Evidence-based training

What is it about?

Any psychologist in the course of his or her professional career will affect thousands of lives. It stands to reason then that the training of psychologists is, in its own way, a systems-level intervention with tremendous social impact. In the ideal world, training, like other interventions, would be grounded in evidence. But what exactly do we know about the science of training? Elsewhere in this same issue, we address that question by providing a literature review of empirically-grounded, evidence-based studies pertaining to: (a) admissions, curriculum, and research training; (b) prepracticum and practicum training; and (c) supervision, competency, and internship training. In this opening commentary to that series of articles, we conceptualize training as a systems-level intervention that is perhaps the most impactful intervention available to our field. We provide a rationale for our evidence-based training-focused literature review and an overview of our search methods herein. We provide commentary on perceived barriers to evidence-based training and identify tribalism as being particularly pernicious to this perspective. We argue that data, not tribalism, should drive educational decisions and actions, particularly given that training significantly impacts our discipline and the public it serves.

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