell
Dear colleagues:
School Psychology is offering a new Special Issue focused on the Impact of Generative AI on School Psychology Research, Practice, and Policy.
Guest Editors: MacKenzie Sidwell, Alexis Sánchez, Cara Dillon, and Linda A. Reddy
Background
There has been a growing use of artificial intelligence (AI) in the field over the past two years (American Psychological Association [APA], 2025). Increased AI use in school psychological services has also led to a number of concerns about the use of AI, including potential data breaches, social harms, and biased inputs and outputs. Research is limited on AI use, misuse, and nonuse and how it impacts school psychological research, practice, and policy. As adoption of AI tools increases in the field, guidance and guardrails remain limited and scattered. At the federal level, there is currently an executive order to increase the use of AI in schools and increase access to AI tools to guide education (Exec. Order No. 14,277, 2025). However, each state is developing their own legislation and policy on AI use in school settings. These regulations may be strict or lenient, and some focus on school personnel while others focus on AI companies (Cal. Assemb., 2025; Nev. Leg. Assemb., 2025). When new advances occur, regulation often struggles to keep pace, so practitioners must look to ethical codes to guide practice. In particular, practice-based risks may violate APA Ethical Principles (APA, 2017) and NASP Professional Standards (National Association of School Psychologists [NASP], 2020) related to privacy, confidentiality, professional competence, and responsibility (Farmer et al., 2025). Additionally, some practitioners are simply unsure of the potential problems or benefits of using AI in the field (APA, 2025), and the field itself is working to catch up to this technological advancement to ensure known issues, like algorithmic bias are addressed meaningfully (Lockwood & Brown, 2025). For example, the NASP AI Task Force (n.d.) developed recommendations for school psychologists’ use of AI in research and practice. Despite the applicability of current ethical guidelines and decision-making frameworks, the pace of advancements may still leave practitioners at a heightened risk for ethical violations, bias and/or missteps. Taken together, there is a need to understand how AI innovations impact school psychological practice, policy, and research, particularly related to social justice, equity, and bias.
Further, as AI tools are utilized more often, we must better understand the efficacy of the use of AI tools in school settings and the impacts on students and school staff, both positive and negative. Emerging research details positive outcomes related to improved student outcomes (Özdemir Beceren et al., 2025; Wu & Yu, 2024) and may be used by adults to improve education (Kohnke & Zaugg, 2025; Tammets & Ley, 2023). However, the use of AI chatbots by youth have led to recent tragic outcomes (Hogan & Fantis, 2025; Jamil, 2025), which have raised serious ethical and legal concerns for youth and AI use in future practice. With AI adoption outpacing research, studies are urgently needed to understand the direct and indirect effects of AI usage on learning, behavior and wellbeing in school.
To address this important and timely area for schools, we propose this Special Issue of School Psychology to promote scholarship on AI use and ethical, socially just best practices in school psychology and education. This represents the first Special Issue for School Psychology focused on AI usage in advancing school psychology research, practice, and policy.
Special Issue Goals and Possible Topics
We invite articles from the full range of approaches including experimental quantitative design, mixed method, qualitative, and systematic review studies. Also, high quality theoretical and policy focused articles are welcome. We encourage submissions related to social justice including equitable access, ways to prevent, identify and mitigate discrimination related to algorithmic bias in all forms, and advocacy in school psychology research, policy and practice.
Interested contributors should submit a 500-word abstract by April 1. All abstracts will be reviewed, and authors will be notified by May 1, 2026 whether they will be invited to submit a full manuscript. Invited contributors will have approx. five-months to develop and submit their article by October 1, 2026. Please email and submit your abstract to MacKenzie Sidwell E: mds...@msstate.edu We welcome your questions!
Manuscript length for the special section will be determined based on the quality and number of proposals but is targeted to not exceed the journal standard of 6,000 words, inclusive of all tables, figures, and references. Invitation to submit a full manuscript is not a guarantee of acceptance. Submitted manuscripts will undergo masked peer review, as per standard journal policy, prior to a final decision on publication.
- Email a 500-word abstract proposal to MacKenzie Sidwell (E: mds...@msstate.edu) due: April 1, 2026
- Invitations for full manuscript submissions: May 1, 2026
- Full invited submissions due: October 1, 2026
- Revisions sent back to authors: December 1, 2026
- Revised manuscripts due: April 1, 2026
- Final decisions sent: July 1, 2027
- Anticipated publication date: October 1, 2027
MacKenzie Sidwell, Ph.D., BCBA, NCSP, LP
Assistant Professor
Dept. of CHEF
Mississippi State University