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Nova Southeastern University Center for Psychological Studies Course Outline Course # & Title: PYCL 507 - Research and Evaluation for Counselors Credit Hours: 3 Location/Section: Tampa/TP1 Dates: January 28, 29, 30, 2011 February 18, 19, 20, 2011 Instructor: Mark B. Sobell, Ph.D. [email protected] Class Times: Fridays 6:00 PM to 10:00 PM Saturdays 8:30 AM to 6:00 PM Sundays 8:30 AM to 5:30 PM Required Texts: Marczyk, G. R., DeMatteo, D., Festinger, D. (2005) Essentials of Research Design and Methodology, John Wiley and Sons. ISBN: 0-471-47053-8 Course Description: This course seeks to prepare mental health counselors to be informed consumers of research and evaluation. It covers basic statistics, research designs, and program evaluation within the counseling and educational fields. It provides experience in developing accountability measures and in reading research and evaluating reports applicable to multicultural populations. Course Objectives: Upon completion of this course, students will be able to - Understand how to critically evaluate research relevant to the practice of counseling and know models of program evaluation and basic strategies for evaluating counseling outcomes in distinct counseling settings. - Understand basic types of research methods, including quantitative, qualitative, single case designs, action research, program evaluation and outcome based research. - Know current methods of using data to inform evidence based practice, decision making and accountability, and develop measureable outcomes for counseling programs, activities, interventions and experiences. - Understand the importance of research and demonstrate an ability to analyze and use data to increase effectiveness of counseling programs. - Understand ethical and culturally relevant strategies for interpreting and reporting the results of research and/or programs evaluation studies. - Know the principles, models, and applications of needs assessment, program evaluation, and the use of findings to effect program modifications.- Demonstrate knowledge of statistical concepts, including scales of measurement, measures of central tendency, indices of variability, shapes and types of distributions, and correlations. - Examine statistical methods used in conducting research and program evaluation. - Understand reliability (i.e., theory of measurement error models of reliability, and the usse of reliability information) and validity (i.e., evidence of validity, types of validity, and the relationship between reliability and validity). Calendar: Prior to Friday, January 28, read Marcyzk et al. Chapters 1, 2, 3, 4, 6 Prior to Friday, February 18, read Marcyzk et al. Chapters 5, 7, 8, 9 Description of Assignments Tests There will be an examination each weekend. The examinations will not be cumulative in content. They will cover assigned readings and the material presented during class, and they will be open book and open note. Computers and cell phones may not be used during the exams, however. The exams will consist of mostly short answer and some multiple-choice questions, except that the first weekend part of the test will involve reading and then critiquing a very short research article. The book is very good at highlighting the most important information in research methods (gray boxes). In many ways, this is a course on conceptual thinking, especially the first weekend. The second weekend continues an emphasis on conceptual thinking but focuses largely on statistics and evaluation. Regarding book chapters that deal with statistics, you will not be required to perform any calculations, but rather to understand the various tests and approaches conceptually. As many of you will know from past experience, however, studying math requires different techniques than studying other written materials. In particular, it is easy to read through a math text and think that you understand what is being said, only to find out at test time that you did not understand it. Thus, I strongly urge you to take notes on your readings. The tests will be open note and open book, so your notes will come in handy. Also, although you will not need to do computations on the test, doing some of them in the book is a very helpful way to understand the conceptual basis for the statistics. Finally, if you are reading carefully and taking notes and you still find yourself having difficulty understanding the material, you might find a tutor or a former student who did well to help you. Literature Review Paper The purpose of this assignment is to help you become good consumers of research articles. For this assignment, students will conduct a literature review in a mental health counseling area of interest to them. The review must be of peer-review journal articles (no books, book chapters, or internet sites may be used as references). The Nova library has an excellent collection of journals available online and you can download articles at no cost. The literature review must cover a minimum of six journal articles, and it should be a a minimum of 4 typewritten, double spaced pages utilizing the publication format of the APA. Your reference list at the end does not count as one of the 4 pages. Be sure to follow appropriate rules for quotations, should you use them in your paper (If you use someone else’s words, they must quoted. If you use someone else’s idea, it must be referenced. Failure to give credit to others’ published works is considered plagiarism.) Papers must be turned in on the Friday of the second weekend.A format for the literature review is as follows: INTRODUCTION: In this section, state the research question or topic that is that is the subject of the review. Why is this an important question for mental health counseling? METHOD: Describe how you went about searching the literature. What search mechanisms did you use? What search terms? RESULTS: Summarize what each study did, what they found, any limitations of the methods. You can so this in variety of ways. Some reviews use tables. Others use mainly verbal descriptions. We will talk about this in class, but if you consult the journal literature you will find many reviews. Although your review will be much shorter than anything published in a journal (because the purpose of this assignment is to give you experience in finding, reading, and reporting on the


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