Methods of assessing scientific competency in health service psychology master’s programs.

Abstract

The growing need for health service psychology (HSP) practitioners in the United States is unlikely to be filled by doctoral providers given the time and cost necessary to train psychologists. The shortage may be better addressed by master’s-level providers. However, master’s-level training presents unique challenges compared to doctoral training such as shorter training periods and greater variability in training experiences. While doctoral training has been moving toward a competency-based training model, master’s-level training can also benefit from adopting competency-based assessments. Moreover, we put forward that scientific competence is imperative to ethical and effective master’s-level practice. To support the competency-based assessment movement in HSP master’s programs, we outline assessment methods for scientific competence that can be feasibly and practically adopted by diverse training programs.

Scientific competence and health service psychology master’s training: An outline for an applied methodology course.

“…Importantly, while this proposed course provides a roadmap for the content that we believe is necessary to achieve scientific competence, assessment of scientific competencies among master’s-level trainees is still necessary. Although methods of proximal assessment of scientific competencies have been outlined elsewhere (Botanov et al, 2022), more distal outcomes (e.g., activities, attitudes, values, and clinical practices) are likely to run a continuum. On the aspirational applied end of that continuum, master’s-level HSP practitioners would integrate all aspects of the course into their clinical practice, including staying abreast of the extant clinical research literature, making adoption of practice tools based on an understanding of clinical research methodology and statistics, and implementing MBC.…”

“…-Leonardo da Vinci, Leonardo da Vinci's Notebooks (Da Vinci, 1906, p. 212) As the American Psychological Association (APA) gets closer to accrediting master's programs in health service psychology (HSP; APA, 2021a; Worrell et al, 2018), it is incumbent on training programs to ensure that master's prepared psychology practitioners advance the scientific standards that distinguish HSP from other master's-level mental health practitioners (Baker et al, 2008;Berenbaum et al, 2021;Washburn, 2019). While the importance of scientific competency for master's-level training has been outlined in the extant literature (e.g., Botanov et al, 2022;Cooper et al, 2020) and in the Standards of Accreditation for master's programs (APA, 2021a), there are few resources available regarding the content necessary to achieve scientific competency. To provide programs a roadmap for incorporating the necessary content for science-based HSP master's training, we provide an outline for an applied methodology course designed to achieve scientific competency at the master's level (see Figure 1 for a template syllabus).…”

“…In brief, numerous competencies (e.g., common factors, professional values, intervention) are necessary for master's-level practice. Additionally, we highlighted that scientific competency (Botanov et al, 2022) is paramount for efficacious and ethical practice because it informs many of the other competencies. For instance, decades of research and a large body of literature (Gaines & Goldfried, 2021) have examined numerous common factors, especially the therapeutic alliance.…”