PSY102 Week 7 Capstone Project

PSYC102 Professional Careers and Education in Psychology (3 hours)

This course provides an overview of psychology as a profession and academic discipline. It focuses on the broad discipline of psychology and its subspecialty areas within the discipline, career opportunities available in the field and educational requirements for field entry, effective job and graduate program preparation strategies, and practical issues confronting psychologists and professionals in related occupations.

This course covers specialty areas, career options, and educational requirements for pursuing careers within the field of psychology.

During successful completion of this course students will

CO1: Explore the broad discipline and specializations within the applied field of psychology.

CO2: Examine career options for graduates with differing levels of academic preparation.

CO3: Identify skills and knowledge expected of successful applicants to graduate programs in psychology.

CO4: Examine effective strategies for acquiring and evaluating new information within the field of psychology.

CO5: Demonstrate skills in correctly using the editorial style of the American Psychological Association.

CO6: Prepare an action plan for successful completion of the undergraduate academic major.

Distance learning enables students to complete academic work in a flexible manner, completely online. Assignments include classroom dialogs accomplished in groups through threaded Forums, examinations and quizzes, and a course paper.

Required:
Kuther, T. L. and Morgan, R. D. (2012). Careers in Psychology: Opportunities in a changing world (4rd Ed.). Cengage Publishing.
This course uses a VitalSource e-textbook.  The VitalSource book is provided via the APUS Bookstore.  Please visit http://apus.libguides.com/bookstore for more information

PSYC102 is divided into modules which guide students through the study of specialty areas within the discipline of psychology and career opportunities and requirements for successful education and field entry preparation.

Modules include the following:
Module Reports
Each Module Report has 7 parts. Using assigned web resources and textbook readings students completing Module Reports will examine and report on 1) the types of work professionals in specialty areas within the larger field of psychology do, 2) what type and level of education one must achieve to work in those specialty areas and 3) what work settings and average incomes one can expect in related careers. Students will also 4) report, after researching the specialty areas, whether they find them to be career possibilities they are interested in or careers that don’t capture student interest and why, 5) describe the most interesting thing not previously known that they learned about the specialty areas, 6) describe an everyday and real-world human experience related to two pod-casts they select to listen to on the specialty web pages provided in the classroom for each specialty and 7) describe a “Hot Topic that fits with what they know about each specialty area after researching it and how the two are related. A hot topic is a current event or issue currently highlighted in the media that has the public’s current attention. PTSD in military personnel returning from deployments, the debate over whether children should be prescribed psychotropic medications, reliability of eye-witness testimony and the psychological impact of joblessness are examples of hot topics. A minimum of 4 pages is required for the Module Report assignments.

Capstone Project:
Due at the end of Week 7 of the course, the Capstone Project is a composite of the assignments completed in the course Weeks 1 through 6 Module Reports and ends with 12-15 pages describing the student’s top 3 specialty areas of interest at the time of submission and identified action steps needed for continued researching of those areas, successful degree completion and post-graduation plans.

Forums:
Six Forums will be completed Weeks 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, and 8 of the course. Topical and general instructions for completing them are located under the “Forums” link in the classroom. Participation in Forums is not optional.

Graded Coursework Summary

All written assignments must be in the student’s own words, with content based on published materials paraphrased (restated what one reads in one’s own words), source cited and referenced correctly per formatting rules of the American Psychological Association (APA). No more than 2 – 3 short sentences of direct quotes may be included in any writing assignment submissions. These must be placed inside quotation marks and correctly source credited. Failure to properly source credit, regardless of intent, constitutes plagiarism. ANY plagiarism found in any course assignments, including papers and Forums, will result in a score of zero for the first incident and course failure for any subsequent instances.

CITATION AND REFERENCE STYLE

Assignments completed in a narrative essay or composition format must follow APA guidelines, with the exception of the course Forums which don’t permit double-spacing, bulleting or font variations such as size, bolding, underlining and italicizing. As noted above, this course requires students to use APA citation and reference style rules no older than those found in The Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (6th ed.).

LATE ASSIGNMENTS

Students are expected to submit classroom assignments by the posted deadlines and to complete the course according to the published class schedule. Should additional time to complete an assignment be needed due to unavoidable situations such as a sudden change in work duties or a health emergency, the course instructor must be consulted with before the due date or as soon as reasonably possible after. Submitting assignments late without prior approval will result in significant point reduction and negatively impact the final course grade.

Click on this APUS Student Handbook link to access the University undergraduate grading scale.

Please see the Student Handbook to reference all University policies. Quick links to frequently asked questions about policies are listed below.
Drop/Withdrawal Policy
Academic Dishonesty & Plagiarism
Course Extension Process and Policy
Disability Accommodations

ONLINE LIBRARY RESEARCH CENTER & LEARNING RESOURCES

The Online Library Resource Center is available to enrolled students and to faculty from inside the electronic campus. This is your starting point for access to online books, subscription periodicals, and Web resources that are designed to support your classes and generally not available through search engines on the open Web. In addition, the Center provides access to special learning resources, which the University has contracted to assist with your studies. Questions can be directed to [email protected].

Charles Town Library and Inter Library Loan: The University maintains a special library with a limited number of supporting volumes, collection of our professors’ publication, and services to search and borrow research books and articles from other libraries.

Electronic Books: You can use the online library to uncover and download over 50,000 titles, which have been scanned and made available in electronic format.

Electronic Journals: The University provides access to over 12,000 journals, which are available in electronic form and only through limited subscription services.

Turnitin.com is a tool to improve student research skills that also detect plagiarism. Turnitin.com provides resources on developing topics and assignments that encourage and guide students in producing papers that are intellectually honest, original in thought, and clear in expression. This tool helps ensure a culture of adherence to the University's standards for intellectual honesty. Turnitin.com also reviews students' papers for matches with Internet materials and with thousands of student papers in its database, and returns an Originality Report to instructors and/or students.

Tutor.com: Tutor.com is an online learning service that connects students to certified tutors for one-on-one study help with every subject, including algebra, statistics, chemistry, physics, social studies, and English. Thousands of academic and career services resources are available 24/7*.
*Tutoring services are unavailable on January 1, Easter Day, July 4, Thanksgiving Day, and December 25; beginning at 1:01 a.m. and resuming at 2:00 p.m. the following day (EST).