SACSCOC Fifth Year Interim Report
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Assessment : 2011 - 2012 : Educational Programs :
Psychology MA (Clinical Psychology)
Psychology MA (Clinical Psychology)
2 Goals 2 Objectives 2 Indicators 2 Criteria 2 Findings 2 Actions
| GOAL: Psychotherapy Skills |
| Objective |
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| Students demonstrate competency in effective psychotherapy skills. |
| Indicator |
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MA Clinical faculty will assess student performance with respect to psychotherapy skills on the comprehensive exams. |
| Criterion |
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On the Comprehensive Examination there is a "Psychotherapy Skills" portion. Criterion is that 100% of the students taking that section of the exam score at least a 75% which is "Acceptable." |
| Finding |
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| MA Clinical faculty rated each student (100%) having taken the portion of the comprehensive exam under the title "Psychotherapy Skills" at an acceptable level. Range of means for students was 75.0 to 98.0 with an overall mean of 88.75. Thus, criterion was met. As in previous semesters, diagnosis appeared to be a weaker area than others. |
Actions for Objective:
| Action |
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Criterion was met. We will, though, as a department faculty assess the courses in which students hone their psychotherapy skills to strive for ever higher levels of performance. We will also meet with the students to stress the importance of these skills and with the supervisors to guarantee that these skills are being developed in each student. Additionally, we still are a little leery of the ability of out students to effectively benefit from the DSM axes system and we will further stress diagnostic criteria and diagnosis using that system. |
| GOAL: Assessment Skills |
| Objective |
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Students demonstrate expertise to administer, score, and interpret tests of intelligence for children and adults. |
| Indicator |
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| Students demonstrate competency to administer, score, and interpret Wechsler scales for children and adults. |
| Criterion |
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| 100% of students will score at least 80% (acceptable) on the capstone exercise. |
| Finding |
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MA Clinical faculty rated each student (100%) having taken the portion of the comprehensive exam under the title "Psychotherapy Skills" at an acceptable level. Range of means for each student was 78.0 to 98.0 with an overall mean of 90.44. At least one student did not score 80%; however, the overall mean was above 80%. |
Actions for Objective:
| Action |
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Capstone course results showed that most students attained an acceptable level of performance on the Assessment Portion of the course. Scores ranged from 78.0 to 98.0 with a mean of 89.62. MA Clinical faculty rated most students taking the Assessment portion of the comprehensive exam at an acceptable level. Only one student was below the 80% criterion. Capstone results for the Case Studies portion of the course showed that most students having taken the course/examination attained acceptable levels of performance on the Case Study Portion. Scores ranged from 75 to 98 with a mean of 88.75. Thus, MA Clinical faculty rated the student taking the Assessment portion of the comprehensive exam at an acceptable level. There was one student who did not obtain the 80% criterion Overall, the average score for the Capstone Assessment was 89.62 with a range of 79.5 to 97.5. We are pleased that we met criterion but a little concerned that our numbers dipped from the previous year. One reason is that we had a new, adjunct, faculty who was only working part time, teaching the course this past year. We since have created a new position and hired the instructor for the capstone course at the level of Clinical Assistant Professor. |
| Closing the Loop |
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Once again, diagnosis on the DSM axes was weaker in the presentations than other areas. It is obvious that the students have not had experience with the axes part of the DSM, although they seem to be adequate in using the criteria to establish a working diagnosis. They simply do not understand what goes on each axis. We will be working with the chair to determine where more experience could be achieved in the coursework. Some possibilities are the psychopathology course, the psychometrics II and psychometrics III courses, and the practicum I class.
On the assessment portion of the capstone, we were disappointed that our scores had dipped from last year's results. However, we believe that having created a new position of "clinical assistant professor" will bring the consistency needed for this important capstone experience. |