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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2017 Jan 6.
Published in final edited form as: Clin Pract Pediatr Psychol. 2016 Mar;4(1):74–83. doi: 10.1037/cpp0000134

Society of Pediatric Psychology Workforce Survey: Development of Survey Methods, Sample Characteristics, and Lessons Learned

Tim Wysocki 1, Cheryl L Brosig 2, Marisa E Hilliard 3
PMCID: PMC5215845  NIHMSID: NIHMS797811  PMID: 28066693

Abstract

There are few detailed workforce studies of specialty fields within professional psychology, and none have been reported for pediatric psychology since 2006. Availability of such data could facilitate more-informed decision making by students and trainees, psychologists pursuing employment opportunities, and psychologists involved in employment or compensation negotiations. This article describes the work of a task force of the American Psychological Association (APA) Division 54 (Society of Pediatric Psychology) in the design, construction, pretesting, distribution, and data management for the Society of Pediatric Psychology (SPP) Workforce Survey. The 18-member task force was established to design and implement a workforce survey that balanced needs for breadth, clarity, brevity, and protection of confidentiality. The survey solicits information about demographic characteristics; training, licensure and certifications; employment settings, responsibilities, and productivity metrics; compensation; and employment satisfaction. A survey link was distributed via e-mail to full members of the SPP in June 2015. A total of 404 members (32.3% return rate) completed the survey. This article focuses on the development, methodology, and respondent characteristics for this 1st administration of the workforce survey. Separate articles will report detailed analyses of the survey results such as compensation and work satisfaction. Future distributions of the survey will enable compilation of a longitudinal database to track changes in the profession. SPP members and others may propose additional analyses of these data. This work may provide guidance to other groups of specialized psychologists who may wish to implement similar initiatives.

Keywords: pediatric psychology, workforce, salary survey, employment

Available salary surveys of psychologists provide a wealth of information about compensation and its determinants (Wicherski, Hamp, Christidis, & Stamm, 2014) and about the roles and responsibilities of psychologists in varied settings (Grenyer, Mathews, Stokes, & Crea, 2010; Leventhal, Sieme, Wedding, & Rozensky, 2005; Mathews, Stokes, Crea, & Grenyer, 2010; Michalski, Mulvey, & Kohout, 2010; Stokes, Mathews, Grenyer, & Crea, 2010; Weissman et al., 2006). However, available surveys provide limited data that specifically delineate the qualifications, roles, responsibilities, compensation, and employment satisfaction of pediatric psychologists who work in children’s health care settings or of college or university faculty who train psychologists for such positions. As a result, administrators, chiefs of clinical divisions of pediatric psychology, educators who train psychologists for employment in pediatric care settings, individual pediatric psychologists, and students or trainees who are preparing themselves for such careers must infer information about the pediatric psychology workforce from other disciplines, which may not be comparable. This constrains decision-making and leaves considerable uncertainty.

There have been many calls for the completion and dissemination of workforce studies that characterize the employment circumstances of psychologists who work in health care delivery (Brown et al., 2002; Leventhal et al., 2005; Rozensky & Janicke, 2012), as well as implications of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (2010) for the workforce of psychologists and for preparing psychologists for interprofessional work in the primary health care setting (Rozensky, 2014). The most directly comparable prior workforce study was contributed by Opipari-Arrigan, Stark, and Drotar (2006), who reported the results of a survey of the membership of the SPP that was constructed by those authors. Their study (n = 356, 34% eligible response rate) yielded data on respondents’ employment settings and roles, compensation, performance expectations and criteria, and employment satisfaction. The compensation data were analyzed in terms of geographic region, gender, years of postdoctoral experience, type of employment setting, and academic rank. The authors described no plans for prospective repetition of their survey, and none has been reported. Although the Opirpari-Arrigan et al. (2006) study may have influenced the employment circumstances of many pediatric psychologists, a search of PubMed and Google Scholar indicates that the it has been cited only 10 times in the past decade. Thus, there is a need for current and prospective data on the profession of pediatric psychology and for the creation of a longitudinal database that is capable of yielding useful information about changes in the workforce, performance expectations and metrics, compensation, and employment satisfaction. Although the Opipari-Arrigan et al. survey provided much useful information, the professional roles and contributions of pediatric psychologists in a wide variety of work settings are ever-expanding (Brosig, Yang, Hoffmann, Dasgupta, & Mussatto, 2014; Cousino, Davis, Ng, & Stancin, 2014; Drotar, 2013; Gray, Monaghan, Gilleland Marchak, Driscoll, & Hilliard, 2015; Kazak et al., 2007; Kichler, Harris, & Weissberg-Benchell, 2015; Palermo, 2013; Robiner, Dixon, Miner, & Hong, 2014; Sheridan et al., 2009; Stancin & Perrin, 2014; Wagner & Smith, 2007; Willen, 2007), and updated information about the training and supervised experience received by pediatric psychologists, the types of employment settings in which they work, the range of employment responsibilities they assume, the sources and extent of compensation in addition to base salaries, and the nature and correlates of employment satisfaction can help to guide and value psychologists’ work in all of these and other areas. These issues were not assessed by Opipari-Arrigan et al.

In response to these needs, the Board of Directors of the American Psychological Association (APA) Division 54 (Society of Pediatric Psychology [SPP]) created a task force on the SPP Workforce Survey in 2013. The task force was charged with developing a web-based survey structured for confidential administration that would enable both cross-sectional and longitudinal assessment of pediatric psychologists’ training, experience, employment expectations and circumstances, compensation, and work-related satisfaction. The results of this survey would serve as a resource for the SPP board, administrators of pediatric psychology programs, training directors, and pediatric psychologists themselves for making informed decisions about work responsibilities and determination of fair compensation, gauging changes in the profession over time, and conducting workforce research about pediatric psychology.

This article describes the creation of the task force and the methodology employed in drafting, pretesting, and refining the survey; delineates decisions made in defining the survey content and item wording; characterizes the sample of SPP members who completed the survey; and summarizes lessons learned from these experiences. Future articles will report comprehensive summary data based on survey questions as well as detailed analyses of variables associated with career growth, compensation, and employment satisfaction.

Method

Development of the Survey

Constitution of the SPP task force

In June 2013, the SPP board authorized creation of the task force and appointed a chairperson (the first author, who was SPP president at that time), who then recruited 13 additional full members of the SPP. Members were selected to reflect diversity in terms of employment setting (e.g., academic medical center or children’s hospital, college or university department of psychology, independent practice), career phase, professional role, geography, and gender. The task force was charged with (a) developing, distributing, collecting, and analyzing a workforce survey of SPP full members (independent, doctoral-level pediatric psychologists) that would be repeated at specific intervals and (b) developing and implementing policies and procedures for analysis and use of the collected data. Task force member participation largely consisted of defining the specific goals and intended uses of the workforce survey; generating, providing feedback on, and refining item content; and ensuring that the survey would capture workforce information relevant to pediatric psychologists in various settings and work roles (task force activities are described in more detail in the following section). Early in its work, the task force initiated a collaboration with the APA Center for Workforce Studies (2015). Four members of that center joined the task force, bringing their experience from other official APA survey initiatives. They recommended a web survey platform; implemented task force recommendations for item content and structure; suggested wording for recruitment e-mail text, member communications about the survey, and survey items; delivered the survey to the SPP e-mail distribution list; and transmitted the raw survey data to the task force. Names of all 18 task force members appear in the author notes.

Once the task force completed its work in defining the structure, content, format and distribution procedures, a three-member (the three authors) Workforce Survey Committee (WSC) was established in August 2014 with responsibility for implementing survey distribution, collection, and secure data storage. The members serve staggered terms of 1, 2, or 3 years, and the SPP board appoints new members when necessary. The current SPP president will fill the 1-year position as part of the overall presidential responsibilities, and the immediate past president will remain involved during the transition process. Table 1 summarizes WSC functions.

Table 1.

Functions of the Workforce Survey Committee

  • Distribution of the survey once each 2 years;

  • Compilation and management of the survey distribution e-mail list;

  • Coordination with APA regarding management of the survey database;

  • Performance of data quality assurance monitoring;

  • Development of a data dictionary (codebook) corresponding to the elements of the stored survey data;

  • Preparation and dissemination of a biannual workforce survey report;

  • Service as an information resource to SPP members or others about the survey;

  • Management of workforce survey content on the SPP website;

  • Facilitation and management of research uses of the survey database by SPP members;

  • Acceptance and dispositions of requests for reports derived from the database;

  • Acquisition of expert statistical consultation when needed;

  • Coordination and verification of calculation of “derived” variables (e.g., cost of living based on first three digits of zip code; total annual compensation);

  • Evaluation of proposed refinements or additions to the survey structure or content;

  • Obtaining and maintaining IRB review and approval of the overall project;

  • Assurance of appropriate IRB review and approval of any ancillary proposals for research uses of the survey data base:

  • Periodic progress reports to the SPP board.

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Note. APA = American Psychological Association; SPP = Society of Pediatric Psychology; IRB = institutional review board.

Task force activities: Definition of survey objectives and generation and refinement of survey structure and content

The task force was charged with developing a web-based survey structured for confidential completion that would enable both cross-sectional and longitudinal assessment of pediatric psychologists’ training, experience, employment expectations and circumstances, compensation, and work-related satisfaction. A series of 11 task force conference calls began in mid-2013 and continued through August 2014 to propose, discuss, and refine the various sections of the survey and to lay out policies and procedures regarding allowable uses of the survey data. On the basis of these deliberations, the task force reached a variety of decisions.

The task force defined the objective of the survey as generating data that would serve as a resource for die SPP board, administrators of pediatric psychology programs, training directors, and pediatric psychologists themselves for making informed decisions about work responsibilities and determination of fair compensation, gauging changes in the profession over time, and conducting workforce research about pediatric psychology. To retain the focus on individual workforce experiences across a variety of settings and professional roles, the task force decided to design the survey for completion by individual pediatric psychologists rather than, for example, administrators who manage pediatric psychologists. To characterize the workforce of professionals in the field, the target population would be limited to full members of APA Division 54, or SPP, with doctoral degrees, excluding pediatric psychologists who are not members, graduate students, interns, postdoctoral fellows, and other allied mental health providers who are members of SPP (note that some SPP members are not members of APA). It was decided that the survey should be repeated every 2 years to constitute a longitudinal database and that each individual should be assigned a unique respondent ID so that future survey results could be linked with that same person’s priot results.

To collect the data in a timely manner without placing undue burden on the membership, the task force sought to limit time required for completion of the survey to no more than 15–20 min and proposed that repeat administrations of the survey in the future should use the prior year’s data to populate (with the ability to update as needed) as many survey items as possible to minimize participation burden. This latter specification proved to be impractical for technical reasons and was ultimately discarded. The task force decided that protection of respondent confidentiality should be paramount and designed survey items to minimize the potential to be able to identify specific respondents. They also concluded that raw survey data would not be provided to people requesting access for the purpose of conducting analyses of that data. Instead, the WFS would approve requested analyses and then complete and report those analyses to the person requesting them. Finally, the task force recommended that a future survey of institutional administrators who recruit, hire, and manage pediatric psychologists would be a useful adjunct to the planned self-report survey.

The task force reviewed and refined successive drafts of the survey until the group decided that a final version of the instrument had been achieved. In December 2013, each task force member was asked to recruit up to three associates who were members of the targeted survey population to review a draft of the survey and to respond to a collection of specific questions about clarity, ease of responding, and recommendations to improve each section of the survey. Comments about the survey were received from 26 pediatric psychologists with considerable diversity in employment settings and duration of postdoctoral experience. Task force members reviewed all of these comments and discussed survey changes responding to these points during regularly scheduled conference calls and via e-mail communication with the group. The comments helped to identify ambiguities in item wording, expand response options for some items, simplify the presentation of certain items, and improve the efficiency of survey completion.

Protection of confidentiality

The survey seeks sensitive data, and so the confidentiality of responses has been protected carefully. Only persons directly responsible for managing the database (members of the WSC, assigned staff of the APA Center for Workforce Studies, and one medical informalics specialist who removed or transformed individual identifiers) had password-protected access to the raw data. All WSC members acknowledged a confidentiality commitment that they would neither seek nor use survey data at the level of identifiable individuals and that they would not use the data in an effort to identify any respondent.

The survey does not request personal identifiers such as name, license number, date of birth, and so forth. Throughout the design of the survey, items were worded in such a way as to balance the specificity sought by a given item against the need to make it difficult or impossible to identify the respondent. For example, the survey asks respondents to supply the first three digits of their employment zip codes, which limits the likelihood of individual identification in the unlikely event of a data breach. Following receipt of the data set, this variable was then transformed into a cost of living index on the basis of national data published by the Council for Community and Economic Research (https://www.coli.org) using customized syntax created for this project. The original zip code variable was permanently deleted before the final data set was created and shared with the WSC. Only the four items that established the respondent’s eligibility to complete the survey were “required,” and so respondents could leave item(s) blank if they wished to maximize the confidentiality of their responses. If they had concerns about threats to their confidentiality, respondents could also decide not to submit the completed survey or could request that their survey results be deleted from the database. Finally, any reports of sensitive data (e.g., compensation, satisfaction) generated from the survey database would present data in aggregate only for cell sizes of 10 or more respondents, further minimizing the chance that a respondent with an unusual combination of characteristics could be identified. Responses were linked to individuals so that future repetitions of the survey could be tracked longitudinally and to limit survey access to eligible members of SPP or Division 54.

Selection of survey platform

The APA Center for Workforce Studies recommended Survey Gizmo (https://www.surveygizmo.com/) as the optimal web platform for creation and distribution of the survey. The staff routinely has used this platform in the design, construction, and distribution of many other APA surveys and was comfortable in utilizing its numerous features. The website enables practice administrations and editing of item presentation, content, and data output. Before the e-mailed survey invitation was sent to the SPP members, the WSC members and staff of the APA Center for Workforce Studies first pretested the complete sequence of survey administration steps, which included

  1. an e-mailed invitation with embedded, individualized link to the survey;

  2. completion of survey items;

  3. recording of survey responses in a secure, password-protected Survey Gizmo database;

  4. stripping of superfluous variables from the database;

  5. transmission of the data to the WSC; and

  6. running customized syntax to transform three-digit zip codes into a cost of living index for respondents’ employment locations.

Data storage and management

The WSC considered data management and archiving options, including contracting with a cloud-based data management firm. The WSC sought a permanent location for the stored data, because a data breach might be more likely if the database were to be moved to new locations repeatedly over time. Primarily on the basis of cost concerns, the WSC decided to create a secure, password-protected Dropbox account, accessible only by the three WSC members, in which the survey data were stored. When several repetitions of the survey have yielded a large longitudinal database, the WSC and SPP Board of Directors will reevaluate the need for archiving the data with a private data management firm.

The WSC will entertain requests from SPP members or others for implementation of analyses beyond those reported in journal articles in press or in preparation. Rather than providing raw survey data to requesters, the WSC will conduct analyses and return the results to the requester. Authorship roles will be negotiated before such requests are finalized. For especially complex analyses, a statistical consultant may be engaged. In instances in which the proposed analyses are seen by the SPP board as being beneficial to the membership, the board may elect to pay for the costs of statistical consultation. Otherwise, the person(s) requesting those analyses would be responsible for the statistical consultation costs.

Data Collection

Survey distribution and collection

A Nemours Children’s Health System Institutional Review Board (IRB) approved this project as human research that qualified for a waiver of informed consent because survey completion was anonymous and confidential and because submission of a completed survey implied consent. Prior to recruitment, the SPP membership list was reviewed to delete redundancies, remove trainees and nondoctoral members, and ensure current membership status. An e-mailed invitation with individualized links to the survey was sent to 1,314 individuals on June 17, 2015. The e-mail described the survey, estimated completion time at 15–20 min, summarized protection of confidentiality and IRB approval, provided a link to additional survey information on the SPP website, emphasized the merits of a high completion rate, and instructed individuals to refrain from forwarding the embedded survey link to others, because the link was individualized for each SPP member. Clicking the survey link enabled the member to complete the survey. Three reminder e-mails were sent, and survey access was closed on July 24, 2015.

Survey structure and content

Navigation via the individual link opened the survey, which began with an introduction describing the purpose of the survey and expected completion time, followed by this definition:

Pediatric Psychology is a profession concerned with physical, behavioral, cognitive, social, and emotional functioning and development as they relate to health and illness in infants, children, adolescents, and families. As used here, a Pediatric Psychologist is a person who has acquired a doctoral degree in psychology and whose principal professional identity lies in such activities as: Clinical psychological service to infants, children or adolescents and their families in interdisciplinary health care settings; Research on psychological or behavioral aspects of children’s health or health care; Training of undergraduate or graduate students, interns or fellows in the evidence base, research methodology and applied skill repertoire of pediatric psychology; or Administration of clinical service, training, research or teaching in the domain of pediatric psychology.

This section was followed by four questions that determined an individual’s eligibility for survey completion (i.e., holds doctorate in psychology, self-identifies as a pediatric psychologist per the above definition, employed in the U.S. or otherwise with compensation in US currency, does not require supervision by a licensed psychologist). Ineligible respondents were thanked and could proceed no further in completing the survey. Eligible respondents were then asked to provide demographic information (age, gender, race, ethnicity, first three digits of employment zip code, information about graduate training, internship, postdoctoral fellowship, licensure, certification). Next, individuals were asked details about their primary employment and, if pertinent, secondary and other employment, including nature of the setting, hours worked per week, years in that position, academic rank (if any), percentage of time dedicated to specific activities, perceived clarity of and details regarding performance metrics (if any), fiscal or personnel administrative responsibilities, annual base gross salary, bonus or incentive payments (if any), professional development funds (if any), fringe benefits, leave days, other compensation (e.g., consulting, royalties, invited lectures, grant reviewing), and hours dedicated to unpaid professional activities (e.g., community service, local speaking engagements, reviews of journal articles, fundraising). Finally, an employment satisfaction section designed by the WSC asked respondents to rate their satisfaction with and perceived importance of various aspects of their work.

Results

Response Rate

Of 1,314 surveys that were distributed to full members of SPP as individualized e-mailed links, 63 were returned as undeliverable, 5 were initiated but submitted no responses, and 404 (32.3%) were returned with usable data. The number of responses to specific items varied because responses to most items were optional and certain items were pertinent to only subsets of the respondents, and so sample size is reported with descriptive data for each variable.

Saniple-Gharacteristics

Demographics

The majority of respondents were female (76.8%), Caucasian (92.2%), and Non-Hispanic (95.6%), Mean age was 44.6 years (SD = 11.2). Mean years of posttraining experience was 14.8 (SD = 10.9). As shown in Figure 1, a female preponderance among younger members has grown steadily, such that women constitute 85.3% of the members in the under-45 age group, compared with the relatively equal gender distribution among members over 45 years of age. The number of male members is relatively stable across all age ranges, whereas the proportion of females is much larger among younger members. According to the division’s administrative officer, these distributions for gender, age, race, and ethnicity match corresponding figures for the SPP membership as a whole (Karen Roberts, personal communication, September 1, 2015).

Figure 1.

Figure 1

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Age and gender distribution of the respondents.

Training and certifications

Of the 404 respondents, 91.9% reported doctorates in clinical or counseling psychology, 92.4% completed predoctoral internships (predominantly clinical child or pediatric psychology), 82.7% completed at least 1 year of postdoctoral fellowship training in pediatric psychology or neuropsychology, and 96.0% held licensure as a psychologist in at least one state. Nonclinical doctorates included developmental, experimental, educational, and cognitive psychology. Advanced professional credentials included APA Fellows (15.7%), American Board of Professional Psychology diplomas (12.3%), and Health Service Providers in psychology (27.8%).

Employment settings and professional roles

The most commonly reported primary employment settings were children’s hospitals (38.4%) and academic medical centers (31.1%), with small numbers of respondents (<5%) indicating a diverse array of other academic, human service, and governmental employment settings. Most respondents reported employment of at least 40 hr per week in a single setting; 21.5% (n = 87) were employed part time as pediatric psychologists.

Of the 296 respondents reporting employment in academic settings, the academic ranks were instructor (20.9%), assistant professor (22.0%), and associate professor (48.6%), research associate (0.6%), full professor (7.1%), and professor emeritus (1.3%). Among these same respondents, 47 (15.8%) had achieved tenure, 46 (15.5%) were in tenure-line positions, and 204 (68.7%) were in non-tenure-line positions.

Table 2 shows that survey respondents (n = 396) indicated varied distributions of employment time among professional activities. The five activities reported by the most respondents were clinical service (84.6%), research (71.2%), clinical supervision (68.4%), teaching (62.9%), and administration (56.8%). In terms of administrative and supervisory roles, Table 3 shows that most respondents had no responsibility for management of internal institutional funds (72.0%), external funds such as grants or contracts (69.8%), personnel at the PhD or master’s level (70.2%), personnel at the bachelor of arts or science level (55.3%), or nondegreed personnel (72.3%).

Table 2.

Respondents Reporting Dedication of Employment Time to Specific Activities and Mean (SD) Percentage of Time Spent on Each Activity

Activity N (%) Mean time SD
Clinical service 335 (84.6) 52.8 28.1
Research 282 (71.2) 27.8 25.2
Clinical supervision 271 (68.4) 10.4 9.3
Teaching 246 (62.9) 10.6 12.6
Administration 225 (56.8) 17.1 18.5
Committee service 168 (42.4) 6.1 5.8
Program development 151 (38.1) 7.5 8.4
Mentoring 143 (36.1) 7.6 7.5
Consulting 105 (26.5) 7.9 11.5
Academic advising 62 (15.7) 2.1 3.8
Advocacy 62 (15.7) 1.9 3.0
Policy development 54 (13.6) 3.3 14.0
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Table 3.

Administrative Responsibilities Reported by Survey Respondents

Responsibility and level N %
Internal funds
 None 278 72.0
 <$100K/year 51 13.2
 $100K–$500K/year 26 6.7
 >$500K/year 31 8.0
External funds
 None 271 69.8
 <$100K/year 43 11.1
 $100K–$500K/year 46 11.9
 >$500K/year 28 7.2
PhD/MA employees
 0 214 70.2
 1–5 51 16.7
 6–10 16 5.2
 11–20 13 4.3
 >20 11 3.6
BS/BA employees
 0 178 55.3
 1–5 113 35.1
 6–10 19 5.9
 11–20 4 1.2
 >20 9 2.8
Nondegreed employees
 0 206 72.3
 1–5 66 23.2
 6–10 5 1.8
 11–20 1 .3
 >20 3 1.1
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Note. K = 1,000; MA = master of arts; BS = bachelor of science; BA = bachelor of arts.

Discussion

Lessons Learned

This article describes the design, construction, and distribution of a workforce survey developed by APA Division 54 (SPP) that was designed as a resource for SPP members to facilitate their employment and compensation decisions, career planning and workforce research activities. Following are lessons learned throughout this process, which we will use to inform our refinements of the survey for future administrations within SPP. We hope these lessons will also be helpful to other organizations that include psychologists, should they be considering development of their own workforce surveys.

1. Developing a workforce survey was more time consuming, labor-intensive, and complicated than expected

By the time this article is published, the task force will have worked on this project for nearly 3 years. Ensuring a task force that was representative of the wide diversity that is present in pediatric psychology required significant coordination. Organizing conference calls for 18 people who were volunteering their time proved challenging, and not all task force members could participate consistently. It is not surprising to us that other organizations, such as the American Academy of Pediatrics, employ full-time staff devoted to workforce issues. More-complex analyses, beyond the scope of the current survey, will be needed to determine how many pediatric psychologists will be needed to fulfill demand in the future.

2. Despite careful review by numerous professionals, flaws in survey design still occurred

Although successive versions of the survey were reviewed by multiple task force members as well as SPP members who volunteered to provide feedback after completing beta test versions of the instrument, some flaws in survey design became apparent only after the final survey had been distributed to the membership. For example, the stem for the item capturing reported performance metrics began with “Enter the expected annual quantity for any of the following metrics …,” yet the response choices for several individual items ended with the phrase “per month,” which conflicted with the item stem. Similarly, respondents’ reports of their gross salary for their primary employment were requested in dollars, but some responses were of the form “86” or “135,” perhaps meaning $86,000 or $135,000, respectively. As a third example, the survey instructions that were e-mailed to SPP members included informing the recipient that the embedded link to the survey was individualized for each member and should not be forwarded to others. However, in an effort to promote colleagues’ participation in the survey, several survey links were forwarded and completed by someone other than the intended recipient (linked e-mail address), impeding the assurance of continuity of respondents across future administrations. The WSC intends to address each of these problems before the next distribution of the survey.

3. Invitations to participate in web-based surveys, though convenient to administer, can be easily deleted

Despite being commissioned and endorsed by APA Division 54, the survey was completed by only approximately one third of the SPP members who received it. Although this response rate is comparable to that in the Opipari-Arrigan et al. (2006) study conducted 10 years ago, it is still concerning, given the importance of the survey topic. Though the survey was designed to be applicable to all pediatric psychologists, despite their employment setting or roles, it is possible that some SPP members felt that some of the questions did not apply to them, so they elected to not complete the entire survey. The WFC plans to explore additional ways to increase survey response rate in subsequent survey administrations. As psychologists, we are ideally prepared to use our training in behavior change to enhance participation in future administrations. Diversity of professional roles is a strength of the profession of pediatric psychology, but that same diversity makes it quite difficult to design a survey that all members will find clearly relevant to their individual circumstances.

Future Plans

Summary reports of the survey results will be posted on the SPP website, along with a blank copy of the survey, an FAQ document, instructions outlining the policies and procedures for proposing additional analyses, and links to any journal articles based on the survey findings (see http://www.apadivisions.org/division-54/news-events/news/workforce-survey-faqs.aspx for information and a hyperlink to the survey as a pdf document). Although the initial plan was to distribute the survey every other year, the WSC has since decided to repeat the distribution and collection of the survey after 1 year because the first administration, like other comparable psychology workforce surveys, yielded a low return rate. Thereafter, the survey will be distributed every other year. The repeated collection of the survey is expected to generate a longitudinal database that will enable a wide variety of analyses of change in the nature of the profession over time. The task force also recommended that a future survey of institutional administrators who recruit, hire, and manage pediatric psychologists would be a useful adjunct to the planned self-report survey. The present article has provided a description of the task force and survey development. Future articles will report detailed results regarding individual survey questions pertaining to training, employment settings, roles, compensation, and job satisfaction.

The work reported here could function as a template for other specialized groups of professional psychologists, who might wish to create a comparable resource. Members of the WSC are pleased to receive inquiries in that regard.

Acknowledgments

During this work and preparation of this paper, Tim Wysocki was supported by NIH grants 1-R01-DK080831 and 1-DP3-DK108198, Patient Centered Outcomes Research Institute research contract 805 and Department of Defense research contract W81XWH-13-1-0316. Marisa E. Hilliard was supported by NIH grant 1-K12-DK097696 (B. Anderson, PI).

We thank the following members of the American Psychological Association (APA) Division 54 Task Force: Elissa Jelalian, Sharon Berry, Avani Modi, T. David Elkin, Wendy L. Ward, David M. Janicke, Anna Maria Patiño-Fernández, Jennifer V. Schurman, Michael C. Roberts, Grayson N. Holmbeck, Laura Simons, Anne Kazak, Chad Jensen, Elizabeth R. Pulgaron, Jaclyn Lennon, Heather Yardley, Emily M. Fredericks, Anna Maria Patiño-Fernández, Karen Roberts.

Contributor Information

Tim Wysocki, Nemours Children’s Health System, Jacksonville, Florida.

Cheryl L. Brosig, Medical College of Wisconsin and Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, Wisconsin

Marisa E. Hilliard, Baylor College of Medicine

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