A. The Science-Practice Relationship in Professional Psychology and the Shift from a Practitioner Scholar to Practitioner Scientist.

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1 Switching to the PhD: Explaining the Change from Practitioner-Scholar to Practitioner-Scientist Model and Planned Transition from Awarding Degree from PsyD to PhD Since the early 2000s, our program faculty and students have been discussing and planning for a switch from offering the current Doctor of Psychology Degree (PsyD) in Clinical and School Psychology to offering a Doctor of Philosophy Degree in Psychology (PhD). In 2004 the state accrediting body approved the program to confer the PhD degree. Although we hoped to maintain continuous accreditation during this transition, it was deemed by the APA s Commission on Accreditation that we must initiate the PhD program and then seek accreditation. It is our plan to seek accreditation in This document articulates in detail: a) our shift in the program model from a practitionerscholar to a practitioner-scientist model and articulate precisely what that means and lay out in detail why the shift is simultaneously important but also not a radical change; b) why changes in faculty additions since 2003 move the program toward a PhD; c) how the program is intentionally shifting from scholarship in areas of theory and training to more explicit focus on the production of lines of original research; d) what exactly the proposed changes to the admissions process, curriculum, competencies, and dissertation will entail; e) the timeline for the changes; and f) data from student and faculty surveys indicating support for the shift. A. The Science-Practice Relationship in Professional Psychology and the Shift from a Practitioner Scholar to Practitioner Scientist. As those who have studied the issue know, the relationship between science and practice in professional psychology has always been a primary area of focus, controversy, and discussion. Our program finds it helpful to think in terms of the relationship between science and practice in terms being a dichotomy, a dialectic, and a dimension. Viewing science and professional practice as a dichotomy characterizes them as fundamentally different entities that function to serve different goals in society. Specifically, the psychological scientist generates knowledge, whereas the practitioner utilizes that knowledge to help people. According to our perspective, although of course there are should always be connections and information flows between them, the professional practice of psychology can justifiably be considered a fundamentally different entity and institution that requires different training, skills, and dispositions than the science. In short, we support the idea that a pure practitioner model of training could be appropriate and viable. We also believe it is useful to view the relationship between the science and profession as a dialectic, whereby the emphasis is on understanding the mindset, mission, and purpose of practitioners in relationship to scientists and then proceeding to consider reality from each perspective. The excellent article by Adams and Miller (2008) exemplifies the importance of thinking dialectically about the relationship between science and practice. Viewing the science and the professional practice as being on a dimension characterizes the activities of practitioners in relationship to scientists and then considers the relative emphasis. In this light, we can see that there may well be needs to train individuals at multiple points on the continuum. Indeed, we see the various training models as lining up on such a dimension and we believe that the field needs psychologists on each point of the continuum. We provide this

2 background to share how we think about these issues and to set the stage for clearly articulating the model shift we are proposing in conjunction with our plan to shift to a PhD. The following diagram places various models of training the dimension of emphasis on research relative to professional practice. On the practice extreme, is the pure practitioner model and on the research extreme is the clinical scientist model. In the middle areas and leaning respectively toward practice relative to science are the practitioner scholar model and the scientist practitioner Models of Training on the Spectrum between Science and Practice Pure Practitioner Practitioner-Scholar Scientist-Practitioner Clinical Scientist More PSYD More PHD Proposed shift from a 3 to a 3.5 model. The utility of this diagram is in the fact that it sets the stage for us to clearly articulate where our program has been and where it has moved to in the year. Specifically, in terms of our training emphasis, we have historically been within the practitioner scholar model of training, although leaning toward the research end, relative to other practitioner programs. In terms of the meaning of the 1 to 7 scale, we are referring to the conception used in the Insider s Guide to Graduate Programs in Clinical and Counseling Psychology (Norcross, Sayette, & Mayne, 2008). We have historically been a 3 on the scale and are moving to a 3.5. In accordance with that shift, we have and are continuing to make a series of program changes move us further the direction of producing original lines of research. The changes have moved us into a gray area of overlap between the practitioner scholar model and the scientist practitioner model. It is because we are now seeing our program in this area of training that we have decided to label the model practitioner scientist. The reason that did not shifting to a traditional Boulder model label is because we still want as our primary emphasis and mission to train outstanding practicing psychologists, and it would imply a greater shift than we are intending to make in model and philosophy. At the same time, given that the PsyD degree was constructed in close connection with the practitioner scholar model of training, it seemed inconsistent to remain a practitioner scholar model, while switching from the PsyD to the PhD. It is also important to note in this context that historically, our program considered its training model to be practitioner scientist (e.g., in the 1996 Self-Study). At that time, we had not explicitly defined the model in relationship to either the Vail or the Boulder Model, and the CoA asked that we clarify the nature of our model in relationship to those existing models. In 2003, we did so by deciding at that time the Vail model was a better match given our primary focus on producing leading professional psychologists. However, it is clear that our model has always been between a Vail and Boulder Model, and we are now in a position to articulate that and fully embrace the label practitioner-scientist for our model.

3 It is also our hope this diagrammatic representation clarifies why we simultaneously do not see the shift in the program as radical or inevitably results in multiple ripples throughout the structure and delivery of the training. That is, by explicitly illustrating how we are moving from being on the scholarship and research side of the PsyD to now being on the more practice side of the PhD continuum, we are attempting to clarify the precise nature of the shift in our model as we see it. We would also like to reiterate that our program, relative to many practitioner oriented programs, has always had a strong focus on both scholarship and scientific research. B. Changes in Faculty since 2003 Since 2003, three new faculty have been added to the CI program and one faculty, Dr. Tim Schulte, left the program (although remains an adjunct and heavily involved in practica training by virtue of his directing the university-based clinics). Dr. Tim Schulte has a PsyD degree from JMU, whereas the three faculty that were added, Drs. Henriques, Savina, and Stokes, each have PhD degrees and were each trained in scientist practitioner models from research oriented universities. Drs. Stewart and Shealy also have PhDs and Dr. Cobb has her EdD. Thus, none of the core faculty have PsyDs, which creates problems simply at the level of examples and role modeling. Moreover, the three added faculty, Drs. Henriques, Stokes, and Savina, all have histories of developing successful lines of clinical research and the climate in the program is shifting to grow these lines. C. Emerging Research Teams and Lines of Original Research In our view, the primary differentiating factor associated with PhD training in professional psychology is training in the ability to produce original lines of research. Over the past decade our program has been a leader in the field in terms of scholarship pertaining to training and theoretical and philosophical psychology. As a group, we are now committed to beginning to translate those developments and others into sustainable, cumulative lines of research and brief description of these follows. Dr. Henriques has published extensively on his new unified theory of psychology; however, in the last year he has shifted his focus to develop lines of data driven research. Specifically, he has developed in the past year a questionnaire to tap into one of the key aspects of the unified theory and has laid out a series of predictions pertaining to the structure of personality that he has started to collect data on, recently resulting in three professional poster presentations with students at the annual Eastern Psychological Association Conference. He has also chaired three dissertations that explore the conceptual implications that his unified theory of psychology has for psychotherapy and is now in a position to develop treatment protocols that can be investigated empirically. Specifically, he has developed an integrated treatment protocol, and comprehensive intake assessment package, and outcome assessment and is planning on launching a line of psychotherapy outcome research. In the early 2000s, Dr. Shealy played a crucial, leading role in the development of C-I doctoral training models. In the mid 2000s, Dr. Shealy shifted his attention to his scholarly emphasis on beliefs and values, establishing the International Beliefs and Values Institute and founding the journal, Beliefs and Values: Understanding the Global Implications of Human Nature. During this time he has also been accumulating an enormous data set on his primary quantitative instrument on beliefs and values, the BEVI (the Beliefs, Events, and Values Inventory). He has recently organized his advisees into a research team and since 2008, has explicitly had his advisees conducting their dissertations on from this dataset. He also has a book in press on beliefs and values.

4 Dr. Trevor Stokes addition to the core faculty clearly sets the stage for significant increases in research focus and opportunity. Dr. Stokes has been recognized of one of the world s top fifty researchers in behavior analysis and therapy. Citation of his publications have been captured over 2000 times by the social science citation index, including a seminal paper in applied behavior analysis with 1000 citations in SSCI. This work on generalization of therapeutic behavior changes is the second most frequently cited article published by the flagship Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis and is a citation classic paper in psychology and special education. He has more than 300 publications and professional presentations, has received more than $2 million in external grants. He, Dr. Anne Stewart, and Dr. Elena Savina form an excellent triad of researcher with specific interests in attachment, parent-child socialization, and parent-child interaction and they have formed an active team of researchers with several students and are developing several lines of original inquiry on autism and disruptive behavior disorders. The core faculty have also formed the establishment of a cross cultural research team. In fall of 2009, Drs. Henriques, Savina, Cobb, and Stokes joined with visiting Professor Dr. Shagufa Kapadia and formed a discussion group called Theory International, which explored cross-cultural issues and possible research avenues for the C-I Students. In the spring, several C-I students, including two international students participated in discussions about engaging in cross cultural research projects based on the groundwork laid by Theory International. Three different research projects have been started, one on Terror Management Theory, one on self-esteem and social influence, and a third on parent-child socialization practices all of which are gathering data in Russia, India, and the US (and some in Costa Rica). D. Changes to the Structure of the Program Mission. Our mission, which is to is to produce leading professional psychologists who are broadly trained in the science and practice of psychology, actively self-reflective, optimally prepared to work in a wide variety of settings with diverse clientele, and demonstrably committed to an ethic of personal responsibility, social awareness, and global engagement, will remain the same. Model. As mentioned above, we changed our model in from practitioner scholar to practitioner scientist. Goals, Objectives, Competencies and Outcomes. In we slightly changed our GOCOs to put somewhat greater emphasis on training in science and research. Previously, our program represented this aspect of training is via the Objective 1-4, Scholarship in Psychology, which articulated our focus on producing graduates who appreciate the value of research and have the capacity to employ applied research methodology in a scholarly manner, and had competencies in literature review, research methodology and the capacity to generate a scholarly product. We changed the Objective into separate Goal, and under it placed two objectives with associated competencies. Thus our program now has 5 broad goals instead of 4. The table below details how this goal reads. Table1: Goal for Producing Researchers in Professional Psychology Goal #3: Researchers in Professional Psychology. To produce professional psychologists who

5 are capable of understanding issues pertaining to research design and methodology and capable of producing their own research. Objective #3-1 Competence in Research. Graduates will demonstrate competence in research design, data analysis, and data interpretation, as well as competence in the critical review and evaluation of the psychological and educational research literature. Competency 3-1-a. Students demonstrate substantial knowledge of and competence in basic quantitative methods and data analysis, research design, and psychological measurement. Competency 3-1-b. Students demonstrate skills in advanced research methods appropriate to conducting their dissertation research. Competency 3-1-c. Students demonstrate the ability to write a critical review of the literature in an area in psychology. Objective #3-2 Capable of Producing Original Research. Graduates are knowledgeable about and capable of generating original research and scholarship, and disseminating the results of their research to the profession and broader community. Competency 3-2-a: Students demonstrate the ability to conduct an independent research project Competency 3-2-b: Students demonstrate practical experience in presenting research findings and other scholarship in contexts such as professional conferences, peer-reviewed journals, and other scholarly outlets Admissions. We made some slight changes to the admissions process. First, we will advertise to prospective students the change in program model. We will explain that we will be placing somewhat higher expectations on research competencies and production. We will also explain that we are moving closer toward a traditional research mentorship model in regards to the dissertation. Curriculum. We added PSYC 606 Measurement Theory. We are also adding some research methods courses to be taken as an option. We will also be making some changes in the Basic Program Requirements, specifically individuals will be strongly encouraged to submit a written research product. Dissertation. The dissertation has always been a rigorous scholarly product in the doctoral program. We are, have made a few minor adjustments to the way the dissertation is approached. In essence we shifted it to be more akin to the way more research oriented universities organize the dissertation. To begin with, we now require that all students have a data based research component to their dissertation. Although the vast majority of dissertations have included such a component, we have in the past allowed individuals to do conceptual dissertations. This will no longer be an option. In addition, we will encourage students more strongly to have their dissertation be a component of the research team and tradition that their faculty member is engaged in. Thus we will likely see a decrease in the variety and increase in focus of the dissertations, ideally with more dissertations being parts of cumulative research traditions. E. Timeline for the Transition to PhD and Accreditation In the fall of 2011 we will accept individuals into the PhD degree program. It is our plan that one year later, in the fall of 2012 we will submit a self-study to the CoA for accreditation of the PhD

6 program. We hope to be accredited by the spring of F. Data from student and faculty surveys indicating support for the shift The core faculty, the associate faculty and other contributors, as well as the Department, College and University at large strongly support the shift and have supported it since In 2010, we surveyed current students and alumni to see what the attitudes were of our students. Of course, we have had on-going discussions with the students and it was clear that in general our students supported it. At a vote during one of our pizza process meetings in the fall of 2009, for example, all 14 of the on-campus supported the shift. However, that survey was not anonymous and did not include alumni, so we inquired in an anonymous current student and alumni survey, about attitudes regarding the shift. Specifically, we asked students to rate, from 1 to 5, their support of switching to the PhD. The frequency and mean data are as follows: Current Students (n = 14) Alumni (n = 41) 1 Strongly Against 2 Somewhat Against 3 Neutral/ Mixed 4 Somewhat For 5 Strongly For Mean It is informative to note that the alumni who were most likely to be neutral or against tended to graduate between 1997 and 2001.