Entry 1

Name: Jake Byma
Organization: Seasons Center for Behavioral Health
Week: 1/26-30
Hours: 6


Work Description: My field experience so far has been a bit delayed for a few reasons-waiting on the background check to pass, my supervisor getting jury duty.  Right now I am very early on in the process.  I went in on Monday to do some observation hours.  Seasons does a lot of intelligence testing through various tests, mainly for average to below average functioning people.  For me Mondays are primarily going to be observation days.  I am supposed to sit in on the testing while Trevor Wolterstorff conducts the tests.  He even mentioned how after some time they may let me give a few of the easier tests.  Unfortunately, during the day they had some no-shows and moved people up.  By the time I got there they were already done testing.  Instead Trevor and I started to walk through the ins and outs of the WISC and WAIS tests and how to score them.  We scored a couple of them together very slowly to make sure I understood  everything.  Friday I came in for some more hours and we did a lot of the same things.  He went over the previous tests and I scored a few by myself and learned all of what the scoring means.  He also introduced a few new tests and we learned how to score those together and eventually I scored one by myself.  The most important learning opportunity was being able to sit down with someone who had to go through the same process of learning and explain everything to me in a clear, concise manner. 


Evaluation of Experience: Right now this is all very new and exciting.  I took psychometrics last year and learned about these tests.  It is cool now to use them in a hands-on way.  I get nervous at times because I don't want to mess up my addition while scoring these tests.  They don't double check my math so as not to insult my intelligence.  But one error could be a costly mistake when thinking about insurance difficulties they have to deal with.  I try to be very cautious when scoring.  I also have the feeling that later in the semester things could start to get repetitive and redundant when scoring the same tests over and over again.  For now, however, I am enjoying myself and trying to learn as much as I can. 


Problems/Difficulties:  I mentioned it above but one problem is the importance of each error.  To my knowledge I have not made any yet (I hope).  It can be a bit stressful at times knowing that my math mistakes could have big ramifications.


Questions/Topics to Discuss: I guess my only questions would be what everyone else is doing?  I am not in the loop on where everyone else is and want to know.