The Diminishing Durability of Knowledge in Professional Psychology: A Delphi Poll of Specialties and Proficiencies

How will the accelerating profusion of knowledge affect the durability of knowledge within the various specialties and proficiencies in the field of professional psychology? A Delphi Poll was conducted to examine the current and future "half-life" of professional knowledge, regarded as the time it would take, in the absence of any new learning, for someone to become roughly half as knowledgeable as a function of the development of new knowledge in a given field. Results of the current study indicated that the overall half-life of knowledge in professional psychology was expected to decrease within the next decade from nearly 9 years to just over 7 years, with substantial variability across various specialties and proficiencies. The anticipated half-life of knowledge varied from as much as 19 years (in the specialty of Psychoanalytic Psychology) to as little as 3.3 years (in the proficiency of Psychopharmacology). The implications of these findings are discussed in relation to the continuing movements toward professional specialization, on the one hand, and the maintenance of competence on the other.