USEFUL TERMS

In the following cells there are usually two clickable copies of the  article.  The first one is generally a link to an external site;  the second is a cached copy which has been stripped of miscellaneous material.  The original copy will connect you to other links on its parent site; the cached copy is generally easier to read but may be out-of-date. 

Foreign Credential Evaluation in the United States

by Holly O'Neil West

Ms West begins by appearing to understand the problem but, in the end, has no other solution to offer but an acceptance of the inequitable status quo.

International Psychologists are Trained by Varying Degrees 

by Rosemary Lyndall Wemm

Article in the APS Student Notebook, March 2001

Erratum:  The IB is equivalent to a tertiary entrance Australian Senior Secondary Certificate, not the Australian Year 11, as printed. 

There have been changes in the Australian system since this article was printed.  See comments below under "A comparison between Australian and American Education in Psychology."

   Internationalizing the Psychology curriculum

by Anthony J. Marsella

Psychology International,  Spring 2001

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Psychologists seek cross-national consensus on  competency standards

 by Paul D. Nelson

Psychology International,  Spring 2001

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ASPPB Guidelines for Defining a Doctoral Degree in Psychology

Education and Credentialing in Psychology meeting, 1977

These rules haven't changed in nearly 30 years.  They continue to be applied to non-American systems of education - and they still don't fit.  There is a mismatch between degree name and program content.  What the ASPPB actually requires is a degree called a doctorate that contains the content of most professionally accredited non-US undergraduate degrees which include a pre-or post graduation internship.  The better the quality of the nation’s educational program the more unlikely it is to be permitted to offer a doctoral degree at this low level.

A comparison between Australian and American Education in Psychology

by Rosemary Lyndall Wemm

Article comparing Australian and US methods for training psychologists.  

Erratum:  Statistics on US training should include an additional post-doctoral year of internship.  

A number of things have changed in the Australian system since this article was written.

The Victorian Education Department has removed the naive Year 12 comparison study from its Web Site and replaced it with material which very clearly states that an American High School Diploma does not usually reach the standard of a Victorian Higher School Certificate.

University admission pages outline minimum course admission requirements, including those for international students.  The NOOSR Web Site states that American students who are admitted to Australian universities are frequently reported to “have a lot to catch up”.

The basic accredited professional psychology sequence is now six years in length [up to five years of F/T training in psychology] which reflects what has been a reality for some time.  Post-graduation internships are being replaced by intra-degree internships. 

Psychology faculties are increasingly employing professionally-accredited psychologists to teach clinical skills. More professional doctorates have been created, typically by extending the research component by a year and requiring that the thesis meet the standards expected of Masters by Research candidates. 

State Psychology registration boards now all have Web Pages and on-line files of registered psychologists.

NOOSR has clarified its position as an assessor of qualifications for the purposes of immigration or general employment but not for professional accreditation or entry to academic study. 

The Australian Psychological Society now provides a wealth of data on its Web Site about its role as the official evaluator for international qualifications in psychology as well as its role as the accrediting body of the Nation's professional psychology programs.   The detailed criteria for Australian psychology course accreditation which the Web Site provides, make it clear that few, if any, US psychology programs called PhD or DPsy would qualify for those labels under the Australian course criteria. 

As a seminal article in this area, it appears to have facilitated a lot of action.

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Milwaukee Symposium

1997

Criteria used by NACES, and other US credential evaluating agencies, to determine the US equivalency of a non-US qualification.   This simple arithmetical method starts counting from the wrong place, and then counts the wrong things from thereon.   It begins with an inflated view of the level reached by the typical graduate of a four-year US High School program and proceeds on the assumption that the US HS system caters to a less select population than "other countries".   The original TIMSS report data do not support this contention.  The USA was not shown to have significantly greater measures of educational spread than higher scoring nations at any stage of primary or secondary schooling.  

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The Original TIMSS Report

This study rocked the US educational establishment because it provided unequivocal evidence of the contentions made by other developed countries:  that the USA was educationally about two years behind the rest of the world from as early as the 7th Grade, and certainly by the end of US High School.  The embarrassment of the first studies has been avoided in later replications due to the simple expediency of excluding any further studies of students beyond Year 8.   

All you ever wanted to know about the US educational system - and a good deal you didn't.

This cell connects to a page which contains a large number of links relating to this topic, including links to other pages with extensive links.  By the time you have finished reading this lot you may know more about the US educational anarchy  than the average American College graduate.  

Strategies for challenging discriminatory barriers to foreign credential recognition

by Mary Cornish, Elizabeth McIntyre & Amanda Pask

Toronto, 1999 & 2000

A model which internationally-trained psychologists would do well to use as a basis for lobbying.

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International comparisons of secondary school performance.

This cell connects to a Page with links to material relating to international comparisons of High School content, performance and comparative evaluations.  

 (Also see the material on the TIMSS)