PYC 5140 – Assessment Principles and Methods
Properly implement and interpret an array of assessment tools.
Format: Online
Duration: 16 weeks (Fall)
Credits: 3
Prerequisites: Must be admitted to the Antioch Online Clinical Mental Health Counseling graduate program
Proper assessment is a key factor to providing appropriate treatment recommendations and practicing as a successful mental health counselor. With numerous assessments available for children, teens and adults, and ethical and societal expectations in play, it can be a challenge to determine the best treatment approach. This course helps you focus on the assessment variations available, the role they play in treatment, and how to interpret their results in a way that benefits your client.
Course Description
This course will provide students with an overview of the theoretical, historical and cultural bases for assessment. Ethical standards, issues related to age, gender, ethnicity, culture, language and disabilities as they pertain to psychological testing and assessment, assessment methods and instruments, and the concepts of reliability, validity and the psychometrics of assessment will be covered. Students successfully completing this course will be better able to administer and interpret appropriate psychological test and assessment information in their roles as mental health counselors.
What Kind of Work Will I Complete?
Assessment, Principles & Methods introduces you to the many elements and types of assessments available to assist in working with a client. The course is designed with a strong expectation of class participation and project completion.
Sample Project: Suicide Assessment Project
This project demonstrates your critical-thinking skills as they relate to suicide assessment. You’re asked to identify and critically analyze an assessment for suicide risk that is currently in the public domain. After a brief summary, you’ll provide a review of its reliability and validity. You will discuss the limitations of this particular tool, the considerations you need to make regarding the client and the environment you’re in, as well asexamining multicultural applications and scoring of the assessment.
Sample Course Topics Include:
Throughout the course your studies will focus on a core set of topics that coincide with the course’s learning objectives. Sample topics are:
- Introduction to Assessment, Key Concepts, and Important Considerations
- Nuts and Bolts of Assessment: Identifying Presenting Problems, Noting Clinical
Observations, and Developing Inferences and Treatment Goals - Psychological Testing: Key Concepts and Personality & Interest Measures
- Assessing substance use, abuse and addiction
- Comprehensive Risk Assessment: Suicide and Dangerousness to Others
- Assessing Psychopathology & Substance Use Disorders
- Assessments Used With Children and Adolescents
What You’ll Learn
This class introduces you to the many elements of assessments in children, teens and adults. You’ll closely examine your own pre-conceived notions, societal influences, and the history of trends in assessment as they relate to your work with a client. Your mastery of the core competencies allows you to:
- Learn how routine tests and measures are integrated into the assessment process in
mental health settings. - Understand the ethical and multi-cultural issues associated with assessment and
evaluation. - Understand historical trends in assessment and psychological testing including
foundational psychometric concepts such as: reliability, validity, standardized scores,
and norms. - Demonstrate understanding and competency in interviewing skills for the purpose of making initial diagnostic, case formulation and risk assessments in mental health settings.
Your Assessment Report
This report demonstrates your ability to assess an assigned “client” and translate the results of your assessment into recommendations for treatment. It should include the setting and context of the assessment administrations, results, your interpretation of the results and a change plan.
For more information about this course, or other courses in the Master of Arts in Clinical Mental Health Counseling from Antioch Online, please call (855) 792-1049, or request more information.