Racial Battle Fatigue: The Experiences of Black/African American, Biracial Black, and Multiracial Black Identified Graduate Students

Black students attending historically White institutions of higher education experience racism, racial microaggressions, racial stress, and consequent racial battle fatigue (RBF; Franklin et al., 2014). We examined Black counseling and clinical graduate students’ (BGS) experiences of psychological, physiological, and behavioral RBF across their roles as students in class, advisees, and supervisees and differences in RBF experiences by gender and race. Participants were 57 counseling and clinical graduate students who identified as Monoracial, Biracial, or Multiracial Black. One-way, repeated measures analysis of variance results showed that BGS experienced the highest levels of RBF in their student-in-class role, and those experiences differed for women and men. Results suggest that the RBF framework has utility for measuring and further understanding how BGS’ student role and learning contexts influence their postsecondary experiences and how institutions can develop better supports for this student population.

Clinical and Research Attitudes of Psy.D. and Ph.D. Clinical Graduate Students

A survey of 137 Psy.D. and Ph.D. clinical graduate students out of 561 at 4 Ph.D. schools and 4 Psy.D. schools indicated that these Ph D students found knowledge of statistics and research design to be more useful than the 98 Psy.D. students. A need to replicate and to ascertain the basis for such differences was discussed.

Judging Initial in-Therapy Behavior

20 clinical graduate students were asked to rate initial interviews of a single client using Kirtner and Cartwright's scale for predicting length and outcome of therapy. Both audio and video methods of presenting the interviews were used. Kirtner and Cartwright's finding that particular scale items discriminated among clients was partially supported. The lack of over-all significant findings did not allow for a comparison of audio and video methods of presentation.