My Career in Psychology: Future in Applied Behavior Analysis
1. APPLICATION AND RESEARCH VISION
Describe your vision for your career as a practitioner-scholar.
Discuss how you would apply the findings from your literature review to your future professional practice in psychology.
What aspects of your research affected your vision or goals?
Given this, what topics do you think you would be interested in researching in the future?
Analyze how your work this quarter will help you accomplish the functions, responsibilities, and ethics required of a professional in your specialization. Remember to critically evaluate all information you use.
Describe how your vision was affected by the information in your course readings and your exploration of the Career Center and other resources.
2. PROFESSIONAL COMPETENCIES AND REQUIREMENTS
Understanding the competencies and responsibilities involved in your future career in psychology is essential for growing as a practitioner-scholar in your field. It is also necessary to understand any requirements needed for your specialized practice and scholarship.
For this step in the assignment, describe the competencies, responsibilities, ethical considerations, and other requirements needed for achieving your vision and goals as a professional in psychology. These include:
Capella program and specialization requirements.
Credentialing, certification, licensure, and accreditation practices and standards.
Analyze the role of the practitioner-scholar model in guiding professional development.
Skills, abilities, and attitudes critical to success in the field of psychology, such as those related to critical thinking, decision making, problem solving, evidence-based practices, ethical integrity, cultural competence, and conflict resolution.
Make note of skills, abilities, and attitudes related to the practitioner-scholar model and the experience you had in researching scholarly sources in your literature review.
Ethical codes, principles, laws, and policies applicable to your chosen career path.
3. ACTION PLAN
With all this knowledge of your vision and goals, and the competencies and requirements for the field in hand, you are ready to plot your course to making these aspirations a reality. The final step in this assignment is to create an action plan to achieve your goals. This means translating the requirements for your profession and the development areas you identified into specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and timed (SMART) steps to achieve your vision.
Include these elements in your action plan:
Plan for completing your Capella program.
Possible opportunities for additional training or volunteer work to address gaps in your knowledge or skills.
Possible opportunities in your current position to develop additional skills.
Capella community groups and professional organizations that you could join for networking with others and completing additional informational interviews.
How you will stay current with the research, literature, and ethics in the field.
Steps you can take to become more inclusive in your professional life.
How you can apply what you have learned in this course about researching psychological literature and evaluating it in terms of reliability, credibility, ethics, and value.
How you will apply critical thinking and effective decision making in your specialization.
How you will use Capella's support resources to develop the skills required to improve your writing and other competencies essential to the profession and to your role as a graduate learner.
Length: 7 (minimum) to 9 (maximum) double-spaced pages, not including the title page, abstract, or references page.
My Career in Psychology
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Abstract
I have always been passionate about understanding human behavior. My vision is to become an applied behavior specialist and work with inmates. This career path will help me understand inmates' behavior and guide them toward rehabilitation. My goals are to earn a degree certificate in applied behavior analysis, engage in internship activities, complete supervised work, and obtain certification and licensure for independent practice. I became more driven to achieve my vision after conducting a literature review, and I will in the future use research to inform my evidence-based practice and professional competency in areas such as critical thinking. I will also use techniques such as positive perception and mentoring opportunities to enhance my cultural competence. I also understand the ethical competencies and professional requirements for my future career, and I have an action plan which involves completing my graduate program and eventually receiving certification and licensure for independent practice.
My Career in Psychology
Understanding human behavior and what influences human behavior has always been a passion of mine. I have always been curious about people and the old question of nature versus nurture. I have always wondered why some people behave differently from me, including some of my blood relations. I realized early on that to have an understanding of whether people's behaviors are influenced by genetics or environmental factors and life experiences, I needed to venture into the field of psychology. This passion was further fueled by my experience working at a level 5 prison. I saw different inmates engaging in different behaviors, and I wanted to better understand why they behaved the way they did. Thus, my interest in psychology has been driven by my need to understand human behavior at both a personal and professional level.
Application of Vision and Goals
My future career vision is in the field of applied behavior analysis (ABA). Specifically, I want to become an applied behavior specialist using ABA techniques to understand human behavior. Dixon et al. (2020) indicate that through ABA, behavioral specialists can explain, influence, and predict human behavior. I specifically want to work with inmates to understand what has led them to criminal behavior, including violent behavior while in prison, so that I can influence their behavior and contribute to their rehabilitation. I also want to understand the antecedents of their behavior so that I can help manage disturbances and violence within the prison. I have seen violent behaviors among inmates firsthand while working in a prison setting, and I know that it not only puts other inmates at risk but also threatens the safety of prison officers. This is an area I want to contribute to through my research and scholarship. My work will mostly take place in a prison setting to help support the rehabilitation of inmates while in prison and once they complete their sentences. My specialized area of focus is ABA, and I would be interested in researching criminology and positive reinforcement because I believe these areas are important to anyone working with criminals that need reforming.
Goals
To achieve my vision of becoming an applied behavior specialist, I will be guided by these goals:
1 Earn a master's degree in psychology and, specifically, applied behavior analysis
2 Research internships and training opportunities in the field gain insight into clinical psychology practice
3 Complete the minimum required hours of supervised field
4 Obtains certification and licensure to practice as an applied behavior specialist
Influence of Research on Vision and Goals
The literature review was an eye-opener on the many ways I can use ABA techniques to help inmates. After going through existing literature, I became more driven to achieve my vision because I understood that as an applied behavior specialist, I would significantly contribute towards helping inmates address any behavioral issues that contribute to their criminal behavior and contribute to modeling them into upstanding citizens once they leave the prison system. This was also confirmed by the course readings. I would apply the findings from the literature review to rehabilitate and modify the behavior of inmates. The literature showed me how I could use ABA techniques to ensure that prisoners are compliant with the rules governing them (Brogan et al., 2018). I can apply these techniques to ensure they not only comply when they are in prison but also when they leave the prison system.
Additionally, in my work with client populations, I will search for evidence-based literature in the form of meta-analyses and client surveys (Kramer et al., 2019). Meta-analyses provide a summary of all empirical evidence on intervention, while client surveys reveal which interventions have worked or not worked for different clients. Research and my knowledge of research will help me accomplish the functions, responsibilities, and ethics required of the applied behavior specialist profession by enhancing my competency in the field as well as informing my practice through evidence-based practice. According to the Behavior Analysts Certification Board (BACB) (2020), behavior analysts/specialists should provide effective treatment as part of their responsibility, and this is guided by competency, truthfulness, and accountability. Knowledge of research will direct me towards effective interventions so that I can provide my clients with effective treatment.
Application of Research in the Acquisition of Professional Competencies
To be a successfully applied behavior specialist, I need to be knowledgeable about various behavioral interventions that can be used to modify human behavior and promote positive behavioral outcomes. Fisher et al. (2021) reveal that professionals in the ABA field interact with clients to provide appropriate treatment plans for maximum benefits. This can only be achieved if the professional understands the existing, evidence-based interventions. Further, knowledge about behavior theories and concepts is required. I also need to be competent, and this requires me to have relevant education, licensure, and certification in ABA.
In addition, it is necessary to possess research and critical thinking skills because, through research, one gains the necessary information and then uses critical thinking to analyze the information and make informed, evidence-based decisions. An applied behavior specialist should also possess effective communication and interpersonal skills since they need to interact with and explain complex issues to clients and their families (Fisher et al., 2021). This should be accompanied by conflict resolution skills. Fong et al. (2017) add that behavior specialists have to work with diverse cultures, and as such, cultural competency skills are necessary. They ensure that the practitioner considers the cultural as...