SACSCOC Fifth Year Interim Report
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Assessment : 2012 - 2013 : 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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| Ten students participated in the Psychotherapy portion of the program. The range of scores was 77-100 with an overall mean of 88.9. One student failed the overall comprehensive exam (including both psychotherapy and assessment). She took the comprehensive exam a second time and failed again. The student no longer is in the MA-Clinical program. |
Actions for Objective:
| Action |
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| Actually, criterion was met by all students having taken this portion of the program even though one failed the Capstone due to lack of performance on the Assessment portion of the class. As has been the case in the past, diagnoses and diagonistic criteria were slightly weaker than the other areas. In the upcoming semester, the faculty members involved in these assessments will meet with the Departmental Coordinator for Graduate Studies and Dr. Stoebner-May, along with other clinicians involved, to stress the importance of these areas. |
| 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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| Ten students took the assessment capstone course. With all 10 students, the range was a 0-100 with an average of 78.7. One person received 0's from the graders. We have investigated the issue and found that the major issue with this one student was an ethical problem in which she violated the dual relationship criterion of the APA. Without that person, the range was 75-100 with a mean of 92.5. Thus, these nine remaining students all passed although one failed to meet the 80% criterion. |
Actions for Objective:
| Action |
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Nine of the 10 students passed the Assessment portion of the Capstone. The one that didn't made the error of violating the dual-relationship criterion set up the the American Psychological Association. This person is no longer in the MA-Clinical program. Of the remaining nine, one failed to reach the 80% criterion mentioned above (although the student did pass that section). Without the one student who failed, the mean score on the Capstone was higher than the previous year, 89.62 in 2012 vs 92.5 in 2013. We are pleased with this observation and credit Dr. Stoebner-May with having prepared her students well. We believe that promoting her from adjunct to Clinical Assistant Professor worked out extremely well. As for the student who was removed from the program, we believe this was a personal flaw but will make sure that all students, both first and second year, understand the appropriate procedures involved in the Assessment portion of the Capstone. |
| Previous Cycle's "Plan for Continuous Improvement" |
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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. |
| Update on Previous Cycle's "Plan for Continuous Improvement" |
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Across the board, students in the program had high scores on the DSM axes and there appeared to be no obvious weaknesses among the cohort. All but one student had very high scores on the Assessment portion of the program. These results speak to the strategy of having more permanence within the faculty with the creation of the clinical assistant professor position.
The one student who did not perform well we consider an outlyer and not representative of the class as a whole. In fact, the real problem with this student was a lack of judgment in how she obtained her clientele. |
| Plan for Continuous Improvement |
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Diagnoses on the DSM axes were much improved this year. We credit these changes to the faculty stressing the importance of this aspect of their training and to the training by the faculty. During the upcoming academic year, we will work with individual students to detect issues early on and try to determine during the students' first year if there might be issues.
Also, during the first year and continuing through the program, proper procedures will be stressed and students will be monitored to ensure that they are following those procedures. On the assessment portion of the Capstone, we were very pleased that our scores increased from last year's results. We do believe that having created a new position of "clinical assistant professor" has added consistency to the Capstone course and to the program in general. We are very happy with this result. We will continue to nurture the development of the individual in the clinical assistant professor position to achieve even better results in the upcoming cycles. On a different note, this fall we will have 16 new students in the MA-Clinical program. The mean undergraduate GPA is 3.56 with a mean GRE score of 1193. |