[Psychmasters] COMPS

[BRUCE, A. JERRY]

For those of you anticipating Comps, the deadline for application is June 5 and the Comps will be ready for pickup on June 12, 1:00.  As in the past you will have 24 hours to work on them.  They will be due on Friday, June 13, at 1:00.  I hope you are not superstitious.

To assist you in preparing I am supplying the Clinical and General questions from the last two times the Comps were given, to give you an idea of what the questions will be like.  I hope the columns all line up okay.  You will see that there have been two questions or clusters of questions to which you are to respond.  I wish you all well as you plan for the summer Comps.

GENERAL:
INSTRUCTIONS:

The enclosed questions are to be addressed and returned to me by 1:00 on Friday, November 9.  You are to do the work independently, not consulting with other persons; remember your work may be checked for plagiarism using TURNITIN.com.  You are free, however, to consult reference works of various sorts. Give adequate references for the works you cite using APA style. Your responses must be typed and double spaced; please use a 12-point, Times New Roman font.  Address each aspect of the questions, attending to their subtleties. We hope to receive integrative responses that reveal your understanding of the information to which you have been exposed.

1.	There is current debate concerning the influence of violence on television and how it affects children (and adults).  Assume that you are the president of the ABC television network, and write a letter to the president of MAV (Mothers Against Violence) explaining why the current evidence shows that violent programming has no impact on children’s behavior.  Then, assume that you are the president of MAV, and write a response letter that refutes the president of ABC’s arguments. In both letters, cite research evidence to support your position.

Weave these issues into your arguments:  

Does the nature-nurture issue play any role in the question of TV violence?

What are the issues in statistical methods that should be addressed in research related to TV and violence?  Include in your discussion considerations of power and effect size.

2.	Describe two important applications of psychological science from each of the areas of inquiry you've encountered—physio, cognitive, learning, developmental, and social—that may improve human well-being.  

Then, comparing and contrasting the five fields, explain which of them offers the most important applications; justify your answer, please.


Spring Same Instructions:

1. The story of Psychology that we relate to our students has the discipline beginning in the last part of the 19th century, 1879 to be more precise. The discipline began as a definite scientific enterprise; however, the profession of psychology was also there at the beginning.  The science and the profession have struggled together up to the present time. Give three examples in the past of the conflict between these two.  Discuss the complementary role of the profession and the science in our discipline today.  Give evidence that the profession needs the science and that the science benefits from the profession.  Discuss with examples the tension that exists between those who view psychology as a basic science and those who focus on its applications.  What does this tension/conflict say about the future of psychology?  Can Psychology be a unified discipline in this context?  Give a reasoned response with evidence.

2. It's an election year.  Use your knowledge of general psychology to explain the origins of voters' preferences for one candidate over another.  At a minimum, you are required to discuss principles drawn from: (a) cognitive, (b) developmental, and (c) social psychology.


CLINICAL: (Instructions the same)

1. Ms. M is a 25 year old, 2nd generation, Vietnamese-American woman, referred by her physician to your private practice. She reports having had difficulties for the past 3 months since she moved several hundred miles away from her family to accept a prestigious job with a well-regarded law firm in Houston. Ms. M states that she has been having trouble sleeping, often taking hours to fall asleep and waking up early. She reports that when she tries to fall asleep at night that worries about her family and her performance at her new job run through her head.   She states that she is concerned both that she will do poorly at her job and that she has abandoned her family. When asked about why she is concerned about failing at her job, she is unable to report any concrete instances in which she is not performing well and instead reports general concerns that her employers will find out that she is not as skilled as they think. Ms. M. states that she has very little appetite and has lost 5 pounds without trying.  In addition, she reports experiencing frequent headaches and states that her legs ache all the time. Ms. M denies that she feels sad and denies any thoughts of suicide or harming herself. When asked about whether others in her family have had similar problems, she reports that her mother, “a worrier,” will at times have episodes during which she spends several days in bed. However, no one in her family has ever been diagnosed with a mental health problem.   

How might you consider diagnosing Ms. M’s problems, and what are your considerations for each diagnosis? 

Discuss possible etiological factors related to Ms. M’s symptomatology and describe how different etiological factors may interact to explain Ms. M’s symptomatology.

How might Ms. M’s cultural background relate to the development, expression, and maintenance of her symptoms?

Thoroughly discuss the relative merits of two psychotherapeutic approaches that might be used to intervene with this client.

2. Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing, authored in 1999 by the American Educational Research Association, American Psychological Association, and National Council on Measurement in Education, states, “absolute fairness to every [test] examinee is impossible to attain, if for no other reasons than the facts that tests have imperfect reliability and that validity in any particular context is a matter of degree” (p.73).

1) Discuss basic principles for establishing the reliability and validity of a psychological test.

2) Discuss possible threats to test reliability and validity at the stages of test development, test administration, and test use/interpretation.

3) Suppose that you developed an achievement test and found that scores in your undergraduate developmental sample were predicted by respondent gender (i.e., men’s achievement scores were higher than women’s). What hypotheses might you generate to explain this finding, and, given these, what actions might you take to reconcile the finding?

Spring:
 
1. Ms. Tina Brown, 19 years, has requested an assessment for a learning disability due to poor academic performance in her college classes.  She had been in special education classes in elementary school and had been included in regular classes during junior high school.  In high school, she no longer qualified for special education because intellectual and achievement scores just barely missed qualifying for the required discrepancy.  She attended tutoring and did a fair job in classes with an overall “B” average.  Her SAT scores were not high enough to be accepted to her chosen four-year college outright; however, she attended a community college and had a low “B” average in the 12 hours she attended.  She was then admitted to her chosen four-year college.  She actually did well in her English composition courses and in courses that required reading.  However, she has finally passed the developmental math course after taking it three times.  Math is so difficult for her that she wonders if she might qualify to receive extended time on tests.  To receive accommodations, she must have a learning disability.  You have administered a WAIS-III and the math subtest of the WRAT4.  You also administered the BASC-2 College Form to her.  Results are as follows:

WAIS-III FSIQ 	  96		WRAT4 Arithmetic	80	BASC2 Depression	61
WAIS-III VIQ	  99						BASC2 Anxiety	70
WAIS-III PIQ 	  94						BASC2 Attention	56
WAIS-III VCI	101
WAIS-III POI	  95
WAIS-III WMI	  93
WAIS-III PRI	  94

1)	Evaluate the appropriateness of the battery used as to strengths and weaknesses.  What recommendations, if any, would you make to the examiner regarding the test battery if you were the supervisor?

2)	Ms. Brown’s mother has called to talk with the examiner regarding the results.  What are the ethical issues involved, and how should the examiner proceed?

3)	What diagnosis or diagnoses should be considered with these results and the limited history available?  Discuss thoroughly what leads to your decision(s) and your recommendations.


2.  What are the roles of medication and psychotherapy in treating major depression? Indicate your understanding of the diagnostic criteria for major depression and other salient features about this disorder, and how it differs from other forms of depression. From the diagnoses what treatment plan would you follow using a Cognitive/Behavioral orientation, a Humanistic/Relational orientation, and a Psychodynamic orientation? When discussing these psychotherapies indicate what treatment approach or approaches have empirical support of effectiveness and under what conditions you would use one or the other of them in your intervention with a client.