Preliminary Validation of a New Competency Tool for Evaluating Assessment Skills in Professional Psychology Trainees

Psychological assessment skills are a core competency that professional psychology trainees are required to develop and demonstrate on their path to registration. Competency tools provide a structured method of assessing trainee skills, however, few are validated in psychology and there are none specific to assessment skills. This study aimed to validate a newly developed competency measure for psychology trainees, the Psychology Competency Evaluation Tool for Assessment Skills (PsyCET-A). Fourteen clinical supervisors of neuropsychology trainees, who were experts in psychological assessment, evaluated the content validity of the PsyCET-A using the Delphi method of consensus. The experts reached consensus on 13 of the initial 15 PsyCET-A items following two Delphi phases, with almost unanimous agreement that the retained items were relevant to skills in psychological assessment within neuropsychology settings. Other aspects of the tool, including the clarity of wording, rating scale, and overall structure, were considered useful by all clinicians, and overall the PsyCET-A was rated as useful or very useful by all experts. These preliminary findings suggest that the PsyCET-A has strong content validity in evaluating assessment skills in neuropsychology trainees and may support supervisors and students in the training process.