Learning Goals for Psych 497: Undergraduate Fieldwork

Dana Nelson

The goals for this course are to give students opportunities:

  1. to become familiar with the ethics code to which psychologists are bound; relate this code to your fieldwork. {how? reading, in-class discussion & worksheet}
  2. to consider career goals; reflect on how past experiences and your current fieldwork experience may impact these goals. {how? career workshop with assignments; grad panel}
  3. to appreciate the diversity of backgrounds and perspectives encountered during your fieldwork; consider how your own background (e.g., culture, income, education, gender) may bias your interpretation of behavior observed during your fieldwork. {how? in-class discussion & short paper}
  4. to relate observations made during your fieldwork to empirically-derived information encountered in past and current academic studies; develop hypotheses to help explain any discrepancies you notice between your observations and scientific evidence. {how? short papers}
  5. to describe your fieldwork experience to other students, reflecting on specific challenges you faced and noting how the fieldwork impacted your personal and career development. {oral presentation}
  6. to learn about a broad array of service agencies in the community; consider whether working in similar agencies would align with your own future employment or volunteerism goals. {oral presentations with worksheets}
  7. to practice writing, speaking, and thinking critically about your fieldwork and how it relates to your other academic studies.

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