National Psychology Exam: Student thoughts?

As most of us students know, the PBA is developing a National Psychology Examination, which will be implemented from 1 July 2013. This exam will be for students moving onto general registration. A consultation paper was released by the PBA late last year, which has some updates about the exam. Well worth a read (Click here for the link).

Just a few things I found interesting in the consultation paper:

According to the document, graduates of accredited Masters, Doctorate and combined Masters/PhD programs who apply for general registration until 30 June 2016 will be exempt from having to sit the exam. In other words, merely being enrolled in a degree before that date is not sufficient to be ‘safe' and that we will need to complete our degree, graduate, and apply for general registration before the due date. Having said that, the PBA will review this exemption after the due date and it may turn out that the exemption will be extended.

While specific details of the exam are yet to be released by the PBA, the document states that the exam will be in multiple choice format. Areas in which candidates will need to demonstrate their knowledge include the usual suspects that are pretty standard to postgraduate psychology degrees (e.g., ethics and confidentiality). Other areas of competence, however, seem to have caused a bit of a stir (see the ‘submissions received’ section – this is definitely my favour of the bunch :D), namely the focus on competence in several specific psychological tests (i.e. WAIS-IV, WISC-IV, DASS), which has been argued to discount some fields of psychology (e.g. Organisational Psychologists and Sports Psychologists) and favour others.

Stay tuned to the PBA website for more updates on the exam.

If students would like to voice their opinion on the exam (the good and the bad), don’t hesitate to comment to this blog. As always, CCN students are encouraged to email their state student representative if they have any detailed concerns/comments related to this issue that they might want forwarded onto the national committee.