Competency Initiatives in Professional Psychology:

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

• Culture of competence emerging
• 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

• Competency Initiatives by related organizations
• 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

• APA Initiatives on Assessing and Defining Competence
• Recommendations on models for the assessment of competence .pdf [408kb] in professional education and training produced by APA Task Force in 2004
• Competencies at different levels of education and training developed by the Competency Benchmarks Work Group .doc [484kb] and overview of the Benchmarks Work Group 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)

• Competency Assessment Toolkit for Professional Psychology
  • Introduction
  • Assessment Method Fact Sheets
  • Grid

Updated 10.26.08