Reasoning abilities in Psy.D. and Ph.D. clinical graduate students: a preliminary study

Clinical students in regionally representative Psy.D. and Ph.D. programs responded to a questionnaire that assessed everyday reasoning and psychological knowledge. Ph.D.s scored higher on the Methodology Reasoning test and the Conditional Probability test, while there were no differences on the Verbal or Statistical Reasoning tests or the Psychology questions. Calibration curves indicated that Psy.D.s tended to be somewhat more overconfident in their responses than Ph.D.s. Similarities and differences between the performance of the Psy.D.s and Ph.D.s are discussed, as well as the limitations and implications of the study.