Challenges to Professional Psychology Education in the 21st Century: Response to Peterson.

Abstract

Professional psychology education faces many critical challenges brought about by the major changes occurring in the health care arena. This article shows that professional schools and programs have a good record of responding to these challenges and of taking proactive steps sponding to prepare their graduates for new health care roles and delivery systems. Data on admissions to psychology doctoral training programs demonstrate little support for the toral concerns raised by Donald R. Peterson (2003, this issue) about the preparation of students for graduate training in professional programs. Although quality concerns are important to investigate, such examination best resides with portant the American Psychological Association's Committee on Accreditation, which has the promotion of quality and excellence in professional psychology education and training as its major goal and responsibility.

The unification of psychology: A noble quest

“…In a highly adaptable economic fashion, for example, at least some North American graduate training programs have changed the ways they train future professionals in psychology. The goal has been to alter professional training and education to maximize the economic opportunities of psychologists (Kenkel, DeLeon, Albino, & Porter, 2003). Regardless of the entrepreneurial worth of such changes, this trend in psychology would seem to present potential obstacles to the general acceptance of a theory to conceptually unify the discipline.…”

From the horse's mouth: A case for Combined‐Integrated doctoral training in professional psychology

“…As has been noted by the most recent APA President, "current organization of the field is distinctly suboptimal and even maladaptive" (Sternberg & Grigorenko, 2001, p. 1073; see also Henriques & Sternberg, in press). At the same time, there has been a call for more interdisciplinary collaboration among the practice areas (Johnson et al, in press;Kenhel, DeLeon, Albino, & Porter, 2003). Although C-I training is not a panacea for all of the challenges facing the profession, in the context of Competencies 2002, the C-I model operationalizes and affirms the needs and possibilities for much greater integration and unification at the level of training .…”

Scientist versus Practitioner–An abridged meta-analysis of the changing role of psychologists

“…an unwillingness to be open to innovation surely will lead to staleness, rigidity, and the ultimate demise of any enterprise, including educational programs (Kenkel et al, 2003, p. 804) This extract was included in some of the other subordinate themes because it deals with the training of clinical psychologists and the future of such training; it was also included in this particular subordinate theme because of the fact that the vast majority of graduate training programs, both in the United Kingdom (UK) and the USA, are based on the scientistpractitioner model (e.g., BPS, 2007b), and therefore the Kenkel et al (2003) extract also implies the detrimental nature of the scientist-practitioner model.…”

“…The sources for the meta-analysis consisted of ten articles, which were published in a variety of psychology journals; Himelein and Putnam, 2001;Kenkel, DeLeon, Albino, and Porter, 2003;Arnett, 2005;King, 2006;O'Donovan and Dyck, 2005;Routh, 2000;Donn, Routh, and Lunt, 2000;Cassin, Singer, Dobson, and Altmaier, 2007;Baker and Benjamin Jr, 2000. These articles were all obtained from the Internet database (PsycARTICLES, 2007) and were selected through the application of two search parameters (see Appendix I for further details).…”

“…These opinions usually occurred in the form of criticisms and examples of the unsuccessful application of the scientist-practitioner model, without necessarily mentioning the scientist-practitioner model itself. The example for this subordinate theme is taken from the Kenkel et al (2003) source:…”