Accreditation of psychology programs in Chile:: contextual background and current status

The career of psychology began in Chile in 1948, while the accreditation process assessing the quality of higher education is quite recent. Some of the main highlights and diagnosis in the development of higher education and its linkage to quality are analyzed, describing the process of accreditation. This process includes four phases: a request to undertake the process of accreditation, an autoevaluation phase, a peer review phase, and a final decision. The assessment of accreditation conveys an autoevaluation analysis and an external assessment referred to nine criteria: career proposal; institutional integrity; organizational, administrative and financial structure; professional and curricular structure; human resources; teaching and learning process; administrative process results; infrastructure technical aid and teaching resources; and media involvement.