From Continuing Education to Continuing Competence

A primary function of continuing education is to facilitate growth and evolution of the individual doing the learning. The measurement and demonstration of such learning may be difficult. Requirements by licensing jurisdictions that a specific number of hours of continuing education be obtained can put the focus on quantity of education, not necessarily quality, relevance to the individual, or the demonstration of learning and increased competence due to the educational experience. Measuring competence gained from a specific event (e.g., a workshop) may not be the ideal way to assess the impact of continuing education on professional development. Current trends in the profession point toward demonstration of competence by the individual, as opposed to measuring the impact of an event. It is ultimately the individual engaged in practice who must demonstrate that learning has occurred and competence maintained or increased. The role of specialty board certification as a means of demonstrating competence and the development of models for documenting maintenance of competence are valuable to the individual psychologist, the profession, and the public. Public Significance Statement This article describes current and future directions with respect to the assessment of competence of licensed psychologists with a focus on opportunities to create a mechanism to directly assess continuing competence.