CNL-540 Topic 2: Short Answer Questions
1. What is the definition of and the core meaning of research literacy as it relates to counseling psychology?
Research literacy refers to prudent exploration, translation, interpretation, and critical evaluation of medical and/or therapeutic literature. For most clinical psychologists, these research literacy skills are necessarily not intuitive. So, the skills have to be taught, practiced, a honed systematically to enable counselors to make proper use of the available medical literature. In counseling psychology, effective research literacy calls for therapists to familiarize with diverse research data and gain the ability to design clinical questions in manners that maximize literature searchability and its retrieval. According to (Senders, Erlandsen, & Zwickey, 2014), research literacy enables medical practitioners to engage in broader talks over which topics need to be studied to advance skills of professional growth, development, and practice. Other than informing therapeutic decision making, research literacy allows counselors to educate their patients appropriately. As per (Senders, Erlandsen, & Zwickey, 2014), being research literate is the surest approach for discriminating between substandard and high-quality standards, between irrelevant results and clinically meaningful results in the counseling psychology field.
2. What specific methods would you utilize in beginning your review of the literature within counseling research? Discuss the steps and rationale for conducting a review of the literature. Include specific examples related to the methods and steps for conducting a review of the counseling literature in your response.
In conducting counseling research, the specific method chosen by a researcher to use in undertaking and writing the literature review is based on the type of research being undertaken. Within counseling research, the initial step of undertaking and writing the e review literature would be to select the topic or to define the research problem. According to (Pan & Lopez, 2008), the researcher should ensure that the topic is neither too broad nor too narrow. Second, the researcher would need to decide the scope of the literature review, and this would involve the number of studies to explore and their comprehensiveness. The third step would be to select the database to rely on when carrying out the searches. The database to use must be related to counseling and the problem under examination. Fourth, the researcher would conduct searches to find the literature which the topic seeks to explore (Pan & Lopez, 2008). In this step, the abstract, research methodology, data presentation, results analysis, discussion, conclusion, and recommendations would be narrowed down to address the research problem. For example, when conducting literature on medical misdiagnosis, the researcher should narrow down to the specific medication and address it only.
3. Read “Self-Maintenance Therapy in Alzheimer’s Disease,” located in the reading materials. What were the variables under investigation by this study? What methods were used to obtain the study’s sample? What specific measurements were used to assess or analyze the study’s variables? Discuss any potential methodological problems in this study. Include specific examples in your response.
In this study, the variables being investigated were dementia patients with a progressive disease and caregivers for life. The researcher evaluated these variables using a one-group pretest-posttest design. To obtain the sample for this study, the researcher used surveys and interview programs. The multicomponent treatment program for the study included: (1) intensive rehabilitation for dementia victims, using the self-maintenance counseling concept, and (2) intervention program….Read More….
4. How would you define Evidence-Based Practice (EBP)? Discuss the inherent strengths and limitations of EBP. Be sure to include your comments regarding what is meant by “validity of treatments.”
5. Watch the Objectivity and subjectivity in social research video. What are the issues of objectivity and subjectivity as they relate to methodological issues in conducting counseling research?
6. What makes a counseling treatment empirically supported and validated? Include the description of at least two empirically supported and validated treatments from the course textbook and readings in your response. Include the mental health conditions that are treated by the empirically supported and validated treatments identified.
According to (Salters, 2020), an “empirically supported treatment” means that the treatment has shown its ability to improve the patients’ presenting symptoms. Counseling treatment is considered to be empirically supported and validated if it involves patients’ skill-building, focuses on a specific problem, involves the brief treatment, and takes not more than 20 sessions (short-term). Examples of empirically validated and supported treatments are dialectical behavior therapy and schema-focused therapy. As an empirically supported and validated treatment, dialectical behavior therapy treats borderline personality disorder. Also, schema-focused therapy, which is founded on CBT principles, is used by counselors to treat borderline personality disorder (Salters, 2020). These treatment approaches have been proven to enhance efficacy, diagnosis, and recovery to mental disorder clients.
References
Barbara, R., & Michael, W. (2001). Self-maintenance therapy in Alzheimer’s disease. Neuropsychological Rehabilitation, 11(3/4), 333.
Pan, M., & Lopez, M. (2008). Preparing literature reviews: Qualitative and quantitative approaches ( (3rd ed.). Glendale, CA: Pyrczak Publishers.
Rycroft-Malone, J., & Bucknall, T. (2010). Models and frameworks for implementing evidence-based practice: linking evidence to action. Boston: John Wiley & Sons.
Salters, K. (2020). Empirically Supported Treatments for Psychological Disorders. Verywellmind, 2-5.
Senders, A., Erlandsen, A., & Zwickey, H. (2014). The Importance of Research Literacy. Natural Medicine Journal, 6(8), 18-25.
Williams, M. (2014). Objectivity and Subjectivity in Social Research. London, United Kingdom: Sage Publications Ltd. doi:https://dx-doi-org.lopes.idm.oclc.org/10.4135/9781473907638