The vocational aspirations and scientist-practitioner interests of counseling and clinical psychology graduate students

This study examined the vocational aspirations and scientist-practitioner interests of counseling and clinical psychology graduate students. One hundred seventy students from 18 APA-accredited counseling programs and 178 clinical students from 14 APA-accredited clinical programs completed survey instruments that included: a biographical data sheet, the Scientist-Practitioner Inventory, and the Professional Psychology Task Inventory. The instruments assessed "ideal" job affiliation, professional self view, scientist-practitioner interests, and task functions that students envisioned participating in five to ten years after receiving their doctorate.;The results of chi-square analyses indicated that significantly more clinical students than counseling students preferred private practice job affiliations and intended to provide long-term psychotherapy, whereas, significantly more counseling students than clinical students favored college counseling jobs, intending to provide career counseling, vocational assessments, vocational planning, job search skills, and group vocational counseling. Manova analyses revealed that there were no significant differences between clinical and counseling students in their interest in scientific and practitioner activities which supported previous research studies. Clinical and counseling students were more interested in practitioner than scientific activities. Female students were significantly less interested in scientific activities than male students.;The study findings supported training recommendations that include: formal supervision training, an "expanded" scientist-practitioner training model, and the implementation of Gelso's (1993) revised research training environment model to encourage scholarly research. In addition, counseling programs provide students with training in clinical and crisis intervention skills while retaining an emphasis on vocational counseling and psycho-educational interventions. The survey data indicated that counseling and clinical psychology have become increasingly similar. However, each specialty brings skills and perspectives that make unique contributions in promoting human welfare supporting the current maintenance of separate applied specialties. Research designs that might explore future counseling-clinical distinctions were presented.