Competency Assessment Toolkit for professional psychology.

TLDR

Professional psychology has a long history of competency initiatives and is moving toward a culture of competency, raising implementation challenges. The paper presents a toolkit for assessing the competence of students and practitioners in professional psychology. The toolkit comprises specific assessment methods, each described with best use, psychometrics, strengths, challenges, and future directions.

Abstract

A “toolkit” for professional psychology to assess student and practitioner competence is presented. This toolkit builds on a growing and long history of competency initiatives in professional psychology, as well as those in other health care disciplines. Each tool is a specific method to assess competence, appropriate to professional psychology. The methods are defined and described; information is presented about their best use, psychometrics, strengths and challenges; and future directions are outlined. Finally, the implications of professional psychology’s current shift to a “culture of competency,” including the challenges to implementing ongoing competency assessment, are discussed.