Abstract:

The Order of Portuguese Psychologists (OPP) grants the title of specialist psychologist to any certified professional with demonstrated skills in the respective area of specialty. The OPP recognizes two levels of specialty: general (Clinical and Health Psychology, Educational Psychology and Work, Social and Organizational Psychology) and advanced (e.g., Justice Psychology, Vocational and Career Development Psychology, Community Psychology). The title of specialist is attributed to any psychologist who works and acquires continuous training in their respective specialties, complying with the ethical criteria associated with the profession. Currently, the general specialty in Educational Psychology seems to be receiving greater emphasis, due, in part, to rapid changes in artificial intelligence, automation and globalization - changes that mark the educational psychology market. Artificial intelligence has the potential to transform education and can be used to personalize teaching, automate routine tasks and assess student performance. It is true that there are obvious constraints and that it is a challenge to carry out psychological intervention in a “distance” school context. Recent advances in the areas of artificial intelligence and computer science have boosted bigdata analysis, the extraction of knowledge (data mining), and the understanding and application of the extracted knowledge. Artificial intelligence and machine learning have become prominent in the domains of psychological intervention. Psychologists must maintain coordinated and shared planning with the other educational actors, the emphasis on preventive and multilevel interventions and management of priorities that respect their technical and scientific autonomy.

The Psychologist's support is particularly important in situations that involve:
(i) entry into schooling (including the analysis of requests for postponement/anticipation),
(ii) cycle transition,
(iii) change of educational establishment; or
(iv) access and entry into Higher Education.

The guiding question of this study was: What are the challenges and what are the opportunities of the digital transition for home education? The aim of this work was to investigate how the digital transition can affect home education and identify the trends and challenges of home education in the context of the digital transition. The research was carried out in four databases with combinations of the words digital transition, home education, digital technologies, curriculum, regulation, psychological intervention. We consider 25 articles published in international scientific journals between January 2007 and September 2022, two books and two documents of a normative nature, authored by the American government. All articles met the inclusion criteria. The documents were described and the content was systematized in a meta-synthesis. The study detailed here carries out the analysis of how the adoption of digital technologies in schools and families can have an impact on the way in which home education is carried out, identifying the challenges and opportunities of this transition, such as the need for training parents and educators, the adequacy of curricula and the regulation of home education and investigates how home education is evolving in the context of the digital transition. Implications for psychological intervention are presented.

Keywords:

Individualization, homeschooling, educational psychology, artificial intelligence, psychological intervention.