Achieving competency in psychological assessment: directions for education and training

Abstract

This article provides an overview of issues related to the development and evaluation of competency in psychological assessment. Specifically, we delineate the goals, ideas, and directions identified by the psychological assessment work group in the Competencies Conference: Future Directions in Education and Credentialing in Professional Psychology. This is one of a series of articles published in this issue of the Journal of Clinical Psychology. Several other articles that resulted from the Competencies Conference will appear in Professional Psychology: Research and Practice and The Counseling Psychologist. The psychological assessment group was charged with the tasks of: (a). identifying the core components of psychological assessment competency; (b). determining the central educational and training experiences that will aid competency development; (c). explicating strategies for evaluating competence; and (d). establishing future directions for furthering the identification, training, and evaluation of competence in psychological assessment. We present a set of eight core competencies that we deemed important for achieving psychological assessment competency and discuss four guidelines for training in the domain of psychological assessment. A variety of methods for evaluating competencies in this domain are suggested, with emphasis on using a collaborative model of evaluation. Recommendations for future directions include strengthening the academic prerequisites for graduate school training; increasing training in culturally sensitive measures; incorporating innovative assessment-related technologies into training; and addressing discontinuities between academic training, internship, and practice environments.