ABSTRACT
This chapter presents the purpose of the DPA Training Program, which was to develop the competence of practitioners in administering and scoring the DPA-P. It discusses in detail the organization of the training program followed by the philosophy that was used when constructing the DPA-P system. It provides the foundational information for how we constructed the companion DPA-P online training program, which includes 16 lessons. The rationales for (a) where and how evaluations are included; (b) the extensive feedback provided along the way; and (c) the practice examples are included. We based the philosophy of the training program on Bloom’s (1965) educational taxonomy, and we describe how you can progress from basic levels of memorizing the different play categories to thigh levels of applying this knowledge to effectively code play activities in real time. In addition, this chapter provides recommendations on how to effectively use the training program to increase optimal learning.
