Development of the Multicultural Curriculum Appraisal (MCCA): A Process to Promote Multicultural Infusion into APA Accredited Doctoral Program Curriculum

Abstract

The current American Psychological Association's standard for Diversity Education and Training in doctoral-level accredited Health Service Psychology programs is sparce and lacks a measurable expectation of programs. There is no published research on broad application or outcomes of this standard across Health Service Psychology curricula. To address any variation in the interpretation of the diversity education and training standard, we created an audit tool, the Multicultural Curriculum Appraisal (MCCA) Tool, to capture the amount of multicultural education and training present in today's psychology programs. One important step is to understand the how much multicultural content psychology instructors are incorporating into their course syllabi. Another essential step is to identify the areas, within a syllabus, that contain multicultural content. Lastly, it is critical to understand any potential barriers to multicultural infusion identified by psychology instructors. Our study surveyed doctoral level instructors (n=55) and audited their course syllabi (n=92). The primary aim was to explore the influence of instructor identity on the amount of multicultural content in a course. We expected instructors who identified with historically marginalized groups to have more multicultural infusion into their courses. This studies secondary aim examined barriers to multicultural infusion using three types of barriers: institutional, instructor and student. We anticipated participants who identified instructor barriers to have lower scores than participants who selected other barrier types. Contrary to expectations, participants with marginalized identities and those who selected instructor barriers did not have significantly different scores than their peers. Participants who were trained as counseling psychologists, taught at counseling psychology programs, were younger, ranked themselves lower on a national subjective socioeconomic scale, and in the early career stage demonstrated higher scores on the Multicultural Curriculum Appraisal. Additionally, participants who identified institutional barriers also demonstrated higher scores on the Multicultural Curriculum Appraisal. This study lays the groundwork for future research designed to better understand and correct for the variation between instructors, academic programs, and psychology disciplines and understand the potential influences of instructor identity and barriers in multicultural education and training in psychology curricula