(1) Applicants seeking licensure via 37-17-302(3)(c), MCA, must have their courses of study assessed by a board-approved evaluator to ensure compliance with minimum standards in this rule.  

(a) The board shall consider, but is not bound by, the evaluator's recommendation.

(b) Applicants must pay any fee required by the evaluator.

(2) Per 37-17-302(3)(c), MCA, a psychology program meets minimum standards if the program:

(a) is administratively housed and clearly identified as a psychology program with emphasis in applied areas such as clinical, counseling, school, or industrial-organizational psychology;

(b) stands as a recognizable, coherent organizational entity within the institution;

(c) has clear authority and primary responsibility for the core and specialty areas whether or not the program cuts across administrative lines;

(d) follows an organized sequence of study to provide an integrated psychology education experience;

(e) has an identifiable psychology faculty and a psychologist responsible for the program;

(f) has an identifiable body of students who are matriculated in that program for a degree;

(g) includes appropriate supervised clinical experience of at least three terms/two semesters;

(h) contains a curriculum of a minimum of three academic years of full-time graduate study with a pre-doctoral internship per ARM 24.189.644 at the educational institution granting the doctoral degree. The curriculum must instruct in scientific and professional ethics and standards, research design and methodology, statistics, and psychometrics, and require students demonstrate competence (a minimum of three or more graduate semester hours/five or more graduate quarter hours) in each of these substantive content areas:

(i) Biological bases of behavior: physiological psychology, comparative psychology, neuropsychology, sensation and perception, psychopharmacology;

(ii) Cognitive-affective bases of behavior: learning, thinking, motivation, emotion;

(iii) Social bases of behavior: social psychology, group processes, organizational and systems theory; and

(iv) Individual differences: personality theory, human development, abnormal psychology;

(i) includes adequate training in psychodiagnosis and several types of psychological assessment and intervention procedures and their theoretical bases; and

(j) includes at least 60 quarter hours/40 semester hours of formal psychology graduate study.

(i)  No more than 15 quarter hours/ten semester hours of university extension credits may be credited toward the doctoral degree requirement.

(ii) Of the 60 quarter hours, a minimum of 45 quarter hours/30 semester hours must occur when the applicant is matriculated in the doctoral program and be clearly designated on the transcript as graduate level psychology course work, exclusive of practicum, dissertation, and transfer credits.

(3) The board and its evaluator have reviewed several applications containing doctoral degrees from American Psychological Association-approved doctoral programs in school psychology and counseling psychology. The board deems these programs qualified under the required minimum standards.