Date of Award

2018

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy in Urban Education

Department

College of Education and Human Services

First Advisor

Phillips, Julia

Subject Headings

Psychology

Abstract

As a result of a fierce debate about the most important factors of effective therapy, the American Psychological Association (APA) defined Evidence-Based Practice in Psychology (EBPP) as “an approach to clinical practice which integrates best available research with clinical expertise in context of patient characteristics, culture, and preferences.” (APA, 2006, p. 273). Research suggests that positive attitudes toward EBPP are related to use of EBPP (Nelson & Steele, 2007). This study utilized a social cognitive theory (Bandura, 1986) framework to examine the relationships between counseling self-efficacy, research self-efficacy, past training experiences, knowledge of EBPP, and attitudes toward EBPP. The participants were doctoral interns in the field of psychology who completed an online survey. Data analysis included MANCOVA and mediated regressions. The results highlight the importance of research self-efficacy in predicting components of EBPP, and the role of classes taken on EBPP in that relationship. The results also suggest that students coming from a PhD program had higher research self-efficacy as compared to students from PsyD programs. Research self-efficacy was a significant predictor of two subscales of the scale measuring attitudes toward evidence-based practice in psychology. Additionally, research self-efficacy was significantly predicted by number of classes in EBPP. Significant correlations among the variables added to our knowledge of relationships between the above- mentioned factors.

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