Competency-based education for professional psychology: Moving from concept to practice.

Abstract

Competency-based education (CBE) is a model that guides the educational process toward acquisition of the knowledge, skills, and attitudes needed for effective professional practice in service of the public. Increasingly adopted by medicine and other professions, the CBE model involves establishing competency goals, developing curricula and other experiences designed to help students reach these goals, integrating instruction in the full range of competencies throughout the educational sequence, guiding and evaluating student learning through ongoing assessment of competence, and revising courses and activities in hght of student competence outcomes. Included in a full CBE model are attention to unintended learning outcomes (the "hidden curriculum") and to areas not covered (the "null curriculum"), and efforts to promote education based on individual student learning trajectories as opposed to set courses or number of hours. Within professional psychology, we suggest that APA accreditation is aligned with a version of the CBE model; and significant progress has been made in identifying and measuring professional competencies. However, these are merely tools that can help training programs implement a broader CBE educational model that we contend has not been widely realized in professional psychology. This article reviews CBE and its application in medicine, discusses the benefits and criticisms of CBE, and considers what a fuller realization of CBE would look like in professional psychology training programs, including graduate programs, practicum, internships, and postdoctoral settings.In recent years, the time-honored processes of doctoral education and training in the health professions have been challenged by a new model known as competency-based education, or CBE. This model has greatly affected education in a number of professions, including medicine and dentistry (Chambers, 1993;Frank et al.,

Exploring the Transferability of Competency-Based Education Model to Social Work Education in Vietnam

“…Competency-based education in the US emerged from a growing desire to strengthen the workforce through improving the educational system (Davis, 2003 2012) and producing professionals who have the knowledge, skills, attitudes, and behaviors to perform their duties (Hatcher et al, 2013). Regarding CBE in social work, the Council on Social Work Education (CSWE), the accrediting agency for social work education in the US, adopted the CBE framework for its Educational Policy and Accreditation Standards (EPAS) in 2008.…”

“…To do so, an overview of competency-based education (CBE) in social work practiced in the United States (US) is presented first, since the US competencies were introduced to Vietnamese partners. Secondly, cultural values that are embedded in the education system in Vietnam and how social work programs have been developed in Vietnam will be discussed, specifically because CBE is based on a Western philosophy (Hatcher et al, 2013;Kuhlmann, 2009) that may have different values and world views from Vietnam. Lastly, the process and progress of the initial stage of the CBE social work curriculum development in Vietnam will be presented.…”

Healthcare Reform and Preparing the Future Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology Workforce

“…More specific to the practice of psychology with children and adolescents, the Society of Pediatric Psychology commissioned a task force to establish core competencies in pediatric psychology and address the need for contemporary training recommendations (Palermo et al, 2014). Finally, Jackson and colleagues articulate both foundational and functional competencies specific to clinical child psychology (Jackson, Wu, Aylward, & Roberts, 2012), whereas Hatcher et al (2013) outlined the critical knowledge and skills essential for effective practice in the evolving integrated and interprofessional healthcare environment.…”

Professional task-based curriculum development for distance education practitioners at master’s level: A design-based research

“…It is wellknown that competency-based education (CBE) is student centered and students are more satisfied and competent, better understand the goals of their training, and take more responsibility for their own learning (Frank et al, 2010;Albanese et al, 2010;McLean, & Braden, 2006). However, as Hatcher emphasized, the biggest challenge of CBE lies in creating and implementing a CBE program (Hatcher, et al, 2013).…”