Moving DQs to Psychology Blog

I am taking a break from college right now, that is, I dropped out and intend on going back some day soon(er or later). I am going to work more and get all of my bills caught back up. Going to college takes a lot of time and it is difficult to work any great number of hours while working on a masters. At any rate, on this break I decided to upgrade, update, and organize my blogs. I am copying all of the DQs in this blog to my Psychology Blog. There is a link on the left to Psychology Blog I am talking about. I am going to leave the DQs on this blog so that everyone can still find them, but I on the new psychology blog the post will be categorized and tagged. I realized that it might be difficult to find a particular DQ without knowing exactly what to search for. I realized this because I couldn’t find one of my own posts that I was looking for on my own blog. So, this is as much for your benefit as for mine! Thanks for reading my blog and I hope I have helped you in some way through this blog.

Intro to The Republic by Plato

So, I am reading The Republic by Plato right now. I have often quoted from this book and have studied it in several of the college classes I have taken, but I have never read the actual text. I just finished the intro by Francis McDonald Corford, and it was eye-opening. There was one quote in particular that was very thought-provoking:

"These words preface an account of the decline of society and of the individual soul, as if it were written in man's fate that every attempt to scale the heavens should be followed by a descent into hell."
Francis McDonald Cornford

I have found this principle to be a universal truth about life...that every high must be followed by a low, that every pinnacle of achievement must be followed by a valley of consequences. The United States is a perfect example: how could any group of men ever outdo or overshadow the founders? There is nowhere to go but down from them. They were the greatest thinkers of the modern age. They devised a nation of people in which all people are created equal with certain inalienable rights while still preserving the Philosopher King mentality of Plato's Republic in the Executive Branch. And if the abovequoted principle holds true, the great pinnacle of their achievements will necessitate the great valley of consequences that we now see playing out in our streets, homes, and schools today (i.e. uneducated children, debt, welfare, etc...). In my own personal life I have seen that every time I achieve something great there is always a time of recovery or reflection or inactivity. The will of man is not an inexhaustible resource that can be summoned on a whim and made use of perpetually, rather the will is a finite store that finds its end quicker than we could image or control.

I remember an analogy that I used to hear at church: Trying to get to heaven through works is like trying to swim the Pacific Ocean, some people might get further than others but no one has ever made it all the way across. In the same vein of thought, no one can actually scale the heavens, so it logically flows, if the above quote holds true, that everyone falls at some point. Our only concern is whether we would like to fall small or fall big, it being the case that the higher we fly the further we have to fall. It would seem that the best course of action would be to rise and fall in steps or stages (i.e. 2 steps forward and 1 step back). If it is inevitable that we should all observe such a see-saw effect in our achievements, then the only thing we can do is maximize the ascent and minimize the fall. It would be important to work this principle into our lives and thoughts or we might be tempted to become discouraged while taking the step back towards hell, never minding that the one step back to hell is the only way to achieve the chronologically next two steps to heaven.

Dropping out of college for a bit...

So, I decided to give college a break for a while. I need to concentrate on making money to support my family for a while. I am sure most UOP students can relate. I am sure I will go back to college one day soon. I will continue to update this blog and my Psych blog weekly. I am glad this blog has helped everyone so much. Talk to you all soon!

PSY525 (Week 4 DQ 2)

While there might be many reasons people will lambaste intelligence and achievement tests there can be value in the results. Why might intelligence and achievement assessments be valuable in an employment or educational setting? What might be done to improve the utility of the results?

In employment situations intelligence and achievement tests seem very applicable, almost necessary, to determine people’s abilities and capabilities. However, in educational situations tests of intelligence seem to be highly slanted towards a very narrow type of intelligence and abilities. I say this because in employment situations a company is looking for a very specific type of person for the job. It is okay to be narrow and specific about the type of test and medium of test. For instance, if they are looking for a person that scores high in literary/logical/reasoning intelligence, then it is okay to have an employment test that is written. Moreover, if they are looking for someone who has high social intelligence, then it is okay to have a verbal test. Conversely, in educational situations the intelligence tests are meant to obtain a general sense of intelligence in all people, so a written test will be slanted towards literary/logical people and a non-verbal test would be better for social/linguistic people. In educational settings it might be prudent for first test for the best medium of testing before administering the test, then the result would have less error variance. A good start would be to design two version of every test: verbal and written. There would of course be other types of tests: braille or visual for sight/hearing impaired, respectively. I believe that intelligence and achievement tests are necessary in both educational and employment situations, but the medium of the test is very biased towards a certain type of thinking and way of relating to the world. In employment situations that is okay, but in general educational situations there needs to be separate tests for separate types of intelligence. At first glance, this might seem to cost more money, but with improved scores on statewide standardized tests there will be less tutorial time, less investment of classroom time on these tests, and increased graduation percentages.

PSY525 (Week 4 DQ 1)

A great deal has been written about intelligence and many societies place significant credence on being intelligent. What is intelligence? Can it be measured? Why or why not? How does the “American” culture influence what is deemed as intelligent? How might different cultures modify the definition?

I believe it is prudent to take a structuralized stance on intelligence, rather than a functionalized position, since the function of intelligence is largely predicated on culture and situation. It is my opinion that intelligence is cognitive ability + personality potentiality + street smarts + developmental maturation + exhibition. Where cognitive ability entails sheer processing power and working memory capacity; personality potentiality includes self-efficacy, a healthy self-esteem and drive; street smarts has to do with the practical ability to apply intelligence to everyday situations; developmental maturation entails the inclusion of Piaget’s Formal Operational Thinking, and exhibition of intelligence behavior. The most troublesome from a testing perspective is the last and the most straightforward is the first. Any estimate of intelligence behavior is in itself subjective, but cognitive ability can be measured through simple tests of information processing ability or working memory capacities. This approach seems to be the best measurement of intelligence: to break the construct down to is subsidiary parts and examine each one at a time.

It seems that the American culture puts a premium on logical/reasoning intelligence and mathematical intelligence and overlooks street smarts and natural/artistic intelligence, here of course I am pulling from Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences. However, I do not ascribe to this concept of multiple intelligences, rather I would tend to agree with the g concept of intelligence—where there is one general reservoir of intelligence that all varieties of exhibition tap into. Culture also seems to have a mediating effect on how intelligence develops. A person who exhibits high levels of reasoning/logical intelligence might not have the fostering environment necessary to bring such intelligence to fruition if they are born into a hunting and gathering society in mid-Africa. Likewise, if a person who exhibits high naturalistic intelligence is born into an inner-city environment, then they will never be able to exercise their avenues of intelligence.

PSY525 (Week 3 DQ 2)

Why is it important to consider context when interpreting assessment results? What types of questions might provide you with appropriate context based upon the assessments you might administer?

Cohen & Swerdlik (2010) put the matter plainly when they said, “…exactly how a particular trait manifests itself is, at least to some extent, situation-dependent” (p. 102). The problem with the assessment of psychometric traits is that we are measuring the unseen. Personality traits are said to be relatively enduring, in the sense that they are not manifest 100% of the time, but are manifest often enough that they are observable—especially in situations where overt behavior is exhibited. It is the chore of assessments to bring overt behavior to the surface and measure it in some manner, whether that be through direct observation, a test medium, or anecdotal accounts. Context offers the situation in which the assessment was administered, and further the place/person/situation of the person validating or administering the results. Unfortunately, we cannot operate outside of the realm of subjectivity, and therefore we must constantly compensate for bias, prejudice, and human frailty. It even goes without saying, that all test results are tainted by some kind of bias—either on the part of the test-taker, the test administrator, or the test designer. Questions within the test can help offset this bias. For instance, it might be important to know the age of the test-taker, administrator, and designer when considering answers to questions that are generationally-relevant. One question might be: How has war in the Middle East effected your daily life in America? Now, if we are asking this question to a teenager, then they will only be referring to 9/11 and the war in Iraq, but my father was in Desert Storm. My father might be referring to that war, at least in part, when answering the question. Further, if I was the designer of the test (I am 29), then I would most likely be referring to 9/11 as well. When considering the results for the answer to the question, it would be important to know what war I am referring to, what war the test-taker is referring to, and what war the test assessor is under the impression the test-taker is referring to. Also, in this situation ethnicity might play a role. An ethnic Israeli or Palestinian might be referring to the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict when answering this question. Thoughts….

Cohen, R. J., & Swerdlik, M. E. (2010). Psychological testing and assessment: An introduction to tests and measurement (7th ed.). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.

PSY525 (Week 3 DQ 1)

How might these qualifications impact the use of assessment results by psychology professionals?

Of particular interest to this question is section 6 of the Standards for Qualifications of Test Users, which explains that validity is in the eye of the beholder, to some extent. A test should take into account cultural, gender, or age bias in the test questions and application. The purpose of the test should be stated from the beginning and the results should be interpreted in light of that purpose.

What is your experience with the qualifications of individuals who are administering assessments? Knowing that a doctoral or master's program can't teach a student how to use every test available, where might a professional receive additional training to administer new assessments?

In section 7 the Standards for Qualifications of Test Users insists that, “Test users seek on-going educational and training opportunities to maintain competence and acquire new skills in assessment and evaluation.” It appears to me that this might be at the heart of many of the problems with the current assessments used in psychological settings; namely, that they are outdated and behind the curve of current psychological experimentation and study. Once somebody meets the qualifications for administration of assessment they tend to use the same assessments over and over, even though new, better-researched assessments might be available. I suppose a suggestion to assessment administrators would be to monitor the academic journals that specifically report on current research in the field they are studying.

Looking at your state's requirements for licensing as a counselor or a psychologist, what type, if any, of specific language related to assessment is included in the requirements?

I was particularly interested in the Licensed Specialist in School Psychology requirements for the State of Texas. Apparently, an applicant must have 1 year post-licensure, supervised training in the field of school psychology, Master’s/Doctoral Degree or 60 semester hours in psychology, 1200 hours of formal internship, payment of a $210 examination fee, and payment of $200 in board application fees before licensure can be approved by the ASPPB (http://www.asppb.org/HandbookPublic/handbookreview.aspx). The only specific assessment mentioned in the language is the exam for licensure; however, there are several measures of assessment built into the degrees, internship, and supervised training.