The need for good data

By Jill N. Reich, PhD
Executive Director for Education

The bottom line for any corporate entity is whether or not it serves a need in a competitive manner?i.e., in terms of costs and benefits. As the largest national organization of psychologists, as well as one of the top publishers of scientific journals in the world, APA has demonstrated its prominent position in professional membership services to the discipline.

To achieve this mark, APA has had to understand what its members want, what services they expect, who their publics are and how best to work with each of them. Moreover, both for our members and our discipline, APA has to do this in ways that are valid, reliable and strong.

Answering questions with good data

Looking across many of the services provided for the education community?and indeed throughout the APA?I am struck by how many depend on information. I think it not surprising that psychologists want their work and decisions based on data. For example, throughout the association, information is sought pertaining to such issues as: What is psychology? Who are psychologists? How many and what types of students major in psychology? Who among these go on to graduate school and what happens to those who do not? What do psychologists do? Why is psychology important to society? Where does the future of the discipline lie?

In just the past year, many colleagues have worked on the APA Task Force on Training: Challenges of Changing Workplace/Marketplace; the APA/APPIC National Working Conference on 'Supply and Demand': Training and Employment Opportunities in Profesional Psychology; and the Task Force on Nonacademic Employment for Scientific Psychologists. Each of these initiatives has needed information that is not available?any place.

And these groups are but a few of the more recent examples underscoring the need for systematic, comprehensive databases on the discipline, its members, its users, its markets, its past, its present and its future. Such an undertaking is costly; to ignore it is even more so. For example, without this kind of a database, APA is weakened in responding to myriad questions posed within and outside of the association.

For example:

? Members? questions, such as where are the new market opportunities for practice, research, teaching and consultation.

? Educators? questions about what kind of curricula to provide in what kinds of structures, to whom, with what outcome.

? Corporate questions about the cost-effectiveness of psychological intervention.

? Federal and state legislators? and staff questions about manpower needs for the discipline.

? The public?s questions about when to seek input from the discipline and how.

In presenting these ideas, I am not criticizing our Research Office. With a staff of four, the office serves as well as possible the demands made on it by the whole association. We are grateful to Dr. Jessica Kohout and her staff for all that they are able to do for us. We ask them to track the basic trends of the discipline, our graduates, jobs and the like; we ask them to review all studies wanting to access our members; and we ask them to serve the many special needs of committees and work groups convened to attend to particular issues such as minority representation. Indeed, it is a daunting task. One to which other professional associations allocate many more resources. For example, the American Association of Physics has a research staff of 12 full-time employees.

The next step

I am pleased to report that this matter is presently under consideration by the Board of Directors, who plan a comprehensive analysis of our research/data needs in order to determine how best to meet them. If you have thoughts or ideas about this issue, it is a good time for us to hear from you.

Remember, each time we are unable to respond or to respond quickly and effectively, we allow others to define the discipline, its practices, needs and effectiveness. In effect, without these data, we allow others to describe our history, to constrain our present and to control our future.