Unit Synopsis
This unit is intended to provide you with advanced knowledge and skill acquisition at the Australian Psychology Accreditation Council (APAC) Accreditation Standards Level 4, which represents professional and specialised areas of practice competencies necessary for working as a Clinical Psychologist. Specifically, this unit aims to build your competency in assessment research, theory, and practice of more complex psychological pathology and presentations. This will include a specific focus on memory and personality assessments, and neuropsychological assessment in clinical practice. You will build knowledge and skills specific to culturally-responsive reflective practice approaches to psychological assessment, which will be integrated throughout the teaching, learning, and assessment within this unit.
Details
| Level | Postgraduate |
|---|---|
| Unit Level | 9 |
| Credit Points | 6 |
| Student Contribution Band | SCA Band 4 |
| Fraction of Full-Time Student Load | 0.125 |
| Pre-requisites or Co-requisites |
For students enrolled in CG17 Master of Clinical Psychology, the units PSYC21001 Assessment 1 and PSYC21008 Clinical Practice 2 are prerequisites. For students enrolled in CM49 Master of Clinical Psychology Advanced Entry, the unit PSYC21008 Clinical Practice 2 is a prerequisite. Important note: Students enrolled in a subsequent unit who failed their pre-requisite unit, should drop the subsequent unit before the census date or within 10 working days of Fail grade notification. Students who do not drop the unit in this timeframe cannot later drop the unit without academic and financial liability. See details in the Assessment Policy and Procedure (Higher Education Coursework). |
| Class Timetable | View Unit Timetable |
| Residential School |
Compulsory Residential School View Unit Residential School |
Unit Availabilities from Term 1 - 2026
Term 1 - 2026 Profile
Attendance Requirements
All on-campus students are expected to attend scheduled classes - in some units, these classes are identified as a mandatory (pass/fail) component and attendance is compulsory. International students, on a student visa, must maintain a full time study load and meet both attendance and academic progress requirements in each study period (satisfactory attendance for International students is defined as maintaining at least an 80% attendance record).
Recommended Student Time Commitment
Each 6-credit Postgraduate unit at CQUniversity requires an overall time commitment of an average of 12.5 hours of study per week, making a total of 150 hours for the unit.
Assessment Tasks
| Assessment Task | Weighting |
|---|---|
| 1. Written Assessment | 0% |
| 2. Direct observation of procedural skills (DOPs) | 0% |
| 3. Written Assessment | 0% |
This is a pass/fail (non-graded) unit. To pass the unit, you must pass all of the individual assessment tasks shown in the table above.
Past Exams
All University policies are available on the Policy web site, however you may wish to directly view the following policies below.
This list is not an exhaustive list of all University policies. The full list of policies are available on the Policy web site.
Term 1 - 2025 : The overall satisfaction for students in the last offering of this course was 50.00% (`Agree` and `Strongly Agree` responses), based on a 30.77% response rate.
Feedback, Recommendations and Responses
Every unit is reviewed for enhancement each year. At the most recent review, the following staff and student feedback items were identified and recommendations were made.
Source: Student SUTE feedback.
A student suggested that the third Assessment Task - the Case Study Report - could be broken down into steps with each step being a focus of attention in weekly classes. This would allow students to apply their learning as they progress through the unit.
Review the structure and timing of the assessment task with a view to covering some of the specific psychometric tests in weekly classes. This will need to include sufficient flexibility for the weekly curriculum content to be relevant to a new case study for each year's Assessment Task.
Specific areas of assessment and specific psychometric tests were taught to students throughout the term.
Source: Lecturer reflection on unit.
Learning resources need to be expanded. Due to a major revision of this unit there were not a lot of resources available to be uploaded to Moodle and the Psychology wellness centre did not have all tests taught in the unit.
Review the weekly content and source additional learning resources for Moodle. Consider whether additional relevant psychometric tests could be added to the Psychology Wellness Centre test library so that students can practice these tests in or between classes.
Weekly content was reviewed and specific areas of clinical assessment were delivered by experts in their fields. Availability of assessment instruments is an ongoing process.
Source: In class. SUTE comments.
Assessment instruments need to be made readily available to students for completion of the neuropsychology report
Ensure that assessment instruments can be accessed by students.
In Progress
Source: In class. SUTE comments.
Submission of Assessment 2 and Assessment 3 were too close together and at the end of term.
Spread out the assessments across the term.
In Progress
On successful completion of this unit, you will be able to:
- Demonstrate use of assessment tools and processes, including psychometric tests, structured or semi-structured interview data, behavioural observations, measures of functionality, and processes that enable the collection of collateral information from multiple sources.
- Integrate, interpret, and synthesise clinical psychological assessment data with knowledge of psychopathology to inform case formulation, diagnosis, and intervention.
- Apply advanced psychology knowledge to culturally responsive assessment in the area of clinical psychology.
These Learning Outcomes are intended to link with the CG17 Master of Clinical Psychology course Learning Outcome "Conduct culturally responsive assessment of psychological disorders to meet the needs of culturally and linguistically diverse populations, including Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples" (Learning Outcome number 3).
The PSYC21002 Learning Outcomes align with the 2019 Australian Psychology Accreditation Council (APAC) accreditation guidelines for Level 4 Graduate Competencies specific to assessment in clinical psychology, specifically Guidelines 4.2.1 Apply advanced psychological knowledge to their practice of clinical psychology and 4.2.2 Apply advanced psychological knowledge to culturally responsive assessment in the area of clinical psychology.
| Assessment Tasks | Learning Outcomes | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | |
| 1 - Written Assessment | • | • | • |
| 2 - Direct observation of procedural skills (DOPs) | • | ||
| 3 - Written Assessment | • | • | |
| Graduate Attributes | Learning Outcomes | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | |
| 1 - Knowledge | • | • | • |
| 2 - Communication | • | • | |
| 3 - Cognitive, technical and creative skills | • | • | |
| 6 - Ethical and Professional Responsibility | • | • | |
| 8 - Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Cultures | • | • | • |
| Assessment Tasks | Graduate Attributes | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 8 | |