Abstract

Psychological assessment continues to be one of the defining, core domains of clinical psychology. The literature consistently reflects the importance of competency in psychological assessment for professional psychologists. In the present exploratory study, the researcher used archival data collected originally by Bates (2016), Faith (2016), and Shipley (2019). The original researchers developed a 32-item questionnaire to explore the perspectives of a national sample of APPIC-member internship directors on psychological assessment practices in internships. Internship directors’ responses from the six most prevalent categories of internship program were examined to determine whether there significant differences across types of internship. The six most common types of internship in the dataset were: community mental health centers (CMHC); Veterans Affairs Medical Centers (VAMC); university counseling centers (UCC); state/county/other public hospitals (SCPH); prison and/or correctional facilities (PC); and consortium programs (CON). Descriptive statistics on the demographic characteristics of the internship directors in the present study (N = 124) were calculated. The questionnaire items selected for focus examined the importance of psychological testing and assessment in the internship program; the importance of assessment-related experience and theoretical knowledge for intern selection decisions; directors’ satisfaction with beginning interns’ assessment-related experience and knowledge; specific assessment measures that directors prefer interns to have experience with prior to internship; and psychological measures introduced in the internship program in the prior 5 years. Participants’ responses to several open-ended items were also examined for themes across the six types of internship. The findings confirmed the continued importance of psychological assessment across internship categories. UCC internship directors, however, reported significantly less emphasis on psychological assessment than directors from other categories. Internship directors reported moderate emphasis on assessment-related experience and knowledge in making intern selection decisions. The directors also reported moderate satisfaction with the assessment-related experience and knowledge of beginning interns. Between-group findings revealed that VAMC directors were significantly less satisfied with incoming interns’ assessment-related theoretical knowledge than UCC and SCPH directors. A small but noteworthy number of internship directors recommended that more emphasis on psychological assessment is needed at the pre-internship level.

Library of Congress Subject Headings

Dissertations (PsyD) -- Psychology; Clinical psychology -- Study and teaching (Internship); Psychodiagnostics; Psychologists -- Training of

Date of Award

2019

School Affiliation

Graduate School of Education and Psychology

Department/Program

Psychology

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctorate

Faculty Advisor

Keatinge, Carolyn;

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