CLIENT ASSESSMENT BY NOVICE AND EXPERT PSYCHOLOGISTS - A COMPARISON OF STRATEGIES

This study examined the amount and type of information expert and novi ce psychologists sought about a client to form their clinical impressi ons. Novices (N = 14) were graduate students in psychology who reporte d a mean of 1.8 years professional experience; experts (N = 14) were u niversity counseling center psychologists with a mean of 13 years expe rience and who were peer-nominated as experts. All were presented with the same short description of a client and her presenting problem, th en were to ask whatever questions they believed necessary to make an a ssessment and treatment plan. Experts and novices did not differ with respect to their confidence in their assessment. However compared to n ovices, experts requested significantly more information (Ms of 23.1 v s. 14.9 questions) and focused less on crisis aspects of the client si tuation (56.5 vs. 64.4% of the questions).