Volume 19: No. 10, November 2005

by Liora Pedhazur Schmelkin, Hofstra University

The Board of Scientific Affairs (BSA) held its annual fall meeting in Reston, Virginia on November 3-6, 2005. This year, the Board, which meets twice a year at the same time as other APA boards and committees, extended its agenda and held a one-day retreat prior to the start of the official fall “consolidated meeting.” The retreat afforded BSA the opportunity to discuss in depth pressing issues related to science in general as well as APA in particular. Board members in attendance included Roberta Klatzky (Chair), Ronald Brown, Sandra Graham, Jo-Ida Hansen, Hazel Markus, Liora Schmelkin, Norman Spear, and John Weisz.

The Board is very excited and enthusiastic about the upcoming Science Leadership Conference, the first of its kind for the Science Directorate. We discussed at length the various programs and events that are planned and the potential impact that this conference is likely to make. Before this conference even begins, BSA has concluded that it will become a highly anticipated and productive annual event.

Among the many groups and representatives that BSA met with was the Science Student Council, a group of graduate students, formed in 1993, that advises BSA and the Science Directorate on issues related to science-oriented psychology graduate students. This group, which has representatives from the breadth of psychological science, will henceforth be holding its meeting during the consolidated meetings. This will enable it to more formally interact with BSA and with the American Psychological Association of Graduate Students (APAGS), thus fostering opportunities for enhanced communication and joint activities. Other topics discussed and considered during the agenda-packed meeting included convention programming of science sessions, reports and initiatives sponsored by other groups within APA, and a highly informative briefing by the Science Policy staff of the Science Directorate that focused on Congress and various funding agencies.

One of the proposals that BSA discussed at length is for the creation of a new task force for increasing the number of quantitative psychologists. The number of quantitative psychologists is dwindling at the same time that there is a pressing need for training and education in all aspects of quantitative methods, including research design, measurement and assessment, and statistical analysis. This is critical so that psychologists can be at the forefront of cutting edge research and be able to inform public policy. In addition, it has become clear that journal reviewers with statistical and quantitative expertise are few in number. Cosigned by leaders from many of APA’s divisions, the proposed task force would consider the development of approaches and materials necessary for increasing the number of quantitative psychologists. Following the discussion and endorsement by BSA, representatives from BSA, the Board of Educational Affairs (BEA), and the Publications and Communications Board (P&C) met to discuss this Council New Business Item and agreed that the formation of a task force was the best way to begin to deal with the problem. BEA requested that the initiative of expanding the pipeline be extended beyond the university level to the high school level.

BSA reviewed the plans for the 2006 Advanced Training Institutes (ATI). Two ATIs, the grant-funded ATI in fMRI with a special focus on data analysis and the grant-funded ATI on the NICHD’s Study of Early Child Care, will take place in 2006. BSA also discussed other proposed ATIs and recommended that the following topics be further explored as potential ATIs for 2006 and the future: structural equation modeling in longitudinal research; linking epidemiology, health services research, and geographic information systems (GIS) and psychology; web-based research; state-of-the-art qualitative data analysis; and behavioral genetics.

The Board thanked its outgoing members, Marilyn Carroll, Jo-Ida Hansen, and Roberta Klatzky for their service and selected Ron Brown as its next Chair. In addition, the Board thanked the staff of the Science Directorate for the valuable information that they provide and for their constant support and guidance throughout the year.