Modeling and Measuring Competencies in Higher Education: Tasks and Challenges

What is competence? What is competency?

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The IAAP core competencies and proposed models i. Furthermore, efforts to develop more comprehensive models have been undermined by methodological issues, such as inadequate expert review. Given this, we develop a comprehensive, novel model informed and validated by expert review.

This project sought to use SMEs both practitioner and academics and graduate task-related information to identify the core generic competencies required for postgraduate psychology professional practice.

A systematic, empirical and multi-method approach was adopted. The following research question was addressed: can a competency model for psychologists be developed that reflects the complex and diverse nature of psychology practice? There were two groups of participants. The first group comprised eight participants; two had previous expertise of over 20 years each, in establishing competency models and six were senior psychology academics from three different universities.

Five of the six academics were also registered psychologists. One of the academics was a placement supervisor. This group participated in the modified Delphi process. The second group of participants attended subsequent focus groups i. These participants further refined the model. Ethics approval was granted by Deakin University Human Research Ethics Committee and written and informed consent was obtained from all research participants prior to the project commencing.

Pre-existing data were distributed to the first group of eight participants for their consideration before the Delphi process began.

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Materials comprised: pre-existing data on graduate vocation destinations, course, and units evaluations from two universities. Publically assessable course content that was taught by several other Australian universities was also inspected. Key publications with a focus on psychology competency models were also distributed. The themes were determined and discussed at the first meeting. Delphi techniques are used when the opinions of a group of experts are being sought Broomfield and Humphris, The eight SMEs participated in a modified Delphi methodological process designed to explore psychology competencies.

The participants initially participated in a face-to-face session and thus were known to each other. Following the first session, the authors developed a competency model. The two subsequent sessions were conducted via email. The data from the earlier round and the first version of the competency model were supplied to the participants.

Several questions were asked at each of the three rounds. As no new information emerged, the SME panel participated in three rounds that were conducted over a 5-week timeframe. Focus groups were established following the development of the first version of the competency model. The first version of the psychology competency model was presented to four opportunistic and independently sourced focus groups.

Each focus group comprised practitioners, academics, graduates, and students currently enrolled in a psychology course. These participants were asked to provide feedback and further refine the model. The focus groups were held in three different Australian states. With the consent of the participants, the data were recorded directly onto a laptop and de-identified. The analyses were qualitative, and planned a priori.

For part 1 of the first stage of the procedure, materials were collected, collated, and the data gleaned were inspected and categorized into themes Braun and Clarke, ; Charmaz, The focus of this first part of the analysis was on course content, key features of competency models and gaps in the extant literature.

What IS the difference between competencies and standards?

The second part of stage 1 utilized a Delphi technique wherein opinions of a group of SMEs were sought about the veracity of the themes presented Broomfield and Humphris, Rounds of questioning continued until the information being sought from the participants had converged, with a model being created and refined reiteratively. The second stage of the analyses presented the new model to focus groups. The final input and feedback from focus groups provided the researchers with various perspectives of the model, and subsequently this information helped to crystalize the final form of the model.

Following a review of the pre-existing information in Stage 1, Part 1, three main factors were identified. Second, the need for the competencies to accurately reflect practice was considered highly desirable most of the extant literature provided lists, rather than frameworks, of competencies and thus had limited explanatory power.

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Third, given that the competencies may intersect, the phenomenon was embedded into a new model. The result of the analysis from the Stage 1, Part 2 methodology i. At this stage of the study, consideration was given to how the above list of competencies see Table 2 should be represented in an interrelated model. The first overarching principle of psychology practice was unanimously identified as the presence of the scientist—practitioner model and the exhibition of the consequent knowledge, skills, and behaviors.

To capture the scientist—practitioner process, the four competencies see Figure 1 were adopted as the vertical pillars of the model. The scientist—practitioner process was seen to be an important, but latent feature. A competency model for the practice of psychology was then developed version 1 see Figure 1. The model has a matrix structure; thus, it has both horizontal and vertical features the horizontal bars represent the meta-competencies required for the practice of psychology.

The scientist—practitioner process was also explicitly included and integrated in the model. The focus groups were presented with the first version of the model. These groups subsequently refined the aspects of the model e. The first improvement was to encase the model in a box labeled Health Practice Context to acknowledge that many types of psychologists work in different settings and practice in ways that are responsive to the needs of their various clients, who may be as diverse as individuals, families, organizations, and the community. The second improvement was to use a broken line for the scientist—practitioner arrow to reflect the latent nature of the process.

The final improvement to the model was the inclusion of arrows pointing left and right between the vertical pillars to denote the adaptability of the practitioner to review, revise a case formulation, and ultimately mirror the ongoing evaluation and refinement of practice.

Figure 2 shows this final iteration to the competency model. Participants in the practitioner groups stated that they believed that the model represented psychology practice and was parsimonious. Some educators noted that the model also led to explicit conversations with students as to where corrective learning needs to occur.

One focus group consisted of students and new graduates. An inadequate competency model of the practice of psychology may lead to inadequate measurement methods for competency assessments Zlatkin-Troitschanskaia et al.

There have been national and international calls for a competency model that reflects the diverse and complex nature of the practice of psychology. Competency models represent important signposts and reflect the standards of practice expected by regulators, educators, and the profession generally. A clear model should also accurately indicate the areas in which corrective learning need to be undertaken. The central research question of this study was: can a competency model for psychologists be developed that reflects the complex and diverse nature of psychology practice?

The multi-method approach adopted by this study enabled this question to be answered and delivered a competency model that adequately reflects the practice of psychology. In this study, the researchers first identified an international trend for the use of competencies and competency models within psychology.

They then developed and established a competency model by focusing on the core competencies, underpinned by the scientist—practitioner process, required for the professional practice of psychology. Arrows between these competencies showed the pathway between these core competencies, thus recognizing the fluidity and relationship between these areas of competence. The addition of these alternate pathways is a unique feature of this model. The competency model developed clearly outlines the meta-competencies i.

These meta-competencies should underpin any assessments of work placements and professional practice. Overall, the new model is parsimonious which addresses the criticism of complexity in previous models.

Introduction

This new model also has several advantages in the Australian context. First, its clear elucidation of the professional practice competencies should lead to clearer articulations, assessments, and measurements of professional practice. Further, students, practitioners, and regulatory bodies can use this alternative, contemporary, but accessible competency model.

Second, this model reflects the realization that while students work toward attaining competencies, they often do so by acquiring discrete skill sets embedded in separate coursework units and do not understand how the competencies coherently meld together at the course level. This study showed that students do not understand the overarching principles that drive these competencies within professional practice.

Third, this model addressed the clear need to make these key competencies explicit to students, and to link them to authentic and real-world practice and assessments in a transparent manner. This study sought to address this issue of the lack of a competency model by developing a competency model for the practice of psychology within an Australian context.

The generalizability of this competency model of psychology practice is yet to be tested across other international psychology groups. Further validation of this model would need to be conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of this model. A limitation may be that only a qualitative approach was taken.

For example, in the future, a principal component analysis could be conducted on the responses from the national psychology exam and these results, along with the results of this qualitative process be triangulated. On a practical level, once an agreed model is established, the learning objectives associated with each component and concurrent components of the model could lead to the development of assessments that better reflect real-world practice and that can be empirically tested. The detail of the competencies that sit under each competency is yet to be completed and incorporated.

Aligning the model to actual behaviors in psychology practice will make this model more psychology specific. Indeed the identified meta-competencies align, in part, to some of the competencies described by theorists and educators in interprofessional practice.

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This model proposed a new way of conceptualizing psychology practice. The identification of competencies ideally derived via the adoption of a multi-method approach and the way in which they fit together under the competency model provides an empirical foundation for the use of competencies in the education, regulation, and qualification or credentialing of psychology.

The focus groups further refined, but also supported the competency model for the practice of psychology and may inform teaching, regulation, and the practice of psychology. All subjects gave written informed consent in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki. KT initiated and led the research team. She has written all sections of the paper except for part of the introduction. NR conducted the analysis and developed the first version of the competency model, and wrote part of the introduction.

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest. Baczyriska, A. Proposed core competencies and empirical validation procedure in competency modelling: confirmation and classification.

Barker, K. The use of theoretical models in psychology supervisor development research from to a systematic review. Barlow, S. An application of the competency model to group-specialty practice. Braun, V.

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