TRAINEES’ CHARACTERISTICS AND THEIR IMPACT ON PERCEPTIONS OF MULTICULTURAL TRAINING EXPERIENCES

Author

Frederick McCullough Siglar, Southern Illinois University CarbondaleFollow

Date of Award

5-1-2024

Degree Name

Master of Arts

Department

Psychology

First Advisor

Sahu, Ankita

Abstract

In the context of clinical psychology doctoral programs, trainees’ demographic characteristics (e.g., racial identity, program type) as well as other factors (e.g., social justice commitment, exposure to cultural humility within training) have been associated with their reported multicultural training experiences (Beer et al., 2012; Cook et al., 2020; Gregus et al., 2020). Although these experiences may be explained by training practices used by supervisors, along with the degree to which graduate programs incorporate social justice topics into their training (Beer et al., 2012; Upshaw et al., 2020; Wilcox et al., 2023), very little investigation has been done on whether trainees’ characteristics are associated with their evaluations of their multicultural training experiences. This study used an online survey that was distributed to APA-accredited clinical psychology programs across the United States. Evaluations of multicultural training experiences were measured using the Multicultural Training and Education Questionnaire (MTEQ; Wilcox et al., 2021). Participants also responded to questions inquiring about their perceived cultural humility, commitment to social justice, and demographic characteristics. A multiple hierarchical regression revealed that racial identity, program type, commitment to social justice, and perceived cultural humility independently explained a significant variance in trainees’ evaluations of their multicultural training experiences. Implications of the findings and recommendations for future research and training practices are discussed.