Professional training and professional competence: A critique of current thinking.

Contends that professional schools and doctor of psychology programs may well represent the wave of the future in clinical psychology training. Yet advocates of the professional training model are premature in asserting that the model, as it has thus far been defined and evaluated, assures higher standards of professional competence than do traditional programs and should therefore become the official model for training all practitioners. The present study examines these claims from both empirical and pedagogical perspectives. Empirically, there is as yet no support for the superiority of explicit professional programs. Indeed, the lack of valid methods for assessing professional competence precludes meaningful evaluation of any training model. In the absence of empirical support, the new training model is examined in the light of 20th-century philosophy of professional education. From this perspective, the professional model rests on false assumptions concerning both the nature of professional competence and the optimal curriculum for developing competence. (40 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)