Assignment:
Respond to the student below. In your responses to other learners, ask any questions you might have about their posts. Do you know of any resources that might help them with their career goals?
Part 1
My specialization is General psychology. I have certifications in the applied behavioral analysis, as well as forensic. I decided to get my PHD in general psychology because I knew I would be able to touch on every specialty which is good to me. General psychology is the study of mental behaviors and psychological functions. The whole idea of studying the behaviors of an individual is very interesting to me. I am so intrigued with General psychology because every since I took intro to psychology and I fell in love with the focus of getting into individuals minds and the way they think. My career path is to join the FBI and work as an agent in their Behavioral Analysis Unit. With this degree, it will open so many doors for me. I am into solving cases with a mixture of what caused that individual to do the act. I also enjoy profiling which is basically a person who records and analyzes someone's psychological and behavioral characteristics, so as to assess or predict their capabilities or to assist in identifying categories of people. Growing up it has always been a passion of mine to becoming an psychologist. I am just so proud of myself to be in this position, I am not quit finish there is still a lot of things I have to do before I can fully say I am a psychologists.
In Florida, where I live there are different requirements to become a psychologist. The state of Florida requires all licensed psychologists to have a doctoral degree in psychology from an accredited or approved school.It is of the utmost importance to create a plan for the educational path and licensing procedures that will be required of you in order to become a psychologist in the state of Florida. In order to work as a licensed psychologist in the state of Florida all candidates are required to have a doctoral degree, either a Ph.D. or a PsyD in psychology or a closely related field, this degree must be from an approved institution. After acquiring your doctorate degree in psychology or a closely related subject such as educational psychology, candidates are then required to complete 4,000 hours of supervised professional experience over two years.
This experience must be conducted under the supervision of a licensed psychologist that the Florida Board of Psychology has approved. Once you have completed your doctoral degree and 4,000 hours of supervised experience you can then submit your application for licensure. The state of Florida requires all psychology licenses to be renewed every two years; to be eligible for renewal the license holder must complete a minimum of 40 hours of continuing education. The Florida Board of Psychology also enforces one further stipulation to renewing you license, which is that on every third renewal a psychologist must undertake two hours of domestic violence education. After I complete this degree I will no longer need to take any more classes. Once I start looking into my FBI career, I will need to have at least five to seven years of law enforcement experience before I can be consider a position as a profiler in the BAU.
Capella requires Going through a doctoral program at an online university is not a solitary process. To the contrary, interaction with peers and faculty is a key part of the experience. To facilitate group discussions and one-on-one conversations with others in your chosen field, some online universities like Capella require doctoral students to participate in residencies for certain programs. Residencies provide the direction, motivation, and detailed feedback that allow you to refine your focus, develop your research, and shape your final project. All doctoral degrees require students to complete a final project. Successfully finishing the final project demonstrates a student's mastery of these key doctoral competencies: Research and scholarship, Writing and communication, Critical thinking, Information literacy and Ethics. For PhD candidates, the final project is a dissertation. Some professional doctorate programs also require students to complete a dissertation, but more often than not, such degrees culminate in a doctoral capstone.
I plan to meet this requirements by staying a head, picking a topic and getting the approval earlier. After the approval I will start the first section of the dissertation and submit it to the writing center for corrections. I know if I continue to stay focus I will be able to get everything done that I need to successfully get my degree. Time management is going to be my biggest challenge as well as presenting my dissertation to the committee. I am very concerned about presenting so is something else that I need to practice on from now. Just to make sure that I am able to get the attention of committee and hopeful blow them away.
Part 2
The specialization chosen within the College of Professional Studies is Industrial Organizational Psychology with a concentration in Coaching. I pursued my Masters level degree in Industrial Organizational Psychology from Capella University and fell in love with the concept of how this particular discipline ties directly into my career profession of Human Resources. The study of I/O Psychology is the scientific study of workplace issues and how to evaluate people behaviors to help improve organizations achieve their business objectives.
Achieving a doctoral level degree in I/O Psychology will allow me the opportunity to explore many career opportunities in fields such as testing/assessments, coaching, performance management, staffing/talent management, improvement of safety and workplace well-being, as well as organizational and leadership development. The role of an I/O Psychologist is critical in today's time when the workplace is consumed with varying generations, personalities, attitudes/traits and characteristics that can show up as organizations use individuals knowledge, skills and abilities to build teams to improve productivity. The interest of understanding personalities and getting the most out of individuals in order to achieve organizational metrics, amongst other aspects of people is intriguing to better understand human behaviors. I/O Psychologists show up in various settings and industries to include, businesses, Federal Government, consulting firms, universities and research organizations.
According to Capella's University catalog of the Harold Abel School of Psychology, a doctoral level learner has to obtain and complete twenty-four required courses and at least one hundred four quarter credits along with three - ten week course residencies to successfully obtain a PhD. The plan to meet the required criteria is to plan effectively and utilize resources; both internally and externally to ensure successful completion of the courses as well as the required residencies. As for license/certifications of an I/O Psychologist is determined by regulations/laws that are state specific. Some jurisdictions allow one to refer to themselves as, Psychologist if they are accredited by the American Psychological Association - APA. However, many I/O professionals work under consulting practices/agencies rather than refer to the use of psychologist in their title. The advantages of being licensed as a Psychologist can provide creditability, personal branding for marketing purposes and provide a level of protection of confidentiality as well as protection of liability if subpoena or challenged from a legal perspective.
After obtaining PhD in I/O Psychology, ten years from now I am hopeful that I will be a successful independent consultant/coach to help organizations build their employee experience and people skills to achieve organizational results. As such, I can see working with business professionals, consultants and other leaders to help coach and influence human behaviors. I can also foresee working with executives to coach in areas of leadership development. Additionally, data, talent/personality assessment tools and survey designs will be useful to measure success and movement of the needle. The context of data would definitely tie into the level of theory of motivation, amongst other theories to help describe behaviors and would require research of human behaviors and humanistic psychology to interpret root causes, gaps and solutions to improve performance.
Lastly, after researching the required learnings of questions and methods for the I/O Psychology profession yielded that there are myriad amount of information and topics. It is imperative to learn how to research scholarly peered reviewed articles while being specific in regards to searching for relevant material. There are different search tips to help the learner drill down and refine the search to ensure it yields the information needed to support writings and interpretations. Taking time to learn the tools of the library and how to search will be imperative for doctoral level learners. To conclude, the PhD process takes time and effort however once achieved the learner can use the degree to brand themselves as credible and also work to help improve organizations success.
Part 3
The topic chosen from General Psychology to research was that of Cognitive Psychology, specifically Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT). DBT was an accidental interest. During internship years, a fellow intern suggested a DBT group be formed for the benefit of the clients being seen in the agency. This group ran for two cycles, although attendance was not great for a variety of reasons. When the group cycles were completed, interest was piqued, and a desire to know more was developed. It became apparent that there were little to no groups in the surrounding area providing the DBT option.
As more was learned about the technique, ideas began to develop to provide this therapy to the area, and for a much broader population than its original intention, which was Borderline Personality Disorder. As time moved on, there were adaptations of DBT created, which were specific to other diagnoses and populations. Moving forward, I chose to become certified in DBT, as there were no other officially certified DBT therapists in the surrounding area. I have been running two DBT groups for the better part of 5 years now, and have seen the immense benefits that clients have gained from this process.
A hot topic in General Psychology that has been researched lately is that of Positive Psychology. Many "self-help" books have been written on the topic and have gained popularity as of late. Such books as "You are a badass" by Jen Sincero, "Girl, wash your face" by Rachel Hollis, and "Awakened mind" by Mitch Horowitz. Another hot topic, and one of personal interest, is trauma, specifically related to military and first responders. There have been recent developments within the VA that has allowed more movement for the population suffering from trauma and trauma related symptoms. The VA website specifically states that there are studies being conducted of the usefulness of DBT as a therapy in treating PTSD (combined with prolonged exposure therapy (PE)).
The readings from Critical Thinking in Psychology helped to clarify how to be wary of citing information further away from the initial report, showing how easily information can be distorted by using "leveling" vs "sharpening" techniques. Keeping this in mind will help future writing, by recognizing how different authors view's can ultimately change the intended interpretations of research by the original participants.
For the dissertation, I have not fully settled upon a topic. I know where my general interests lay, but am allowing myself flexibility in the decision-making process. Ideally, I'd like to focus on how DBT is an effective tool to helping trauma-related struggles in military and first responders. I have not discovered the most cohesive way to bring this topic into the sharp focus necessary to carry through the dissertation.
Part 4
The topic that I choose in my specialization to research using Capella the library was Parenting skills in Applied Behavior Analysis therapy. I found very interesting this topic because in my work experiences as a Behavior therapist in the ABA field I observed how parents experiences depression, denies, higher level of frustration, lose their job and even marriages get divorced when their children are diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder or other Developmental Disorder and present symptoms of aggressive behavior, sensory issues, poor social skills, language, and motor skills delays. Experiences these situations with the parents of my client and see how the whole family are affected took me to explorer more the Parenting skills in this field. Other experiences in this filed for more than eight years was to observe how some parents get involved in the treatment plan process and application and how other not shown any interest to be a part of the process make me think and reflect if the lack of involvement can be a variable for the effectiveness of ABA therapy.
The hot topics in research in Applied Behavior Analysis that are being discussed, debated, and researched lately are ABA in industrial safety, aba treatment for autism spectrum disorder, and aba in the school system. Applied behavior analysis in industrial safety is looking to reduce safety issues in work using performing feedback, positive and negative reinforcement with employees. In the area of autism treatment applied behavior analysis been researched and discussed the effectiveness of this therapy to improve social skills, learn functional communications skills, reduce aggressive and maladaptive behaviors and one topic in this area that has been debated is the use of aba therapy in the feeding process in children with autism. In the case of aba in school the applied behavior analysis research on the benefits of the implementation of reinforcement systems like token economy system inside classroom, training in aba therapy principles teacher to managing challenges behaviors and implementation of behavior program like following directions, writing and reading skills in the intrusive curriculum. One topic that also been discussed lately is the aba therapy in animals, in this case how to use this approach to animals follows directions.
The readings of Critical Thinking in Psychology helped when I search for my literature review and start my dissertation is necessary to implement honesty, replicability, and sufficiency assignment that every research should have like honesty, replicability, logic, sufficiency to be able to claim to knowledge. Help me to evaluate that one issue in my specialization is the generality of the study because most of them are the case studies. After I read, I get the understanding that the researcher believes, or biases can conduct them to omit or decrease the value of results or information in research and is vital for my dissertation to evaluate and examine the primary source data for not fall in sharpen and level the information.
DISCUSSION 1- Your initial response should be at least 150 words and contain a reference list for the sources used to support your response.
Describe at least three ways that your environment might negatively affect your daily health. Consider your indoor and outdoor air quality, water quality, food safety, waste removal, workplace hazards and/or other elements. Discuss the preventive measures you take to protect your health from these hazards.
DISCUSSION 2 - Your initial response should be at least 150 words and contain a reference list for the sources used to support your response.
How does water become contaminated by pathogens? What are some of the measures in place to prevent contamination?