Details of Training Curriculum
Training on the WAIS began with 5 hours, 40 minutes of lecture (led by faculty)
and approximately 6 hours of lab (led by teaching fellows) during weeks two thru four of
the first assessment course. During week three, lab trainees’ were assigned to complete
computations associated with a provided response protocol. Trainees were allowed 1
week to complete this assignment before reviewing their errors in lab with the rest of
their cohort at the week four meeting. Scoring errors on this homework assignment
constituted the first data capture. Trainees next met individually with their lab instructor
to demonstrate their WAIS administration skills and receive personalized, non-graded, in
vivo feedback. All individual meetings were completed by the start of the fifth week.
Next, trainees independently administered the WAIS to advanced graduate student
volunteers who provided them with in vivo feedback during week six. Errors of
administration, recording, and computation from this experience constituted the second
data capture. Finally, during week seven, each trainee administered the WAIS as part of a
brief assessment battery that additionally consisted of an unstructured clinical interview
and a standardized measure of achievement (the Wide Range Achievement Test, a.k.a.
the WRAT; Wilkinson & Robertson, 2006). Community volunteers with whom trainees
were previously unacquainted were used for this final training experience.
Administration, recording, and computational errors were again documented.
The WISC training followed the same pattern though the instructional time was
decreased to 2 hours, 50 minutes of lecture (by faculty) and approximately 4 hours, 30
minutes of lab (led by teaching fellows) beginning at the end of week five and finishing
during week six of the term. WISC scoring homework was completed during week six
and individual meetings with lab instructors were accomplished by the end of week
seven. Training experiences with WISC volunteers (advanced graduate students and
community volunteers) were accomplished by the end of week ten. For the community
volunteer experience, the WISC was part of a brief battery that again included an
unstructured clinical interview and another standardized measure of achievement (the
Wechsler Individual Achievement Test, WIAT; Wechsler, 2009). The effects of the
Wechsler training curriculum are visually summarized in Figure 1 and detailed in the
corresponding manuscript.
Training in coding with the Rorschach Comprehensive System (CS) spanned the
first 8 weeks of the second course in the assessment sequence, with 10 hours, 30 minutes
of lecture (led by faculty) and approximately 22 hours, 30 minutes of lab (led by teaching
fellows). All training protocols (n = 6) were drawn from a training manual for coding the
Rorschach CS, which is available from: http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/19313918.1.2.125.supp (Hilsenroth & Charnas, 2007). These protocols reflect both nonclinical and clinical populations and were standardized by expert CS scorers, who
additionally graded the inherent coding difficulty associated with each protocol. The first
training experience took place across the first five weeks of the term. Each week,
following instruction on isolated coding elements, trainees independently coded these
elements on 64 responses (using protocols labeled training 1-3, pp. 17-23, coding
difficulties = 38%, 42%, and 30%, respectively) until each response was coded in its
entirety by the end of week five. The order of coding instruction was as follows: week
one = Location/Space, and Developmental Quality; week two = Determinants associated
with movement, color, and achromatic color; week three = Determinants associated with
shading and form dimension, Form Quality, Pairs/Reflections; week four = Contents,
Populars, and Z-scores; week five = Special Scores. Each week during lab, the lab
instructor reviewed trainees’ errors on the coding elements for that week and provided
feedback. During week six, trainees coded all 19 responses of the “midterm” protocol
(pp. 24-26, coding difficulty = 32%) and reviewed their errors with feedback in lab
during week seven. For week eight, trainees completed the “final” protocol (pp. 27-29,
coding difficulty = 72%), which consists of 20 responses. Trainees completed this coding
in the classroom under the proctorship of the faculty instructor, with only the Rorschach
CS workbook (Exner, 2001) available to them and within a time limit of 1 hour, 45
minutes. Trainees were provided individual feedback on their errors 2 weeks later (due to
annual spring break). Eight weeks later, to examine stability over time, follow-up
evaluation of trainees’ coding accuracy was assessed. Trainees completed protocol “A3”
(pp. 47-49, coding difficulty = 70%), which consists of 14 responses, again under time (1
hour, 15 minutes) and resource (allowed only the CS workbook) constraints. For each
training protocol, an error was tallied every time the trainee made an inaccurate code
(Guarnaccia, Dill, Sabatino, & Southwick, 2001). Accuracy was then computed at the
individual trainee level as the number of errors divided by the number possible on each
training experience for each of the following coding segments: Location/Space;
Developmental Quality; Determinants; Form Quality; Pairs/Reflections; Contents;
Populars; Z-scores; Special Scores.


Administration Errors
Recording Errors
Computation Errors
10
Raw Number of Errors
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2


1
0
1
2
3
WAIS-IV Protocols
1
2
3
WISC-IV Protocols
Number of Wechsler Experiences

Figure 1. Mean number of errors within each target category across Wechsler
intelligence tests training experiences. Bars attached to each column represent standard
errors. Dot over column indicates that the value does not significantly differ from zero.
References
Exner, J.E., Jr. (2001). A Rorschach Workbook for the Comprehensive System (5th
Edition). Asheville, N.C.: Rorschach Workshops.
Guarnaccia, V., Dill, C.A., Sabatino, S., & Southwick, S. (2001). Scoring accuracy using
the Comprehensive System for the Rorschach. Journal of Personality Assessment,
77, 464-474. doi: 10.1207/S15327752JPA7703_07
Hilsenroth, M.J. & Charnas, J.W. (2007). Training Manual for Rorschach Interrater
Reliability (2nd ed.). Unpublished Manuscript, The Derner Institute of Advanced
Psychological Studies, Adelphi University, Garden City, NY. Retrieved from:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/1931-3918.1.2.125.supp
Wechsler, D. (2009). Wechsler Individual Achievement Test (3rd Edition). San Antonio,
T.X.: PsychCorp.
Wilkinson, G.S., & Robertson, G.J. (2006). Wide Range Achievement Test 4. Lutz, F.L.:
Psychological Assessment Resources.