Attitudes Toward Psychodiagnostic Testing and Doctoral Clinical Psychology Students' Professional Expectations and Training (open access)

Attitudes Toward Psychodiagnostic Testing and Doctoral Clinical Psychology Students' Professional Expectations and Training

Responses of 111 doctoral clinical psychology students to Garfield and Kurtz' (1973) Testing Attitude Scale were subjected to a 2 x 2 factorial analysis. Attitudes toward psychodiagnostic testing were found to be related both to academic versus nonacademic professional expectations (academics scoring more negatively, M = 32.69, than nonacademics, M = 37.19), F (1, 107) = 5.994, p < 0.016, and to internship training exposure (non-interns scoring more negatively, M = 34.64, than interns, M = 38.80), F (1, 107) = 10.321, p< 0.002. Results paralleled previous research on academic and nonacademic working psychologists' attitudes. Similarities in students' and role models' attitudes were discussed in terms of Kelman's (1953; 1958), Festinger's (1957), and Bem's (1970) attitude theories. Results seemed to imply continued controversy over both the desirability of producing psychodiagnostically oriented clinicians, and also traditional paradigms of psychodiagnostic training.
Date: August 1976
Creator: Steele, J. Richard
System: The UNT Digital Library