Comparing professional school and traditional program faculty members using measures of scientific and professional achievement in clinical psychology

The purpose of the present research was to compare the professional and scientific activity and credentials and accomplishments of clinical psychologists on the faculty of professional (Vail model) clinical psychology programs with those of clinical psychologists on the faculty of traditional (Boulder model) clinical psychology programs.; The names of 479 clinical psychologist faculty at professional programs and 977 clinical psychologist faculty at traditional programs were obtained. A higher percentage of professional program faculty were licensed and a higher percentage were diplomates of the American Board of Professional Psychology. The traditional program faculty had more publications and citations, and they were more likely to be fellows of the American Psychological Association and the American Psychological Society. The two groups did not differ in number of years since doctorate.; In the other part of the research, a survey questionnaire was sent to 200 randomly selected professional and 200 randomly selected traditional program faculty. One hundred and seven of the former and 94 of the latter responded. The professional faculty were more likely to have conducted workshops and did more clinical work and pro bono clinical work. The traditional faculty were more likely to have presentations and research awards. They were also more likely to be on editorial boards of journals. It was inferred that the functioning and credentials of the two sorts of program faculty mirror the objectives and mission of their programs.