关键词: 临床心理学, 咨询心理学, 专业胜任力, 测量与评估

Abstract: Since the 1980s, scholars have been advancing competency-based training for clinical and counseling psychology. Researchers and experts from various countries have reached general consensus on the core competencies encompassing professional psychology competence, and have generated observable and measurable behavioral benchmarks for the attainment of these competencies. The Licensing boards of the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, and China adhere to competence frameworks that share similar competencies. Organizing training activities and accreditation according to the established competence frameworks is regarded as the best practice for the clinical and counseling psychology profession. To put competency-based training and evaluation into practice, a number of tools have been developed to evaluate professional competence of trainees and psychologists, of which supervisor-rated multi-item multidimensional Likert-type ratings are the most widely implemented method. However, psychometric research lags behind the implementation of competency assessment, and it is unknown the extent to which commonly used competency measurements map onto the established competence frameworks. As China transitions from non-degree-seeking counselor training to systematic counselor training in degree-seeking academic programs, the need is more than ever to develop competency-based accreditation guidelines consistent with the Chinese competence framework, for which fair, reliable and ecologically valid competency assessment is the foundation. To provide recommendations for competency-based training programs of clinical and counseling psychology in China, the standards and methods of competence evaluation were reviewed and discussed. Five published tools were reviewed, of which three were supervisor-rated Likert-type rating forms, one was a rating form for case reports and oral defense, and one was a computer-assisted vignette-based supervisor-rated measure. After comparing these tools against the established competence frameworks, gaps were observed. Specifically, the majority of the published tools focused on evaluating core clinical competencies (communication and interpersonal skills, assessment and intervention), but lacked measurement representation or specificity in foundational competencies that involve attitudes and values (ethical and legal standards, individual and cultural diversity, professional values and attitudes) and advanced functional competencies (supervision, consultation and interprofessional/interdisciplinary skills, management/administration, advocacy). For the two Likert-type measures that include assessment of foundational competencies, research indicated that supervisors could not effectively discriminate between professional attitudes from clinical competencies. This suggested that formal competency assessment was particularly weak in assessing the demonstration of professional attitudes and values, and programs continued to rely on course completion or knowledge-based tests to assess advanced functional competencies. Furthermore, the extant research on supervisor-rated Likert-type rating forms revealed serious limitations in structural validity and rater bias, which threated the validity of competence evaluation and ultimately the quality of the profession. Despite the common use of case reports and case presentations in training, only one assessment tool has been published that evaluates competencies using clinical case reports, and no psychometric research has been conducted. We recommend that Chinese counselor training programs (1) supplement supervisor ratings of clinical competencies using Likert-type scales with supervisory team meetings and video-based third-party evaluation to control for rater bias, (2) simplify supervisor ratings of professional attitudes and values such that they only rate below-expectation performance to accentuate their “gatekeeping” role and increase assessment validity, and (3) solidify the definition and operationalization of competency attainment for advanced functional competencies and explore alternative evaluation methods such as a portfolio format. More research is needed to translate and validate assessment tools, and evaluate case-report-based, video-based and vignette-based measurements, or else the significant halo effect and leniency bias observed in Likert-type assessments runs the risk of compromising the quality of the clinical and counseling psychology profession. The Chinese accreditation process should ensure that a training program has established a comprehensive and valid framework of competency-based training, uses the established framework as a blueprint for education and training activities, and implements fair and valid multi-trait, multi-method and multi-informant competency assessments.

Key words: clinical psychology, counseling psychology, professional competence, assessment and evaluation