Changes to the 2011 Postdoctoral Residency Annual Report Online (ARO)

The Postdoctoral ARO Instructions (PDF, 930KB) have been modified for clarity, provide greater detail where needed, and are now navigable, providing hyperlinks to specific content. The Table of Contents of the document lists every heading and subtopic of the ARO and provides hyperlinks to each topic.  For example:

• Suppose you have read through the entire instructions document and have entered all of the information for each of your residents and supervisors. Now it is time to formally submit the report, but you forget exactly how to do it. You can now go back to the instructions and click on the “Submit ARO” heading in the Table of Contents. This will bring you to that section in the document. You no longer have to scroll through to try to find that section.

All questions on this page of the ARO have been updated to have answer spaces that only allow numbers. You can no longer type in an open-ended text response. This has implications for two questions. Accordingly, we have provided further guidance for the following questions:

• Stipend Full-Time Resident
  In U.S. dollars, enter the minimum stipend provided to a full-time resident (salary only).  

• Stipend Part-Time Resident
  In U.S. dollars, enter the minimum stipend provided to a part-time resident (salary only). 

The CoA acknowledges that restricting the previous questions to the minimum stipends for full and part-time residents does not provide the whole picture of the resources provided to residents in accredited programs. The CoA has decided to add two more questions to this page: 

• Health Insurance Full-Time Resident
  Is paid health insurance provided to full-time residents? Yes/No/N/A 

• Health Insurance Part-Time Resident
  Is paid health insurance provided to part-time residents? Yes/No/N/A

1) Based on feedback from accredited programs and the CoA, the answer choices for two questions have been modified:

• Gender
  Residents/Supervisors now have the options of “Female”, “Male”, “Transgendered” and “Other”. 

• Ethnicity
  The ethnicity classifications on the ARO have changed to be more consistent with the reporting requirements of the U.S. Department of Education. Residents/Supervisors are now able to choose one or more of the following options: 

-American Indian or Alaska Native 

-Asian 

-Black or African American 

-Hispanic-Latino 

-Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander

-White 

-Not Reported 

-Canadian Institution (these programs are not required to report or track ethnicity)

*Please go to the U.S. Department of Education website for information on the definitions of these options.

Note:  You may need to re-enter gender and ethnicity responses for some continuing residents or supervisors in light of these changes. You may also find that a resident or supervisor’s ethnic classification is no longer prepopulated. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause. We believe the changes we have made will allow us to more accurately track the ethnic composition of accredited programs and remain in compliance with U.S. Department of Education definitions.

2) We would like to emphasize a change that was made last year. The Resident/Supervisor List page of the ARO now lists each person by 6 variables: ARO ID#, Gender, Ethnicity, Date Entered, Date Left and the “Notes” section found on the Demographics page.  

• Sorting. As a result, you are capable of sorting each of the columns according to each of these variables. 

• Names. We strongly encourage you to enter a resident’s or supervisor’s name or institution-specific ID # in the Notes section on the Demographics page. This will make it easier for you to identify each of your residents/supervisors and enter their information for the year. Please note: The Office of Program Consultation (OPCA) and the CoA will not use this information in any data analysis on accredited programs.  It is purely for your convenience during data entry.

One question has been added to this section:

• Leadership Roles or Activities in Professional  Organizations
  Indicate if the supervisor was involved in leadership roles or activities in professional organizations during the current reporting period by selecting either "Yes", "No" or "N/A".  These can include roles in State/Provincial, Regional or National professional organizations.

Prior to this year’s ARO, each of the questions on this page were tailored to supervisors who are psychologists. We acknowledge that postdoctoral residency programs may employ supervisors that are trained in other substantive areas. To remedy this, we have made the following changes to this year’s ARO:

• Supervisor from accredited program
  Indicate whether the supervisor's graduate program was accredited (in its respective field) when his/her degree was received. 

• Substantive area of graduate program
  Select the area of training the supervisor's graduate program provided. If the area of graduate training is not found in the drop-down list, indicate the type of training in the "Other" field. 

• Supervisor licensed in state/jurisdiction
  Indicate if the supervisor is licensed (in his/her area of training) in state or appropriate jurisdiction. 

• The rest of the questions on this page have not changed, but you now have the option of selecting “N/A” if the question does not apply to the supervisor’s area of expertise/training.

Programs are currently required to update the initial postdoctoral and employment information for all residents that successfully complete the program. Because many people engage in multiple kinds of activities in their jobs/residencies, you now have the ability to select one or more of the following options:

• Administration 

• Assessment 

• Consultation 

• Psychotherapy 

• Research Supervision 

• Teaching

Checking Data Accuracy

A new page, “Data Check”, has replaced the “Action Items” page in the ARO. This page will allow you to review the answers to every single question for each of your residents/supervisors and the answers to the Questionnaire. This enables you to review the answer to each question without going back into the records of each resident and supervisor.

In order to review your data, you must create three separate reports: Questionnaire, Residents and Supervisors.    

• Questionnaire. The report that is generated for the Questionnaire will list the answer to each question on that page. If you see an error, please contact the Research Assistant. You do not have the capability of changing the answers on this page; only the OPCA does. 

• Residents/Supervisors. The reports that are generated for residents and supervisors will list each person in the rows and each question in the columns. You can review the answers to each question and if you find a mistake, you can navigate back to that person’s record and make the appropriate change.

Saving Records

This new capability is beneficial in another way. If you determine that all information is accurate, you can save copies of these spreadsheets for your own records. Many programs request this information from the OPCA in the course of completing a Self-Study. If you keep these records every year, you will not have to request this information, and can have access to it year-round.

Important: The data that is populated in these reports is based on the data in the system at that particular moment in time. The ARO is set up to allow you to make edits at any point before the system closes on September 15, 2011. If you make any edits after generating these reports, they will no longer be accurate reflections of your ARO data.

In light of past confusion regarding completing the ARO, we have developed a more formal Submit mechanism this year. 

The Summary page has now been renamed the “Submit ARO” page. This page is almost identical to the Summary page. It will still contain the Summary, which can be viewed and saved for your records. When you click on the Submit button at the bottom, one of two things will occur.

1. If the ARO is missing information, an “Incomplete” window will appear. It will say that some questions have not been answered and that the missing information is listed at the bottom of the page in red font. 

2. If the ARO is complete, a “Congratulations” window will appear. It will also send an email to the address listed at the bottom of the page. This email will contain a copy of the Summary and explicitly state that the ARO is complete. However, this email will also include the following paragraph:

Disclaimer: This email confirms the completion of your program’s Annual Report based on the data entered on the site up to the date of this email. If you edit your program’s report after this date, this completion notification is no longer valid. If you edit any information in your program’s report after the date of this email you will need to go to the “Submit ARO” page and resubmit the data.

Making Changes After Submission

Changes to the ARO can be made at any point before the system closes on September 15, 2011; however, you must go through the Submit ARO process again. Remember, in any case where we identify a program as not completing the ARO and that program claims to have completed the ARO based on a confirmatory email, we will compare the dates of the email to the ARO log that tracks when each program modifies its information.