by Alan G. Kraut, PCSAS Executive Director
Here’s all you need to know about PCSAS:
43 10 53 98
4 90 28 15
13 73 97 2
Got it?
Okay, maybe you do need a little info behind those numbers.
43 PCSAS Programs
That’s the number of PCSAS programs to date.
4 of the Newest
To give a better sense of both who we are and our momentum, the four newest PCSAS programs, accredited in the just the last few months are University of Texas-Austin, University of Michigan, Michigan State University, and Yale.
13 Years Old
PCSAS was created as a separately incorporated nonprofit organization in 2007. That means we are thirteen years old this year. Yes, it is our Bar Mitzvah year! (Presents accepted.)
10 Years of Accrediting
True, we are thirteen years old, but we only started accrediting programs ten years ago. Our first program was the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) when it was accredited for up to ten years. UIUC also became the first PCSAS program to be renewed. This starts a whole flock of renewing programs (flock= three or more PCSAS programs). 6-7 programs will be renewing each year for the next few years. Combine that with our usual 3-5 new programs per year and you will see
that PCSAS is still flying high.
90% Reliability
This one is about the internal reliability of PCSAS accreditation and it needs a little more explanation than the rest.[i] But the upshot is that looking back over the first ten years of accreditation applications showed that today’s reviewers agreed 90% of the time (an ICC of .90) with the original reviewers from up to 10 years ago over whether any particular PCSAS graduate either was or wasn’t a clinical scientist after graduation. Not only is an ICC of .90 considered excellent, but we know of no other accreditation system (or any reviewing system for that matter!) that has taken this kind of internal and transparent look at their processes.
Now onto two external validity results of this same study:
73% of PCSAS Graduates Practice
PCSAS often is mischaracterized as accrediting programs that train only researchers and, yes, we are proud of the research that comes from our students and graduates. But research never is the sole focus of PCSAS-accredited programs. Evaluating a program’s clinical training takes up the most time and effort for each PCSAS site visit team and in every Review Committee meeting. Sure enough, 73% of PCSAS graduates over our first ten years reported engaging in clinical service delivery in their current positions. PCSAS graduates practice!
53% of PCSAS Graduates are Federally Funded Investigators
We say that PCSAS promotes the integration of research and practice – that practice should inform research and vice versa. In support, we found that, first, 53% of PCSAS graduates between 5-10 years out reported being investigators on federal research grants. Second, we think that a combined look at these two last figures – the 73% of PCSAS graduates who are involved in clinical service delivery from above and the 53% of PCSAS graduates who have federally funded research projects (with lots of overlap) – provides pretty good evidence of the integration of research and practice that PCSAS promotes.
28% of the U.S. Population
PCSAS graduates are trained to practice, but are they being allowed to practice? They are eligible to be licensed because PCSAS graduates also are APA graduates and APA graduates can be licensed in all 50 states. Now, we need to change individual state licensing laws and regulations to specifically recognize PCSAS in addition to APA. We are well on our way. Michigan became the latest to recognize PCSAS graduates just weeks ago. Other states recognizing PCSAS include the high population states of California, New York, and Illinois. Other states recognize PCSAS, too. In sum, 28% of the U.S. population now live in states where our graduates can be licensed based solely on their PCSAS accreditation.
97% Pass
So PCSAS graduates can be licensed in a growing number of states, but are they qualified? How do they do on state licensing exams? The latest numbers from the Association of State and Provincial Psychology Boards (ASPPB), the group that created the national licensing exam, is that 97% of PCSAS graduates pass the national licensing exam wherever they take it. The comparable figure for the entire population of students accredited by the APA or the Canadian Psychological Association or designated by ASPPB is 81%. (That 81% includes PCSAS graduates. Take them out and the number is even lower.) Similarly, PCSAS graduates do better on every subtest of the national exam.
98% Match
What about PCSAS students getting internships? Internships also are a critical part of clinical science training. According to the most recent 6-year data on internship placements by the Association of Psychology Postdoctoral and Internship Centers (APPIC), PCSAS students have an internship “match” rate of well over 90% – up to 98% depending on definitional terms – compared to under 80% for non-PCSAS students.
15 Programs on Being Solely PCSAS-Accredited
As PCSAS gains traction in more states, we also are being increasingly recognized by the federal government and others. They include the VA, NIH, APPIC, COGDOP, SSCP, CUDCP, APS, SRP, ABCT and various other alphabetical combinations. This recognition has given more and more PCSAS programs (flocks of them) the confidence to announce that they may choose to be solely PCSAS-accredited. Fifteen PCSAS programs – that’s 35% of them – have posted such statements on their websites. Others are contemplating similar action.
2 Programs Announce Their Timeline
The University of California-Berkeley and Stony Brook University have gone further than any other of the fifteen PCSAS programs above. Berkeley and Stony Brook have taken the courageous step of saying they will become solely PCSAS-accredited when their current APA accreditation expires.
Like I said: 43…4…13…10…90…73…53…28…97…98…15…2!
The data used here can be found on the PCSAS website: https://www.pcsas.org/
[i] Endnote: The PCSAS Reliability & Validity Study
A decade of accrediting was the signal to the PCSAS Review Committee to conduct research on how we were doing. (Hey, we’re a science group!). In what is now being prepared for publication by Teresa Treat (Univ of Iowa), Bob Simons (Univ of Delaware) and Greg Miller (UCLA), the PCSAS Review Committee looked back over a random sample of PCSAS graduates from our first ten years to classify them as clinical scientists or not in their post-PhD careers. And today’s reviewers used the same program application materials that the original reviewers did from 2009-2019 to see if today’s reviewers would come up with the same or different classifications.
Why this outcome? Because the notion of who is or isn’t a clinical scientist after graduation is the most important metric in the entire PCSAS review process. This from the PCSAS Review Criteria: “[T]he sine qua non for a program to receive a favorable Review Committee decision is clear and compelling documentation that the program has built a solid record of successfully producing graduates, the majority of whom have gone on to lead productive careers as psychological clinical scientists.” Makes sense, right? A clinical science program should train clinical scientists.
We say there are many ways to train a clinical scientist. That’s what’s behind the PCSAS emphasis on flexibility. The key question is, what do students do after they graduate? Sure, PCSAS graduates should treat patients according to the best empirical evidence, but acting as clinical scientists means something else, too. Things like, do PCSAS graduates contribute to new clinical research? Do they widely disseminate empirically validated treatments through workshops, teaching, and presentations? Do they develop new or evaluate ongoing clinical protocols? Are they involved in policy? You get the idea.
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this newsletter are those of the authors alone and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Psychological Clinical Science Accreditation System (PCSAS).