Students in our program often have questions about their practicum experience and counting hours toward internship applications. Here is the current Program Director's position on practicum experience and advice on practicum hours toward internship.

Activities that count toward practicum hours:

• Direct client contact*
• Individual supervision
• Group supervision
• Scoring psychological tests (up to the administration time for the tests)
• Report writing (no more than 1.5 times the administration time for the tests)
• Participating in case conferences
• Consultation time or consultation work
• Writing contact notes (no more than 0.5 times the contact time)
• Observation of other's clinical work
• Attending staff meetings

Accumulating practicum hours toward APA-approved clinical internships:

• APA does not prescribe a certain number of practicum hours as part of doctoral training programs. Accreditation requirements specifically emphasize that the quality of practicum experiences is more important than the quantity of hours devoted to these activities.
• Surveys of clinical internship directors indicate that the typical number of required predoctoral practicum hours prior to internship is approximately 675-725. Accumulating at least 1000 hours should meet the requirements of over 70% of clinical internships, with a few internship sites wanting more than 1,200 hours. The number of practicum hours required by an internship is not an indicator of its quality or rigor in selecting applicants. Keep in mind that, just like APA, internship sites usually consider quality of training to be more important than the quantity of hours accumulated. The proportion of supervision time to contact time is often one indicator of the quality of the training experience.
• It is expected that students receive weekly supervision when completing practica. This may be individual or group supervision. You should speak with the Program Director if your total amount of supervision time is less than 10% of your client contact time. A proportion of 20% of supervision to contact time is recommended, particularly early in your training.

Notes: See Hecker, Fink, Levasseur, & Parker (1995). Professional Psychology: Research & Practice, 26, 205-210.

* Direct contact time conducting assessment or intervention activities with clinical or at-risk populations as part of a research project can be counted as direct client contact.

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