Tag Archives: diversity

Let’s Get Funded!

This blog post is a part of the series, “CARED Perspectives,” developed by the APAGS Committee for the Advancement of Racial and Ethnic Diversity. This series will discuss current events and how these events relate to graduate students in psychology. If you are interested in contributing to the CARED Perspectives series, please contact Elizabeth Louis.

During my educational journey, I never imagined that I would be pursuing higher education as a first-generation college student. In my Haitian household, the common expected answers to questions about what I wanted to be when I grew up was the well rehearsed  response of a “doctor or lawyer.” Any other profession seemed not to exist to my Haitian parents. However, the real question that crossed my mind was,  who would be funding my education?

While I excelled in high school to attend a community college (Miami Dade College) and transferred to Georgetown University, I was blessed to receive a need-based scholarship. Yet, when graduate school rolled around, I felt even more clueless about how to fund not only my education, but also my living expenses. I took on the role of being my own personal banker, financial coach, piggy bank, and investor. There have been some noteworthy strategies that I have tried which helped me gain wisdom.  I have come up short on many opportunities because I did not fully understand the audience of selection committees, selected recommenders who were not a good match or failed to seek out answers to my questions. I have learned to reach out to my mentors and colleagues early on for feedback, research scholarships a year or a semester in advance, call scholarship committees that I was initially unsuccessful with, and use my calendar to organize deadlines. I constantly reminded myself to overcome my initial fear of applying to opportunities and let my perseverance be the recipe for success.

When thinking about scholarships, grants, and fellowships there are many opportunities for ethnic/racial graduate students…here’s the BREAK DOWN…(cues a Harlem shake).

Meet with peers, colleagues, mentors, faculty, and staff members –whether you know them or not — to inquire about opportunities in the following areas. You never know where one door will lead you. Also, be sure to follow-up on different funding sources.

  • Department and psychology program
  • School/College in which your program is within
  • Your Institution
    • Dean’s Office
    • The Graduate School
    • Office of Research and Grants
    • Graduate Assistantships
  • Other offices – E.g. International Office, Office of Institutional Diversity

Whether you attend conferences, are a student member of an APA division, or receive news from APAGS, please be diligent in creating connections and fostering relationships outside your school. Also, feel free to ask questions about funding opportunities to support your research and clinical work!

Now do not sleep on search engines like Google, as it can unlock many opportunities.

  • Google
    • American Association of University Women
    • National Science Foundation
    • Southern Regional Education Board Awards
    • Sororities/Fraternities

During my journey in graduate school, I was positioned to look beyond monetary funding but to think creatively of ways to gain priceless experiences and take more ownership of my own finances and budgeting skills.

  • Service – opportunities to serve, share your student perspectives, travel, and learn about other forms of scholarship
    • APA Memorandum of Understanding (e.g. Portugal and other countries)
    • APA Commission on Accreditation Student Member
    • APA Master’s Task Force
  • Invest in Yourself
    • Learn about budgeting and saving strategies (e.g. Qapital, Acorns, David Ramsey)
    • Find an affordable financial coach
    • Keep tabs on your loan(s) and retirement funding (Roth IRA)

I hope that these nuggets of information will help you develop strategies to fund your graduate education, expand your ways of thinking about scholarship, and provide you with support and resources. This journey toward financial stability will have its challenges, yet can be extremely rewarding. Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions or other resources that I have not listed here.

Also, click here for a listing of additional funding opportunities that will be added on the APAGS CARED website. Wishing you all the best…kenbe la (hold on and press on)!

Elizabeth Louis, PhD

APAGS Grants $12,000 to Advance Diversity in Doctoral Programs

The American Psychological Association of Graduate Students (APAGS) Committee has recently selected four grantees and dispersed $12,000 to support the recruitment, retention and leadership training of diverse psychology doctoral students.

Photo by LinkedIn Sales Navigator on Unsplash

Now in its second year, the APAGS Student Diversity Initiative Award provides funding of up to $3,000 per institution to address “leaky pipelines” on the road to successfully completing a doctorate. Efforts will be directed to students and prospective students with traditionally underrepresented identities in race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender, disability, religion, language, socioeconomic status, and age.

We are pleased to present our distinguished awardees:

Howard University

HU’s Counseling Psychology Program will use its funding to address the goal of retaining and recruiting highly qualified diverse students through the creation of a Graduate Education & Training in Psychology Podcast.  The purpose of the podcast is to increase awareness of the doctoral program, provide networking, research, and professional development opportunities for grad students, and even fundraise.

San Diego State University

SDSU’s Joint Doctoral Program (JDP) in Clinical Psychology will use its funding to cultivate and maintain a diverse student body within the doctoral program and clinical psychology at large. The goals will be met via committee initiatives focused on recruitment, retention, mentorship and leadership – for example diversity aimed events, mentoring potential applicants, and hosting a diversity mixer during interviews.

Tennessee State University 

TSU’s Counseling Psychology Program will use its funding to expand the reach and understanding of the program’s Microaggressions Work Group (MWG), a collaboration between students and faculty to facilitate program-wide development concerning microaggressions. It does this through educational and experimental training, member support, and advocacy and awareness.

University of Virginia 

The Black Scholars in Education & Human Development Writing Group has created a space for black doctoral students and postdocs to develop and enhance their writing skills in a community of support. In addition to their monthly writing sessions, the group plans to use funding to convene once a semester for a retreat focused on writing skills and wellness.

APAGS encourages you to consider applying in our fall 2020 cycle.

The Examination for Professional Practice in Psychology (EPPP): What’s race got to do with it?

This blog post is a part of the series, “CARED Perspectives,” developed by the APAGS Committee for the Advancement of Racial and Ethnic Diversity (CARED). This series will discuss current events and issues in psychology and how these relate to graduate students. If you are interested in contributing to the CARED Perspectives series, please contact Aleesha Young, Chair of APAGS-CARED.

By Fiona C. Thomas

Grad school, that time in your life where you are constantly thinking about what milestone comes next. Course completion, Master’s thesis, comps, practica, dissertation proposal, data collection, analysis, publications…and that final training experience…internship. Although it feels like so much of our preparation in grad school is for this near final stage of the internship, there is one more milestone to meet before we can finally refer to ourselves as licensed psychologists – the EPPP.

The Examination for Professional Practice in Psychology (EPPP) was first administered in 1965 (Rehm & Lipkins, 2006) and is now a key requirement to independent practice as a clinical psychologist. It is required for licensing in all US states, three US territories, and the majority of Canadian provinces (DeMers & Schaffer, 2012). After all our years of training, and unique experiences along the way, it is that one shared experience we will all have as we work towards independent practice.

As I prepare to begin internship in September, this next milestone of licensure is on my mind. When do I begin preparing for this exam? What are the most effective methods to study for it? What is the pass rate? It is also timely to be thinking about this exam as a second part to the EPPP, which assesses professional skill, is a new requirement coming to an undisclosed list of jurisdictions in 2020 (Association of State and Provincial Psychology Boards [ASPPB], 2019).

With these questions on my mind, I recently became aware of a study conducted by Dr. Brian Sharpless which found performance discrepancies based on ethnicity (2018). In other words, failure rates were highest for individuals who identified as Black (38.5%), Hispanic (35.6%), Asian (24%), and lowest for those who identified as White (14.07%) (Sharpless, 2018). Interestingly, it was not the first time these findings emerged. In 2013, Sharpless and Barber identified that doctoral programs with greater ethnic diversity also reported lower program-wide EPPP pass rates. Going back almost four decades to an early study on this topic, Werner (1981) similarly found that Whites had an EPPP pass rate almost twice that of any other ethnic group. Reviewing survey data of individuals who graduated between 2005 and 2015 with a doctoral degree in clinical, counseling, school or combined/integrated psychology, Bowman and Ameen (2018) found similar results. In particular, their analysis indicated that White psychologists were significantly more likely to pass the EPPP on the first administration compared to psychologists of color (92 percent vs. 83 percent). For this study, psychologists of color included individuals who identified as Asian, Hispanic/Latino, multiracial, Black, American Indian/Alaska Native, and Middle Eastern/North African (Bowman & Ameen, 2018).

As someone who identifies as an ethnic minority, these studies surprised me. What variables contributed to these fail rates? What could be done about this? And what did I need to know to be better prepared so that I didn’t become an embarrassing and expensive statistic?

Of course, as with all research, there are limitations to these findings, and this is important to keep in mind. Until recently, demographic information (e.g., ethnicity) was not collected in EPPP administration (DeMers, 2009). This means that these studies are mainly based on self-report information, which is less robust and reliable compared to test administration data (Bowman & Ameen, 2018). Additionally, some ethnic minorities are not properly represented in these studies. In the studies mentioned here, Middle Eastern/North African (MENA) Psychologists and Indigenous Psychologists are not included as distinct groups. We also have limited information about pass/fail rates for ethnic minority licensure applicants in Canada. Despite these limitations, the replication of such results has prompted me to wonder what the root causes of these differences are and what can be done to address this discrepancy.

In good news, the test publisher, ASPPB, has started collecting race and ethnicity data as optional information on the EPPP. This will continue to better inform whether some test takers, namely test-takers of color, are at a disadvantage. Importantly, this information will be collected as optional data after the completion of the exam to avoid priming any stereotype threats (ASPPB, 2019). If questions show differential responding by ethnicity, ASPPB will take specific items to a diversity committee who can then review and decide whether to keep or discard the questions in future tests. Relatedly, graduate and internship programs are also becoming aware of this discrepancy. Such knowledge can lead to initiatives to better prepare ethnic minority students.

As psychology’s clients and practitioners becomes increasingly diverse, it is important to understand how the EPPP and other high-stakes exams may be leaving certain individuals behind. Factors such as Eurocentric item construction, minority stress, or performance expectancy may or may not be playing a role in score discrepancies (Bowman & Ameen, 2018). Such hurdles can only be identified by appropriately collecting data on race and ethnicity, and transparently reviewing it.

As a member of the APAGS Committee for the Advancement of Racial and Ethnic Diversity (APAGS-CARED), we are keen to explore this further and will be hosting a webinar on this very topic on October 1, 2019.  We hope you will join us!

If you have experience with taking the EPPP and have tips to share for future licensure applicants, we would love to hear from you! Please feel free to share your experiences below.

References

Association of State and Provincial Psychology Boards. (2019). The Examination for Professional Practice in Psychology (EPPP): Frequently asked questions. Retrieved from https://cdn.ymaws.com/www.asppb.net/resource/resmgr/eppp_2/eppp__part_2-skills__faq_s.pdf

Bowman, N., & Ameen, E. (2018, June). Exploring differences in pass rates on the Examination for Professional Practice in Psychology. Retrieved from https://www.apa.org/pi/oema/resources/communique/2018/06/pass-rates.

DeMers, S. T. (2009). Understanding the purpose, strengths, and limitations of the EPPP: A response to Sharpless and Barber. Professional Psychology: Research and Practice, 40, 348–353. doi:10.1037/a0015734.

DeMers, S. T., & Schaffer, J. B. (2012). The regulation of professional psychology. In S. J. Knapp (Ed.), APA handbook of ethics in psychology: Volume 1: Moral foundations and common themes (pp. 453–482). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.

Rehm, L. P., & Lipkins, R. H. (2006). The examination for professional practice in psychology. In T. J. Vaughn (Ed.), Psychology licensure and certification: What students need to know (pp. 39–53). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.

Sharpless, B., & Barber, J. (2013). Predictors of Program Performance on the Examination for Professional Practice in Psychology (EPPP). Professional Psychology: Research and Practice, 44(4), 208-217.

Werner, E. (1981). A review of the examination for professional practice in psychology. Sacramento, CA: California Department of Consumer Affairs.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Degrees of Separation: Managing Isolation for Doctoral Students of Color

This blog post is a part of the series, “CARED Perspectives,” developed by the APAGS Committee for the Advancement of Racial and Ethnic Diversity (CARED). This series will discuss current events and issues in psychology and how these relate to graduate students. If you are interested in contributing to the CARED Perspectives series, please contact Aleesha Young, Chair of APAGS-CARED.

By Mary O. Odafe, M.A.

CARED PICAs we matriculate through higher education, the journey for racial and ethnic minority doctoral students is often marked by feelings of isolation in both personal and professional networks.

Recent studies show that members of certain racial and ethnic minority groups are less likely to obtain degrees from competitive four-year institutions than their White counterparts. The “race gap” in higher education begins at the undergraduate level and only becomes more pronounced at the graduate level. Simply put, the more advanced the degree program, the less likely people of color are numerically represented.

The journey to a doctorate degree in psychology is equal parts complex and challenging. While friends, family, and significant others are an invaluable source of support along the journey, there are times they may not truly grasp the amount of mental energy, stress, discipline, and hard work that goes into achieving each required milestone. They may underestimate the weight of passing qualifying exams, waiting for internship Match Day results, dissertation data collection, developing and teaching a course, or applying for jobs in academia. They may not understand the unique working relationship with advisors and supervisors, or track what we are doing each year in the ever-complex lifestyle of being a student, teacher, researcher, and clinician – simultaneously!

Likewise, if you are one of the only students of color in your department, you may experience an additional sense of isolation while navigating unique challenges of feeling marginalized, overlooked, stereotyped, or microaggressed in professional arenas. Although our colleagues can serve as critical allies and advocates for diversity and inclusion, there is unspoken value in sharing such challenging experiences with someone who also knows, first-hand, what it feels like to be marginalized on the basis of one’s skin color. At times, our colleagues may confuse our desire to seek out relationships with others who look like us as being unfriendly, segregated, or unwilling to be “part of the group.” When we do engage with our majority-culture colleagues, many students of color naturally default to “code-switching” as a safer alternative to revealing our true identity in professional settings – but for the record, being two people in one is exhausting. Adding an extra layer of stress and isolation to the training experience, students of color are more likely to be first-generation college students than our White counterparts, and are disproportionately affected by the financial burden associated with pursuing higher education (due to persistent disparities in income and wealth distribution in the United States).

Researchers cite active forms of coping, including social support seeking, as more effective in dealing with distress in comparison to passive or avoidant forms of coping. The problem arises when these social support groups are fragmented, insufficient, or even non-existent. Through conversation with wise and trusted mentors, I have learned the importance of diversifying one’s social support network. While we may not obtain all the support we need from any one group individually, we can maximize support benefits by seeking different types of support from different groups. Perhaps your family and friends cannot always offer direct support or advice in navigating specific challenges within your program, but they can attest to the person you are outside of your identity as a graduate student. In times of need, those who truly know your character can remind you of your tenacity to take on any challenge (like that time you tried out for the talent show in 6th grade – and made it!). Likewise, many of your colleagues may not relate to being the first person in the family to obtain a bachelor’s and/or graduate degree, but they will certainly be there with you to take on plenty of “firsts” throughout your training – if you let them.

Part of maximizing sources of support means being vulnerable, transparent, and effectively communicating our needs. Letting people into our struggles and triumphs helps them understand how best to support us. So let’s keep our family and friends updated on our program milestones and challenges, even if they think we’ve just been “studying” these past 4-7 years. Let’s allow our colleagues to become supportive allies and genuine friends, especially when they’ve demonstrated a sincere willingness to listen. Finally, let’s lean into each other and share our own experiences, in hopes of validating and encouraging other doctoral students of color. As we begin to open up and maximize support, we may find that journey is not so lonely after all.

Additional Resources

We want to hear what you think! Please share your thoughts on this topic in the comments section below.

Positioning Your Research as a Graduate Student to Address Social Injustices

By Kevin Wagner and Gabriel Velez

Social injustices involve power relations and unequal access to privileges based on domination and subordination (Miller, 1999; Prilleltensky & Gonick, 1996). Examples abound across the globe, and given their prevalence and impact on human suffering, conducting research to address social injustices are particularly important. As a graduate student, it can feel like there are so many problems in the world and there’s nothing we can do about it. A first step in this journey is recognizing the problems we are most passionate about, identifying our role and resources to address the problem, and then acting in our roles as emerging psychologists. This article is how to do that as grad researchers in psychology by offering an overview of the dissemination and implementation (D&I) literature as a guide to position research to address social injustices. It emerges from our own reflecting, asking ourselves, how can we position our research as graduate students to address social injustices? Below we draw from the D&I literature to outline four guidelines to position research as a graduate student to address social injustices.

Tenet One: Planning Your Research

Bartholomew & Mullen (2011) assert that effective research is guided by theory and empirical evidence. Planning your research to address social injustices means selecting appropriate theories and understanding what empirical evidence provides a strong foundation; design research based on theory to provide sound structure to your investigation. One common framework from the D&I literature to develop change programs is intervention mapping, which includes six core steps: 1) describing the problem (e.g., a phenomenon related to social injustices), 2) developing metrics to measure change (how will you measure the impact of your research, program, or intervention on addressing social injustices?), 3) implementing theory-based intervention to promote change, 4) organizing materials to produce the program cogently, 5) implementing the program with fidelity and with support from others, and 6) creating an evaluation plan to assess the effectiveness of the program (Bartholomew & Mullen, 2011).

Tenet Two: Conducting Your Research

Whether qualitative, quantitative, or mixed-methods, a critical component of research with a social-justice focus is attentiveness to positionality, diversity, and validity. The many facets require more space than we have here, but we believe it is important to highlight that the research process itself must reflect and be forthright about the social justice orientation of the researcher (Morrow, 2005; Ponterotto, Mathew, & Raughley, 2013). Specifically, best practices to consider for reflection include, 1) cultural competence of the researchers, 2) research focus, 3) selection of research design, 4) composition of research team, 5) power dynamics with participants, and 6) data collection and analysis (Fassinger & Morrow, 2013).

Tenet Three: Disseminating Your Research

Disseminating your research is necessary to share your message and involves spreading information to targeted audiences using determined strategies (Tabak, Khoong, Chambers, Brownson, 2012). In the context of social injustice, it is vital to have your research accessible to relevant stakeholders that can utilize it, such as policy makers, clinicians, advocates, educators, and community members. Of course, sharing your research to non-academic audiences means you will need to communicate academic findings as if you were not an academic. This is difficult, especially when we don’t usually get trained to write that way, so this may involve some self-learning through reading instructional blog posts, finding exemplar writers in your area, and examining APA policy statements. You should also anticipate and plan to address potential barriers, such as costs, time, relationships, and partnerships needed to disseminate your research.

Tenet Four: Implementing Your Research

Once you have conducted your research and generated knowledge, implementation entails applying it to make a difference (Tabak et al., 2012). There are always barriers to doing this. Considerations include: how can the research inform actual policy and practice; what are barriers within applied connects; is the local political and social climate going to be supportive; will a community be receptive to or want to participate in a community-based intervention (Klein & Sorra, 1996)? Observing the organization, conducting surveys, and making connections with desired organizations – that is, studying and caring about the local context – can help you successfully implement the research.

Conclusion:

Social injustices are rife but can be studied and addressed through a psychological lens. As graduate students we were simultaneously in a position of vulnerability (e.g., advisors, programs, student debt) and privilege (e.g., highly educated; access to university/professional resources). Therefore, in many ways graduate student researchers are in a unique position to be keenly aware of injustices and have the resources to make a real difference. Some of these resources can be found in relevant professional and community organizations, such as APAGS subcommittees (e.g., Science, Committee for the Advancement of Racial and Ethnic Diversity, Committee on Sexual Orientation and Gender Diversity, Advocacy Coordinating Team). Having an overall guiding framework can help provide structure and clarity in how to draw on these supports. Therefore, we have offered a brief overview of the D&I literature as a first step for other graduate students interested in delving further into questions of social justice and integrating them into their own work and development. With this goal in mind, we end with a list of some resources for further exploration.

Further Resources for Exploration:

  1. Journals/Volumes
  2. Articles for General Reflection
  3. Organizations

References:

Bartholomew, L. K., & Mullen, P. D. (2011). Five Roles for Using Theory and Evidence in the Design and Testing of Behavior Change Interventions. Journal of Public Health Dentistry, 71, S20-S33.

Fassinger, R., & Morrow, S. L. (2013). Toward Best Practices in Quantitative, Qualitative, and Mixed-Method Research: A Social Justice Perspective. Journal for Social Action in Counseling & Psychology, 5(2), 69-83.

Klein, K. J., & Sorra, J. S. (1996). The Challenge of Innovation Implementation. The Academy of Management Review, 21(4), 1055-1080.

Miller, D. (1999). Principles of Social Justice. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Morrow, S. L. (2005). Quality and Trustworthiness in Qualitative Research in Counseling Psychology. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 52(2), 250-260.

Ponterotto, J. G., Mathew, J. T., & Raughley, B. (2013). The Value of Mixed Methods Designs to Social Justice Research in Counseling and Psychology. Journal for Social Action in Counseling & Psychology, 5(2), 42-68.

Prilleltensky, I., & Gonick, L. (1996). Polities Change, Oppression Remains: On the Psychology and Politics of Oppression. Political Psychology, 17(1), 127-148.

Tabak, R. G., Khoong, E. C., Chambers, D. A., & Brownson, R. C. (2012). Bridging Research and Practice: Models for Dissemination and Implementation Research. American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 43(3), 337-350.

About the Authors:

Kevin Wagner is a second year Ph.D. student in counseling psychology at the University of Texas at Austin (Email).

Gabriel Velez is a fifth year Ph.D. candidate in Comparative Human Development at the University of Chicago (Email).