The APA Commission on Accreditation (CoA), through review of public comment (as applicable) and careful consideration at its recent Policy and Program Review meetings, reviewed and finalized a number of Implementing Regulations (IRs), including changes to IR C-7 D, Discipline-Specific Knowledge (DSK). A listing of the updated IRs, including a brief summary of their changes are as follows:
- C-7 D, Discipline-Specific Knowledge
Based in part on questions raised during both public comment periods in 2016 and early 2017, the CoA recognized that the currently approved IR for DSK should provide information to guide programs in their efforts to ensure that all students demonstrate graduate-level DSK. Therefore, revisions of this IR have been developed. The current revisions more clearly outline expectations pertaining to the DSK, providing more detail about how programs can determine that all students have foundational and graduate-level knowledge. This IR provides further definitions of training that allow for the assessment of graduate level knowledge, thereby allowing for the demonstration of sufficient knowledge acquisition by the time a program is completed; and it provides further description of the time when training is required within each category of DSK. - C-8 D and C-8 I: Profession-Wide Competencies
Changes herein represent modifications to Section VI., Assessment. More specifically, doctoral students and interns are expected to, among other bulleted items, “demonstrate current knowledge of diagnostic classification systems, functional and dysfunctional behaviors, including consideration of client strengths and psychopathology; demonstrate understanding of human behavior within its context (e.g., family, social, societal and cultural), and demonstrate the ability to apply the knowledge of functional and dysfunctional behaviors including context to the assessment and/or diagnostic process”. - C-13 D, C-15 I, and C-15 P: Telesupervision
Changes herein represent a minor update to the IRs to be consistent with SoA language relative to programs’ aims and training outcomes. More specifically, a minor editorial was made to the second bullet under the requirements for how a program’s formal policy must address, “how telesupervision is consistent with overall aims and training outcomes.” - D.3-11: Site Visit Team Composition
Changes herein represent a minor update to the IR to provide clarity. More specifically, the update designates that all site visit teams, not just those for doctoral or internship programs, will have a designated visitor who represents the educational perspective and one representing the practice perspective. - D.4-7(b): Thresholds for Student Achievement Outcomes in Doctoral Programs
Changes herein represent modifications to the achievement thresholds for the number of years to complete a program, and the percent of students leaving a program for any reason. More specifically, the CoA reviewed descriptive statistics on these variables (e.g. mean, median, frequency, distributions, etc.) for the applicable time-frame, across all accredited doctoral programs and determined that it will look at data on any program that has: a mean ‘years to completion’ greater than 7.25 (from 7.5) years for all students who successfully completed the program in the preceding three years; and/or, a mean of over 7.2 percent (from 7 percent) attrition of students based on the most recent three-year period of ARO data.
As a reminder, the IRs have been categorized in the Policy Statements & Implementing Regulations booklet by training-level. As such, each IR is first identified by the section from which it originates in the booklet, then by a number that is generally consistent across training levels, and finally a capital letter 'D', 'I" or 'P' to denote the training level (doctoral, internship or postdoctoral) for which the IR further clarifies a standard.