Trends in training and trainee competence in personality assessment across health service psychology doctoral students: A pilot study.

Abstract

This investigation surveyed students (n ϭ 91) from 16 American Psychological Association accredited doctoral programs in clinical and counseling psychology about knowledge and training in personality assessment. We report self-perceived competency on specific instruments as well as training trends in coursework and instrument exposure in clinical settings. We also evaluate skill at interpretation on a popular personality instrument using two tasks, a narrative interpretation where trainees estimate an originating score profile using a standardized interpretive report and a symptom probability task where trainees predict the likelihood of symptoms based on a score profile. The Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2 (MMPI-2) and Personality Assessment Inventory (PAI) were the most frequently trained and utilized and had the highest self-perceived competence. When given interpretation tasks to evaluate assessment skills using the MMPI-2-RF, trainee performance was variable and discrepant from a comparison expert panel given the same tasks. Overall, our results suggest that there is a need for further, and more comprehensive, study on competence and training according to the experience of trainees. We note that there is variability across instruction on instrument use, exposure to instruments in practice, and practical skill level. We highlight our findings across four conceptual areas and discuss the implications for the observed trends: frequency of instrument exposure, trainee beliefs of competence, trainee interpretation skills, and reporting of testing interpretation. Public Significance StatementThis pilot study provides the first evaluation of assessment training patterns as reported by health service psychology trainees. Results indicate that, in general, trainee instrument exposure and use mirror those of practicing psychologists; however, there is notable variability in how assessment results are reported and in trainee competency. Additional research evaluating health service psychology training should utilize student participants so that direct evaluations of competency and outcomes are possible.

Health service psychology education and training in the time of COVID-19: Challenges and opportunities.

“…Currently, competency is most commonly evaluated through locally adapted rating measures with poor or unknown psychometric properties (Callahan & Watkins, 2018). However, research and resources are emerging to support standardized and validated competency ratings (e.g., Price, Callahan, & Cox, 2017) and performance-based competency evaluations (e.g., Ingram, Cribbet, & Schmidt, 2019; Meghani & Ferm, 2019). Given that many trainees will accrue fewer clinical hours during the pandemic, the impetus to more fully adopt direct competency assessment is more pressing than ever, and has the potential to produce long-lasting benefit to HSP.…”

Coursework, instrument exposure, and perceived competence in psychological assessment: A national survey of practices and beliefs of health service psychology trainees.

“…Likewise, neuropsychology coursework was increasingly common in both, likely because of its rise as a specialty (Norcross et al, 2012). Ingram et al (2019) also found that the opportunity for supervised assessment practice was lower than theory-based learning. This discrepancy provides a potential barrier to the critically important integration of knowledge and skill-based competencies (Childs et al, 2002;Mihura et al, 2017) for assessment training outcomes (Callahan, 2015).…”

“…In a departure from training director samples, Ingram et al (2019) evaluated assessment education in personality a convenience sample of trainees from 16 clinical and counseling PhD programs. In general, training director and trainee report were largely similar with respect to instrument exposure frequency and coursework.…”

“…A lack of training in assessment has been linked with deficiencies in their use (Cook et al, 2017). Accordingly, knowledge of educational training trends provides a means through which standards of training may be developed and by which sufficiency of training programs may be evaluated (Ingram, Cribbet, & Schmidt, 2019). Research examining assessment training have typically utilized training directors, who report the aggregated educational exposure and performance competency typical of their program.…”

“…Despite providing a novel measurement of assessment training trends using HSP trainees, the study by Ingram et al (2019) was limited in several ways. It included only PhD programs from 16 training programs and focused exclusively on personality measures.…”