Our psychology project pairing focused on three connected modules from the doctoral course in Clinical Psychology, a full-time, three-year postgraduate professional course, designed to train psychologists to be eligible for appointment as Clinical Psychologists in health services.

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Learning Outcomes

Some of the learning outcomes for these modules are as follows:

• Have consolidated knowledge of the aetiological processes relevant to understanding the clinical presentations of (adulthood / intellectual disability and autism spectrum disorder / childhood).
• Develop skill and competency in psychological assessment (clinical interviews, psychometrics, observation, staff consultation), formulation (in collaboration with service users, families, and staff) and intervention with (adults / children and adults with Intellectual Disabilities and Autism Spectrum Disorder / children and families).
• Further develop an understanding of, and demonstrate practice implications of, ethics and codes of conduct in relation to clinical practice.

Current Assessment Design

These modules are assessed through a combination of summative and graded formative assessment. Here are some examples:

• Case studies, giving the student a knowledge of local services.
• Evaluation by the clinical supervisor of the student’s competencies.
• Reflective practice assignments.
• Service-related research project.

Associated Risk of GenAI

The lecturer identified several ways their assessment was at risk from GenAI:

• It can provide an overview of the evidence-base on a topic, thus undermining intended learning outcomes.
• It can produce some relevant structure/overview of components required in service-related research.
• It can provide components of a psychological formulation to be incorporated into a diagram.
• It can provide a reformulation of a clinical presentation.

Mitigation

The lecturer identified a number of ways the unethical use of GenAI can be mitigated against.

• Keep context for clinical scenarios local.
• An increased emphasis on oral and clinical examinations.
• More groupwork and paired presentations.
• A journal club, where students come together to critique a key paper.
• Continue to invite feedback from students on what best supports their learning and consider partnering with students on assessment review/redesign.
• Place an increased emphasis on critical synthesis and reflection at the end of assignments.

Integration

It was noted by the Applied Psychology student-staff pairing that GenAI software, such as ChatGPT is not consistent in following best-practice guidelines, vital in clinical settings.

With this in mind, it was suggested that students could input hypothetical vignettes as prompts in ChatGPT, with students critically analysing the responses generated. Students can compare their own work with the outputs from GenAI software throughout, identifying gaps in GenAI responses based on analysis of evidence-base and reflective practice.

This would encourage students to think critically about what is safe for service users. Answers generated for scenarios such as reformulating a treatment plan for anxiety often do not map onto the existing evidence base. Our natural caution with using ChatGPT could foreground safety and ethical concerns when giving ChatGPT a clinical problem to solve.

Observations

An emerging debate, which requires further research, is that GenAI appears in theory to be able to predict behaviour patterns among patients, following the inputting of anonymised case notes. This could provide great assistance to clinical practitioners as well as students, though it must be stressed that significant research is required in this area.

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