Competency-Based Continuing Education in Health Service Psychology: Ensuring Quality, Recommendations for Change

• Published in: Professional psychology, research and practice Vol. 50; no. 2; pp. 106 - 112
• Main Authors: Grus, Catherine L, Rozensky, Ronald H
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Washington American Psychological Association 01-04-2019
• Subjects: Change agents; Competency tests; Continuing Education; Design; Education; Educational Attainment Level; Educational Quality; Health Care Psychology; Health Education; Health psychology; Health services; Human; Interdisciplinary aspects; Learning; Medical personnel; Professional Competence; Psychological assessment; Psychology Education; Quality control; Training; Transformation; competence; continuing education
• ISBN: 9781433892615; 1433892618
• ISSN: 0735-7028; 1939-1323
• DOI: 10.1037/pro0000218

Recent years have seen growing attention to ensuring the quality of continuing education (CE) across the health professions, including calls for transformation to a system that is specifically designed to foster, and is accountable for, ensuring competency. Competency-based education and training approaches have been widely adopted within other levels of education and training in psychology and across the health professions. A competency-based approach to the design of CE activities would facilitate transformation of the design and delivery of CE activities, thus providing opportunity for greater quality assurance. This article provides a brief history of competency-based education in psychology, including concordant efforts in other health professions. Factors that challenge the movement toward greater incorporation of a competency approach in CE will be described. These include a system designed around discrete learning opportunities, the focus on hours of instruction, learner preferences, and common assessment approaches. Current drivers for change exist that, if coupled with a focus on competency-based education, may expedite transformation, including policy recommendations, interprofessional collaborative practice as a service delivery model, and the shift toward value-based payment in health care. Recommendations for facilitating this transformation are presented.
Public Significance Statement
This article discusses transforming continuing education for psychologists through greater adoption of competency-based approaches to the design and assessment of continuing education activities. Challenges, drivers for change, and recommendations are described.