Category: Featured Articles
Hard Work Pays Better Than No Work
Posted by Nick Roy in Featured Articles, MBA Advice Monday, 29 December 2009 12:27 2 Comments
Whether or not you decide to pursue your education online or offline, at the end of the day there’s really one thing you’re going to have to embrace if you want to succeed: hard work. To succeed in online education, whether it be an online degree program like I am currently working on, is to prepare yourself for that hard work. Many people think that taking a course online is easy. No it is not! Not by a long shot! Online courses are equally challenging to their residential counterparts.
Hey, I appreciate the conveniences and cost savings that can be had through online programs, believe me. I love the fact that I can go to class on my own schedule, and that I can use the flexibility of the Web to achieve my degree goal. No question at all, e-learning offers some tremendous advantages. But those advantages absolutely do not negate the fact that it will still take hard work on each individual’s part in order to successfully complete the program.
For some reason, a lot of people think that online education is going to be so much easier. I’m not exactly sure where they get that impression, but believe me, as someone who has been through it, e-learning is just as demanding as regular, traditional, offline in-classroom learning. You may be able to attend class in your pajamas, or you may be able to take an online test during your lunch break at work. But again, that’s convenience rather than “easier”.
Instead, approach online learning as an opportunity, rather than an easier path. Consider the benefits of the e-learning experience, but don’t equate online learning with some sort of shortcut. In fact, for some people, electronic education is actually more difficult than classroom learning. It’s only an opportunity, not a gift. I like to think of a quote by Thomas Edison:
“Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.”
Take advantage of the opportunity.
Making The Decision To Go To LU
Posted by Nick Roy in Featured Articles, MBA Advice Sunday, 28 December 2008 10:08 No Comments
All of you who have been reading my blogs recently know that I have been actively searching for my next degree. I knew that when I completed my MBA from Hawaii Pacific University that my academic career as a student was not over or at least I knew I had enough vinegar left to do one more degree at least. I consider learning to be a lifelong pursuit but even I have to admit that enough is enough when it comes to actually obtaining that next degree. At some point it just doesn’t make sense to keep going, to keep sacrificing and to keep having your family make sacrifices. Sometimes you just have to know when to walk away. A day will come when you have to admit to yourself that you can’t keep doing this indefinitely. Fortunately this isn’t that day!
I have decided to attend online at Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia. I will be working towards a Master of Arts in Professional Counseling with a focus on Clinical Psychology. Given that I have no psychology background, I still have to take a number of undergraduate psychology courses as pre-requisites. Anyhow there are a number of reasons I have decided to attend LU.
First, they are inexpensive. This is the one of the single most important things to me right now. It has to be accessible and to be accessible it has to be inexpensive. In fact the school has a payment plan that allows you to spread the tuition payments over 5 even sums at given times throughout the semester. How thoughtful.
| Estimated Costs 2008-2009 |
| Average | Local | Honors | |
| Tuition/Room*/Board/Fees | $21,234 | $21,234 | $21,234 |
| ScholarshipsChampion EDA Pastor Alumni Academic (average) Virginia Scholarship SBCV Virginia Tuition Assistance Grant Honors |
$1,000 $500 $500 $500 $2,000 NA NA NA NA |
$1,000 $500 $500 $500 $2,000 $1,000 $1,000 $3,200 NA |
$1,000 $500 $500 $500 $3,000 NA NA NA $3,750 |
| Total Scholarships | $5,000 | $10,200 | $9,750 |
| Total estimated cost/year | $17,234 | $12,034 | $12,484 |
| Total estimated cost/semester | $8,617 | $6,017 | $6,242 |
Source: Liberty University
Second, they are regionally accredited. This is a big deal because I intend to use this degree become a licensed psychologist and to immediately enter a doctoral program in psychology.
Third, with the 8 week sub-terms, I will still be able to complete my second Master’s degree by 2011 and then immediately enter a doctoral program. Also, I will be getting high quality Christian education and develop the ability to use the Bible in counseling sessions. Like most investments, it makes sense to diversify. This is the big winner over my second runner up, Nova Southeastern University.
Fourth, Since Liberty University has both residential and online programs; I can choose to take any course on campus if I feel the need to. Residential students can take online courses as well.
Now some cons that I have discovered, or at the very least some concerns.
First, the learning software is Blackboard. Since January 2008 was my first semester at LU, and I had never taken an online course before, I had to spend a few extra hours learning what Blackboard had to offer and how the courses are structured.
Second, most of the instructors for the undergraduate courses only have Master’s degrees, while for the graduate courses, the instructors all have PhDs. Many of the instructors at both levels have a lot of autonomy in how they work their online class even though many of them have many sections which means many student papers to grade. This can present problems from the student perspective as workload, assignment format, expectations, etc. will likely vary greatly from one professor to the next.
Lastly, taking an online course is not easy. It requires a lot of self-discipline. The semesters are still 16 weeks, but the courses are 8 weeks. In each course we go through the entire book. There are assignments due every week. For example, in my course on human learning, there was an essay and multiple choice exams every week, as well as a group presentation of learning theories. Every week there was three things due by 11:59 pm on Sunday night. Points were taken off if you missed this deadline, unless you had permission from the instructor. In week seven, there was a 10 page research paper that was also due to be written in APA format.
The multiple choice tests were extremely challenging. Whereas most multiple choice questions in undergraduate courses were mostly verbatim recall, these exams were applied multiple choice questions. You had to know the concepts. You could not get by just by memorizing key terms. Each question was a hypothetical situation with four choices to choose from. Choose the best answer. Bottom line is that online courses are equally difficult to the residential counterparts.
Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development
Posted by Nick Roy in Childhood, Featured Articles Saturday, 27 December 2008 19:26 No Comments
Jean Piaget, a Swiss Psychologist, believed that a child’s mind develops through a series of four stages. These stages consist of the following:
- sensorimotor stage – birth to 2 years
- preoperational stage – 2 years to about 6 or 7 years
- concrete operational stage – 6 07 years to approximate 12 years
- formal operational stage – 12 years and through adulthood
Infants in the sensorimotor stage have no object permanance, or the awareness things continue to exist even when not perceived. If you place a teddy bear in front of a 5 month old, the child will grasp at it, put it in his mouth, and play with it. If you take the teddy bear away, the assumption is that the child will think it doesn’t exist. They will grab another toy that they do see.
Children in the preoperational stage begin to use language to describe things. This is the stage where the child begins to say their first words. These words are one syllable, such as ma or da. During this time, parents begin to watch what they say around their kids. Say a bad word, and it can get picked up by the child as children continue imitating what adults say and do.
However, they will tend to have problems understanding another person’s point-of-view, called egocentrism. Children during this stage also have problems with the concept of conservation. For example, if you have two beakers filled with water. Both beakers have the same amount of water. Take one of the beakers and empty it into a shorter, but wider beaker. Present these two beakers to the child and ask them if they have the same amount of water. In this age group, they will most likely say that the shorter, wider beaker has the more water. At this stage, they can’t fully grasp the concept of the change in shape doesn’t mean a change in volume. This is typical of children during the play years as this stage normally represents.
Once children are about 7 to 11 years of age, they tend to think more logically about concrete events. An obvious result of what they are learning in school. This stage is called the concrete operational stage and is also dubbed the school years.
Formal operational thinking is where children begin to think abstractly and hypothetically. This begins at about 12 years old and continues throughout adulthood. This stage of thinking begins at about the junior high school level and progresses as they move through high school, college, and eventually graduate school. By the time the reach the college level, many students are beginning to master the art of metaphore and acronyms in their learning.
Piaget stated that children progressed through stages. Critics of Piaget say that children can progress more rapidly or slowly than the average child. For example, there have been cases of gifted children tend to be able to think and reason at an abtract, hypothetical level at age 9. Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development is meant to be a guidepost for a child’s development. It gives parents, educators, pediatricians, an idea of what milestones to be looking for at particular ages. Many pediatricians have been wise to tell parents not to worry if their child has failed to speak by a certain age. However, if a reasonable amount of time has passed without that milestone being reached, would be cause for concern.
Piaget believed that children of all ages are active thinkers who are constantly constructing their own knowledge. This came to be known as constructivism, or constructivist theory. Children from birth to two years old, through the use of their senses, are building schemas or mental models. It is quite common to see a five month old sitting up and grabbing at some toys dangling in front of him. In the beginning, children would form a schema that any animal that walks on all four legs is a dog. As they grow older, they will modify this schema and create additional schemas for other types of aminals, such as cats and other large animals. Schemas are how children on up to adulthood understand and make sense of their world. We all are constantly modifying our existing schemas and creating new schemas as we accomodate new knowledge.
Children with learning disabilities take a bit longer to progress through the stages that Piaget has laid out. Children who have been severely maltreated will also progress much slower through the stages. There have been cases where a child has been locked up in a closet in a room for many years. The child, having no contact with the outside world, has become severely retarded both physically and mentally. A child maltreated to this extreme would be said to have a mental age of a 5 year old, while their chronological age is say 12. The child has missed many critical periods of development. If a child were an infant locked in a closet until he or she was say 5 years old, the child would no doubt be blind as the optic nerves would have missed a critical period to develop.
Parents have the ultimate ability to help their children develop cognitively. If parents were to read to their children while still infants, or having their children observe adults reading a newspaper or a book, their children will be more likely to pick up on those things at an earlier age. Children are developing sooner than Piaget’s stages indicate. Two influences are the media, followed by both parents working which leave the children to be on their own and assume more grown up responsibilities. As a result, boys and girls alike are reaching puberty at much earlier ages. Girls are wearing make up and filling out at earlier ages. In one way, this is scary. The times are changing.
Related Link: [WPMID=2]
Coping With Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
Posted by Nick Roy in Featured Articles, Psychological Foundations of Learning Wednesday, 24 December 2008 11:33 1 Comment
After experiencing a traumatic event, the mind has been known to horde away the details and memories and then send them back at unexpected times and places, sometimes after years have passed. It does so in a haunting way that makes the recall just as disturbing as the original event. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is the name for the acquired mental condition that follows a psychologically distressing event “outside the range of usual human experience.” There are five diagnostic criteria for this disorder and there are no cures for this affliction, only therapies which lessen the burden of the symptoms.
The root of the disorder is a traumatic event which implants itself so firmly in the mind that the person may be shackled by the pain and distress of the event indeinately, experiencing it again and again as the mind stays connected with the past rather than the present, making it difficult to think of the future.
The research on this topic is all rather recent as the disorder was only added to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders DSM-IIV in the last twenty years. Yet, the disorder is quite common, threatening to control and damage the lives of approximately eight percent of the American population 5 of men and 10 of women . Any person is a potential candidate for developing PTSD if subject to enough stress. There is no predictor or determining factor as to who will develop PTSD and who will not. Although all people who suffer from it have experienced a traumatic event, not all people who experience a traumatic event will develop PTSD. Each persons individual capacity for coping with catastrophic events determines their risk of acquiring PTSD. And not everyone will experience the same symptoms; some may suffer only a few mild symptoms for a short period of time, others may be completely absorbed, still others who experience great trauma may never develop any symptoms at all Friedman .
More than any other psychological problem, symptoms are a reaction to an overwhelming external event, or series of events. From a historical perspective, the concept of PTSD made a significant change in the usual stipulation that the cause of a disorder could be outside of the self, rather than some inherent individual weakness Friedman .
There are many situations that may lead to developing PTSD, including: “serious threats to one’s life or well being, or to children, spouse or close friends relatives; sudden destruction of home or community; and witnessing the accidental or violent death or injury of another” Bernstein, et al .
Characteristic symptoms include re-experiencing the event, avoidance of stimuli associated with the event or numbing of general responsiveness, increased arousal not present before the event, and duration of the disturbance for at least one month Johnson .
When a bomb exploded the Oklahoma Federal building in 1996, hundreds of lives were affected. Not only are the people who were in the explosion in danger of re-experiencing it over and over, but so are the people who witnessed the aftermath, from bystanders to the rescue workers on scene. The surviving employees not only were physically injured in the blast, but saw the deaths of their coworkers and children. Surviving a horrific trauma that many others did not is enough to cause serious emotional harm. For the rescue workers who arrived, many of them saw death and people who they could not help; feeling helpless and guilty may manifest into intrusive recollection and nightmares.
To explain further, the first criteria is that the person was at one time exposed to a traumatic event involving actual or threatened death or injury, where the response was marked by intense fear, horror or helplessness Pfefferbaum . This event may have taken place only weeks ago, or as far back in memory as forty years. The disorder is most commonly found among survivors of war, abuse and rape. It also occurs after assorted crime and car accidents, as well as after community disasters such as hurricanes and floods. Workers of rescue missions are subjected to situations of severe stress frequently. Many emergency response workers police, nurses, and medics may become overwhelmed by the trauma they see so many people go through and end up with intrusive recollections themselves.
Secondly, the trauma is re-experienced in the form of nightmares, flashbacks, intrusive memories and or unrest in situations that are similar to the traumatic experience by an associated stimuli Pfefferbaum . Auditory or visual stimuli can evoke panic, terror, dread, grief or despair. Commonly, in the case of war veterans, the patient may be mentally “sent back” to the time and location of the original traumatic experience. A veteran who hears a startling noise like a car backfiring may “hear” gunfire and it will trigger flashbacks. These flashbacks can last a little as a few seconds, minutes, or up to days where the person behaves and reacts to everything as if they are in that original traumatizing setting.
Thirdly, there is a numbing of the emotions and reduced interests in others and the outside world. The person is attempting to reduce the likelihood that they will either expose themselves to traumatic stimuli or if exposed will minimize the intensity of their psychological response Pfefferbaum . For this reason, it is extremely difficult for people with PTSD to participate in meaningful interpersonal relationships.
Forth, there are random associated symptoms including insomnia, irritability, hypervigilance and outbursts of rage. The natural startle inhibitor may be dulled and the patient is easily surprised or upset by unexpected stimuli.
Lastly, symptoms of each category must show significant affect on the person’s social vocational abilities or other important areas of life. Which appears to be an unavoidable effect if a person is in fact experiencing the symptoms listed. All of these symptoms must persist for at least one month
An example from the textbook Psychology introduces a 33-year-old nurse named Mary who suffered severe trauma in the weeks following an attack in her apartment by an intruder who raped her at knife point Criterion one . In the weeks after the attack Mary suffered from an immense fear of being alone in her apartment the second criterion , and preoccupied with attack, she feared it could happen again. Her worry developed in to an obsession with protection and she installed numerous locks on all her windows and doors, eventually Mary became so overly preoccupied with the attack that she could no longer go out socially or even return to work Criterion three and five . She became repelled by the idea of sex. Her associated behaviors encompass criterion four.
In the seven years since the Gulf War, three percent of United States Soldiers have so far been diagnosed as having Posttraumatic Stress Syndrome. Those with greatest exposure to combat are the most likely sufferers, which lends to the idea that the more severe a traumatic event are more difficult it is to overcome. Additionally it develops predominantly in soldiers who were categorized as having the least “stress resistant personalities” coupled with low levels of social support. Essential to recovery of any stressful event is the knowledge that the sufferer is not alone or unique in the grief and that others care about his or her recovery. Those soldiers who returned from war with no one to share their experiences with are likely to re experience warfare in the form of nightmares and flashbacks. After witnessing the deaths of both enemies and comrades those without social support are likely to internalize their pain which have a good chance of escaping out of the body in the symptoms listed Bernstein .
“Acute” PTSD occurs within six months of the traumatic event, while “Delayed On-set” PTSD occurs anytime afterwards. In some instances, patients have developed symptoms decades later. Holocaust survivors, experiencing terrifying nightmares of events they thought they had buried so long ago, have been diagnosed forty and fifty years after the attempted genocide of the Jews with PTSD.
PTSD can become a chronic psychiatric disorder that can persist for decades and sometimes a lifetime. Chronic patients go through periods of remission and relapse like many diseases.
Some problems associated with leaving PTSD untreated are clinical depression and addictions, such as alcoholism, drug abuse, and compulsive gambling. Addictions are a common way of “self-medicating.”
There are instances when a person suffers from involuntary recall of events that they cant quite place or understand. Sometimes adults who were abused in some form as children do not fully know what is tormenting them but still struggle with similar symptoms. For these people hypnosis in a controlled environment is beneficial. After hypnosis the patient and doctor will discuss what has come out and together deal with what has been learned. Drugs in general are not a cure for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, but they can calm the patient long enough to rationally discuss what is torturing them. Also it is possible that children who survived the Oklahoma bomb blast may not be told for some time what they lived through. Their first recollections may be hazy pictures that only hint as to what happened. Hypnosis may bring out the details that the mind isn’t willingly sharing. When the details are known the patient then has the opportunity to accept them and develop an understanding and an acceptance if they are lucky enough to get that far of what they have survived Foy .
Therapy is the only known method of treatment, but there have not been substantial gains in this field for recovery of patients. After four months of intensive treatment, Vietnam veterans showed no long term effects of their therapy in a study conducted by the “National Center for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder” in New Haven. The men received individual and group psychotherapy and behavior therapy as well as family therapy and vocational guidance. Although they left reporting increased hope and self-esteem, a year and a half later their psychiatric symptoms had actually worsened. They had made more suicide attempts and their substance abuse was dramatically increased Johnson .
The Harvard Mental Health Letter published February March of 1991 asserts the important result of therapy of any kind is the enabling of the patient to think about the trauma without it taking over and being able to control their feelings without systematically avoiding or diverting their attention. People who are afflicted with PTSD never feel safe because they are controlled by their fears; nightmares and flashbacks only confirm their perceived helplessness and remind them of how they were unable to protect themselves from the event. Healing has taken place only when the person can invoke and dismiss the memories at will, instead of suffering the intrusive involuntary recall Johnson .
References
Bernstein, Douglas A., Alison Clarke-Stewart, Edward Roy, Christopher D. Wickens. Psychology. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1997
Bower, Bruce. “Exploring trauma’s cerebral side.” Science News. 149.20 1996 : 315
Foy, David W., ed. Treating PTSD : cognitive-behavioral strategies. New York: Guilford Press, 1992.
Friedman, Matthew J. “Post Traumatic Stress Disorder: An Overview.” National Center for PTSD. Dartmouth Medical School, 1997.
Johnson, David R., Robert Rosenheck, Alan Fontana. “Post-traumatic treatment failure.” Harvard Mental Health Letter. 13.9 1997 : 7
Matsakis, Aphrodite. I Can’t Get Over It : a handbook for trauma survivors. Oakland.: New Harbinger Publications, Inc., 1996.
Pfefferbaum, Betty. “Posttraumatic stress disorder in children: a review of the past ten years.” Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. 36.11 1997 : 1503-12
“The Harvard Mental Health Letter.” Feb. Mar. 1991. Online. Internet. 14 Oct 1998. Available. http: www.mentalhealth.com mag1 p5h-pts2.html
Personality Psychology
Posted by Nick Roy in Featured Articles, Psychology of Personality Wednesday, 24 December 2008 11:33 No Comments
The concept of personality is a broad one. The personality theorist has an interest in what individual human beings think, feel and do including how the social situation affects and is affected by the individual. Personality theory is concerned not only with differences between individuals, but also with the basic processes of adaptation through which people interact with the conditions of their lives.
The development of personality has long been an area of extreme interest to psychologists and psychoanalysts alike. Because of this, many different theories of personality have developed over the years. From Sigmund Freud to B.F. Skinner, everyone seems to have not only an opinion of what personality is and how it develops but also an idea as to what is the best way to measure and report their findings. In order to test their theories, it was necessary to formulate methods of research that were effective, ethical and would provide a solid foundation for future personality research.