Accreditation of programs and Registration of psychologists

As discussed before (in this link), there is no accreditation of programs for local degrees, and accreditation of overseas programs available in Singapore are to be accredited by the respective accreditation bodies of the different countries.  In Singapore (and some of our neighbouring Asian countries), we have this very unique culture of overseas programs being offered in our local Private Educational Institutes (PEIs).  In Singapore, we have undergraduate and postgraduate programs primarily from America, Australia, and UK.  For those who are new to this blog or wish to understand the study pathway towards being a psychologist in Singapore, please view this post.

For local psychology programs, we know that there are only five local programs*, and according to CPE (as updated on 24 Sept 2014), there are 34* registered overseas psychology undergraduate programs in Singapore.  For postgraduate programs,  there are only seven of them*, local and overseas.  All in all, there is only a total of 45* programs offered by a total of less than 20 different institutions.
*Links are updated. Figures are at 24 Sept 2014.

I have previously discussed the importance of having an accreditation of programs, which the focus of this post would be on Reason 4:
4.  Those who complete accredited programs will be "sufficiently qualified and competent to meet the registration requirements" (APAC, 2012).  With the registration requirements met out, this accreditation standards could be in line with the registration requirements.  This would mean that the program that you are doing will be able to equip you with the psychological knowledge and skills you will need to become a psychologist.
Image Credit:
The accreditation of programs should tie in with the registration of psychologists, because the main route of training for students to be psychologists in Singapore is through these programs.  In turn, the programs should prepare you to be a competent psychologist.  However, these connections are only assumed: 
  1. Students assume that schools are training them the knowledge and skills they need.  With no accreditation of the programs, there is no fixed regulation of what are supposed to be taught to the students.  
  2. The registration council assumes that these programs are sufficiently equipping the students with the knowledge and skills, and the certificates the students get upon graduation are proof of these knowledge and skills.  However, we do not truly know the knowledge and skills the 'psychologist' possess when they are applying for registration (to be a psychologist) with just their postgraduate certificates.    
With proper accreditation of the programs being in line with the registration criteria, this will ensure that the institutions are providing the programs to students in a way that will prepare them to be qualified and competently equipped to be registered as a psychologist.

With regard to competence, you may wish to also read these posts:
1)  The need of a postgraduate program and Competence
2)  Jobs (Part 6): Why so strict??

Stage 3 - A Journey of Possibilities: An Undergraduate's Reflection

Hi! I'm Anna from  I describe myself as an enthusiastic, positive and hardworking individual.   I’ve been a consistent academic achiever ever since I was young.  Fate brought me to Singapore, and I’m happy that it did.  I graduated with 2nd class Honours under the Cardiff Metropolitan University, UK.

Professionally, I'm taking all the opportunities that I can get.  I’m currently working as an Administrative officer wherein I efficiently manage the client’s information and quickly respond to their needs or requests.  As a fresh (BSc Psychology) graduate, I've realised that experience and learning as much as you can are the most valuable things.

As a foreigner living in Singapore, it opened my eyes to the diverse cultures and the stereotypes associated with it.  As psychology majors, I believe that it's our responsibility to educate others about the untainted truth to battle against social biases.  Furthermore, we shall spread awareness about the strong impact of mental illnesses.  Changing other’s perception can diminish the negative stigma. It’s part of the reason why I created a blog-site.

I wanted my thoughts to be heard and to share what I am passionate about (mostly how Psychology relates to life).  I never thought that I would grow to love writing as much as I do now.  My next venture is entering graduate school.  With hard work, luck and faith, everything is possible.

Once again, thank you and I wish you all the best. :)

Statistics Made Easy 3: Relationships or Differences?

For inferential statistics classes, what I always emphasis to my students from the very first classes is:  "Know what you are trying to find: Relationships or Differences?"  This is especially for continuous data, rather than discrete or categorical data.  Please do a bit of research and read up these types of data (and variables). I will probably write a post about this some other day.

So the big question: "Relationships" or "Differences"?
This question looks at the link between your independent variable (IV) and dependent variable (DV), and also helps you decide what type of tests you are going to use (once you decide on whether you are going to parametric or nonparametric statistics for the different types of variables (to be discussed in another post).

To better understand whether you are going to do a statistical test to evaluate the relationship or difference, we need to first look deeper into the IV and the DV by asking some simple questions:
1.  Are there different groups in the IV and the scores in the DV might differ as a reason of that?  If "Yes", you are looking for a difference (between the groups).  If there are no groups, there is a high chance that you are looking for a relationship between the IV and DV.
2.  Does the scores in the DV fluctuate or vary with the IV, i.e. you are expecting that whenever the IV scores increase, the DV scores should increase/decrease in a fixed pattern?  If that is the case, it would certainly be an analysis towards the relationship between the IV and the DV.   
Hope this clears up a big question mark for you towards understanding statistical analyses!!  If you wish to read the rest of the statistics-related posts, here they are!!!