Faculty Contact Information:
1. Telephone: number provided in class. I live in France and the first two numbers indicate the country code and the following 0 is only used when calling within France. Otherwise, drop the first 0 when dialing. I have an answering machine and will be able to contact you within 24 hours within the week.
2. Email: My email address is: priceb@faculty.ed.umuc.edu. With the number of students in class writing to me about various issues, it may be helpful to include a summary of any previous correspondence to help my memory. | |
Consultation:
| Consultation is available by either email or telephone, although email is probably more reliable as I will also be commuting a lot. | |
Required Texts and Readings:
American Psychological Association. (2001). Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (5th ed.). Washington, DC: Author.
Groth-Marnat, G. (2003). Psychological Assessment (4th Ed). Hoboken, N.J.: John Wiley & Sons. | |
Supplementary Readings:
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A lot of additional readings will come from journals devoted to the application of testing, such as Psychological Assessment, Educational and Psychological Measurement, or Measurement and Evaluation in Counseling and Development. Students, therefore, should be prepared to utilize the UMUC online library at http://www.ed.umuc.edu/library/ or some other database provider of peer-reviewed full-text journals.
Other readings may be provided in the course content area. | |
Recommended Journals:
Some possible journals to help with research in this class include:
Applied Measurement in Education
Applied Psychological Measurement
Assessment
Assessment for Effective Intervention
Assessment in Education: Principles, Policy & Practice
Educational and Psychological Measurement (EPM)
Educational Measurement, Issues and Practice
Journal of Educational Measurement
Journal of Psychoeducational Assessment
Measurement and Evaluation in Counseling and Development
Psychological Assessment
Review of Educational Research | |
Course Description:
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Prerequisites: 15 hours of graduate psychology or counseling courses, including GUCO 610 Appraisal, Assessment & Evaluation. The course emphasizes the administration, scoring, and interpretation of intelligence, academic, projective and personality assessments. Included will be a survey of their development, their underlying theories and currents trends in their use. The course will review such tests as the Wechsler Scales, Woodcock Johnson Tests, Stanford Binet, Rorschach Inkblot Test, Thematic Apperception Test, Gestalt Test of Visual Perception, Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory, etc. As this course replaces PSYC 610, students may receive credit for only one of the following courses: PSYC 710 or PSYC 610. | |
Course Goals:
| This course is designed to enable students to become familiar with intelligence, academic, projective and personality assessment/testing, including reliability and validity of these tests, and counseling uses of these tests. The cross-cultural aspects of intelligence, projective and personality tests will be examined, as well as the influence of heredity and environment on intelligence, so that students can understand the process of using various tests/assessments to develop an effective counseling approach. | |
Course Objectives:
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At the conclusion of this course, the student will be able to:
1. Understand the administration, scoring and interpretation of a specific test battery, including the WAIS-III, WISC-IV, Woodcock Johnson, achievement tests, aptitude tests, Rorschach Inkblot Test, TAT, MMPI-2, etc.
2. Draw appropriate conclusions from the administration, scoring and interpretation of tests within a specific test battery.
3. Demonstrate a knowledge and understanding of the historical context, psychometric concepts and properties, and societal/cultural/racial influences on intelligence, academic, personality and projective testing.
4. Demonstrate a knowledge of how these tests apply to the counseling process.
5. Demonstrate an enhanced self-awareness of personal strengths, interests, and abilities.
6. Demonstrate an understanding of the legal and ethical issues in psychological testing. | |
Grading Information:
| Student Evaluation: Students’ performance will be graded based upon a percentage of a total points obtained during the course. In general, it will be necessary to obtain a minimum of 90% of the course points to achieve an A, at least 80% of the points for a B, at least 70% of the points for a C, and anything below 70% is a F. | |
Course Requirements:
The assignments and their contribution toward the final grade are:
1. General Conferences Participation.....12%
2. Study Group Papers (three)............48%
3. Exam (one)............................20%
4. Individual Paper (one)................20% | |
Description of Course Requirements:
General Conference Participation. Each week in the conference threads, there will be weekly discussion assignments. Discussions will focus upon the readings or student contributions as they relate to various tests and their use. Students will receive full credit by having responses that meet the following criteria. Except for timeliness, all other criteria are weighted equally. They are:
1. Timeliness. If late, no credit will be given.
2. Depth. Posts need to show sufficient coverage of the topic being discussed. Depth implies both a reading of professional material and an individual analysis
3. Breadth. Posts need to show full coverage of the issue discussed without being verbose. Quick replies to others'posts that just restate what was already said, or simply expresses an agreement with others, do not count. Conversely, long posts that distract or appear as monologues do not fulfill the notion of discussing.
4. Style. While it is very similar to responding in non-academic forums, posting in the classroom differs in the expectation that students use standard American or British English. Cyberspeak is not appropriate. Conversely, posts aren't class papers. It isn't necessary to write posts with references and, unless otherwise specified, it isn't permitted to replace the classroom text editor by attaching files for the purpose of posting.
Study Group Papers. To permit a deeper discussion of various issues pertaining to the class topics, students will participate in teams to produce papers that will be presented to the whole class. Guidelines, including the papers' topic, the list of questions that the team must answer, and a schedule of tasks with deadlines will be posted in the study group sections. Each team will have a leader who will have separate responsibilities than the rest of the group members.
Grading individuals on their portion of the study group papers will be a two step process. The first step is to grade the paper itself, using the same guidelines as for the individual paper discussed below. The second is to determine the quality of the individual student's contribution to the final paper. Essentially, the instructor will examine the student's frequency of contributions, their timeliness, and their usefulness to the paper, as well as student accessibility in order to determine if the student receives all, part, or none of the points received from the paper.
Exam. There will be one exam that will each cover roughly two-thirds of the course materials. The exam will be essay in format and will involve review and commentary of data and conclusions made from case material or published literature on testing.
Individual Paper. Students will chose a test from the textbook for further review regarding a particular application. The test reviews must be at least 10 typewritten pages and includes a minimum of 8 published references from peer-reviewed journals that feature discussion of test construction, validation or use. It is not possible to use a paper from a previous class to receive credit for this assignment.
For the group and individual papers, I will be using the following guidelines to determine the point value for grading. Each of the categories are equally weighted.
1. Project Purpose. The paper or project possesses a clearly delineated topic and consistently addresses the topic. The paper succeeds in covering issues that pertain to its topic without getting distracted.
2. Accuracy of the Information Presented. The paper avoids committing major errors of fact, or omitting significant information, within what is reasonable for a class paper or project.
3. Completeness. The paper provides a sufficient range of information for the topic chosen. All the areas of the topic needed for adequately discussing the topic within what is reasonable for a class paper are included.
4. Depth. The paper provides a sufficient level of presentation of the major concepts for informing the reader beyond a surface presentation.
5. Writing Style. The paper succeeds in communicating by indicated in its degree of organization and flow of topics, its correct use of the English language and grammar, and its proper use of the current APA referencing guidelines. | |
Course Schedule:
Tentative Outline
Weeks One, Two, and Three: Review of Appraisal Principles
..I. Readings: Chapters 1, 2, and 3
..II. First Group Papers due at end of Week Three.
Weeks Four - Six: Individual Cognitive Testing
..I. Tests Covered:
.....A. Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Revised
.....B. Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-Revised
.....C. Kaufman Adolescent Intelligence Test
.....D. Stanford Binet
.....E. Wide Range Achievement Test
..II. Readings: Chapters 5 and 6.
..III. Second Group Papers due at end of Week Six
Weeks Seven - Nine: Mental Health Testing
..I. Tests Covered
.....A. Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory
.....B. Substance Abuse Subtle Screening Inventory
.....C. Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory
.....D. Rorschach
.....E. Thematic Apperception Test
..II. Readings: Chapters 7, 8, 10, and 11.
..III. Third Group Papers due at end of Week Nine
..IV. Take Home Exam during Week Nine
Weeks Ten and Eleven: Treatment Planning
..I. Readings: Chapters 4, 13, 14, and 15
..II. Tests Covered
.....A. Symptom Checklists
.....B. Beck Depression Inventory
..III. Individual Paper due at end of Week Ten | |
Academic Policies:
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Note: Any written assignment in this course may be submitted to TurnItIn.Com. This statement constitutes prior notice.
The official university policy on Plagiarism and Academic Dishonesty can be found at http://www.umuc.edu/policy/aa15025.shtml. Section I.C. states: "Faculty may determine if the resubmission of course work from previous classes (whether or not taken at UMUC), partially or in its entirety, is acceptable when assigning a grade on that piece of course work. Faculty must provide this information in their written syllabi. If the resubmission of course work is deemed to be unacceptable, a charge may not be brought under this Policy and will be handled as indicated in the written syllabi."
Course Withdrawal: The last day to withdraw from a DE course is Friday before the last full week of the course. The last day to withdraw from an on-site course is the last business day before the last class meeting.
Students with disabilities should contct:
Director of Student Services
UMUC-Europe, UNIT 29216
APO AE 09102
Or: Im Bosseldorn 30, 69126 Heidelberg, Germany
Phone: +49-6221-378-299
Email: edstudent_svc@ed.umuc.edu
Please refer to Description of Course Requirements for specific information on how resubmissions will be treated in this course and to the UMUC-Europe Graduate Catalog for information on the following:
Academic Integrity
Course Load
Exception to Policy
Grade Appeal Process
Make-up Examinations
Nondiscrimination
Students with Disabilities
Hard copies of the catalog are available at your local Education Center. | |
Faculty Bio:
| I am a Collegiate Professor, teaching both undergraduate psychology and graduate counseling classes for Maryland. I grew up in the Ozarks of Missouri and have all my degrees from Midwestern institutions (Central Missouri State, University of Kansas, and Iowa State University). This is my eighth year teaching for UMUC in the overseas division, having first taught in Okinawa, then transferring to England where I was the Resident Graduate Professor (a.k.a. faculty advisor) for the Counseling Program until moving to France. Prior to joining Maryland, I was a licensed psychologist providing outpatient counseling and supervising a community mental health services’ program within a medium-sized detention center. My two major professional interests include the interface between mental health policy and law and cross-cultural issues in counseling and psychology. | |