Analysis of the Effects of Gender and Doctoral Program Emphasis on Scientist and Practitioner Interests

Abstract

The impact of gender and the interaction effect of gender and doctoral program specialty (counseling psychology, school psychology, and educational psychology) on scientist and practitioner interests are assessed in this study. The sample consists of 153 doctoral students admitted to a doctorate of education program in a department of educational psychology from 1991 to 2004. The Scientist-Practitioner Inventory was group administered to students. There were between-group differences in practitioner interests and within-group differences between scientist and practitioner interests among students in three discipline areas within the same department. Faculty need to evaluate their attitudes and expectations toward promoting a scientist-practitioner model and students need to be fully informed about the philosophy, student expectations, and curriculum that relates to a scientist-practitioner oriented program.

The relation between specialty choice of psychology students and their interests, personality, and cognitive abilities

“…Students at Social Psychology show relatively more interest in foreign languages and cultural topics. The picture emerging from group differences in personality and cognitive abilities is consistent with previous findings in the US (Bishop & Bieschke, 1998;Horn et al, 2007;Leong et al, 2007;Mallinckrodt et al, 1990;Martin et al, 2007;Tinsley et al, 1993;Vittengl et al, 2004). The different specialties of psychology can best be characterized in terms of different Holland codes.…”

“…Several studies have addressed the relatively low interest in scientific issues among many psychology majors (Bishop & Bieschke, 1998;Leong, Zachar, Conant, & Tolliver, 2007;Tinsley, Tinsley, Boone, & Shim Li, 1993;Vittengl et al, 2004), although psychology majors clearly differ in this regard. For instance, Martin, Gavin, Baker, and Bridgmon (2007) recently compared doctoral students at different specialties of psychology and found clear differences between these groups in scientist-practitioner interests. Also, Zachar and Leong (2000) found that psychology majors' researcher and practitioner interests were stable over a 10-year period and predictive of later professional behavior.…”

Bright and Dark-Side Traits Associated With Interests in Commerce vs Science: Different Personality Profiles of the Scientist-Practitioner

“…One theme constantly mentioned over the years is that people interested in science are predominantly different from those interested in practice. Thus Martin et al., (2007) demonstrated that students studying clinical psychology have little interest in research, while students in the experimental psychology program have little interest in practice. They, like others, concluded that the role of researcher is incompatible with the role of practitioner due to differing talents and interests, and the two opposing roles cannot coexist in individuals.…”

Assessing Scientist and Practitioner Orientations in Industrial/Organizational Psychology

“…They discovered that individuals in counseling psychology had significantly higher scores on the practitioner scale than those in school psychology at both time points. Martin, Gavin, Baker, and Bridgmon (2007) administered the SPI to graduate students in three programs (counseling, school, and educational psychology) and found differences in practitioner orientation from program to program, as well as differences in scientist and practitioner orientations within each program. Across these studies and others discussed earlier, one matter is clear: It is worthwhile to study scientist and practitioner orientations in psychology domains because they are predictive of actual career decision making (and the SPI is a valid and reliable tool for this purpose).…”