Specialty areas may then be chosen. There is variable inclusion of epidemiology, intervention methods, and relevance to gender and minority differences. Research Issues follows the introductory statistics course that reviews the fundamentals of descriptive and inferential statistics for evaluating clinically relevant questions. The research design course focuses on how to critique and integrate the empirical psychology literature with critical concern for issues such as design plans, artifacts, and applicability to clinical work. The final course reviews theory and techniques for assessing both ongoing processes and outcome effectiveness of psychological programs.
Assessment consists of two courses that are prerequisites for most elective assessment courses.
The first course is designed to explore issues and problems involved in clinical inference as well as to teach the process itself. The second course focuses on validity, reliability, and standardization issues in psychological testing and the statistical properties of commonly used tests. The Life Cycle consists of 4 courses that consider the phases of human development from infancy through adulthood, including the relevance of personality theories and research. Attention is given to sex role development, minority problems, and special problems of assessment. Guest panels, community resources, videotapes, and small discussion groups are incorporated.