Competency Initiatives in Professional Psychology

Promoting excellence in professional psychology education and training through best practices in defining and measuring competence.

• Final report of the APA Task Force on the Assessment of Competence in Professional Psychology (PDF, 408KB)

• Competency Benchmarks (PDF, 566KB) and Overview of Benchmarks Workgroup: Introduction to the Benchmarks (DOC, 52KB)

• Education Leadership Conference presentations on assessment of competencies in 2003, including the presentation by I. Leon Smith, Ph.D., President and Chief Executive Officer of the Professional Examination Service (PES)

• Introduction (PDF, 29kb)

• Assessment Method Fact Sheets (PDF, 256kb)

• Toolkit Assessment Measures, Foundation and Functional Competencies (PDF, 238KB)

• Usefulness Ratings of Toolkit Assessment Methods (PDF, 243KB)

• Remediation Plan Template (PDF, 16kb)

• Association of Directors of Psychology Training Clinics (ADPTC) and Council of Chairs of Training Councils (CCTC) initiative on defining practicum competencies

• American Physical Therapy Association Interprofessional collaborative effects involving various doctoring professionals (i.e., Medicine, Psychology, Nursing) that focus on compiling key research, defining terms, and developing initiatives to meet the challenge of assessing and measuring competencies within professions

Past initiatives that focused on assessing student learning outcomes related to competencies and inform current efforts include:

1. Initiatives by the National Council of Schools and Programs in Professional Psychology (NCSPP)

2. 2002 APPIC Competencies Conference

3. Psychology Undergraduate Community

• Guidelines for the Undergraduate Psychology Major

• The Assessment CyberGuide for Learning Goals and Outcomes