Summer Intern: Behavioral/Psychosocial Assessment & Curriculum, Career Transitions Research

Job Description

This internship will be involved with the followings two projects:

ACT has developed sets of behaviorally anchored rating scales (ENGAGE Teacher Edition) that are part of the ENGAGE family of behavioral assessments. The scales are designed to help teachers assess students’ behavioral strengths and needs across eight behavioral dimensions that are associated with academic success. The scales provide a useful tool for educators to diagnose academic difficulties, identify appropriate interventions, and document behavioral development and growth. The intern will be involved in performing analyses and interpretation of results using the scales.
ACT has created a curriculum designed to supplement the ENGAGE family of assessments. The curriculum consists of units for grades 6 through 12. Units are designed to address specific aspects of psychosocial and behavioral development and to help students address needs and leverage their strengths. Each unit has several specific learning objectives that define what students will be able to do at the end of the unit. The curriculum is being piloted across several schools in Spring 2012. The intern will be involved in curriculum evaluation.
Typical job related activities include: using advanced statistical modeling of choice sets to estimate models of the relationship between college attributes (e.g., control, level, selectivity, size, distance) and the rank order of institutions in the students’ college consideration sets.

Typical job related activities for Project #1 include: creating a data analysis plan for a study of ENGAGE Teacher Edition, interpreting and drafting results, making recommendations for using the results and linking assessments across time.

Typical job related activities for Project #2 include: analyzing user survey data (and modifying survey as needed) and related feedback collected from the behavioral curriculum pilot, making recommendations for changes and improvements to the curriculum based on results, implementing improvements.

Job Requirements

To qualify, candidates must be enrolled in a Ph.D. program. Knowledge of educational/psychosocial assessments and/or training, as well as general knowledge of the applied psychology literature (e.g., career, educational, Industrial/Organizational, personality/behavioral), excellent writing skills and attention to detail, ability to function independently and as a team member in a professional work environment, proficiency conducting quantitative analysis using statistical software such as SAS or SPSS and computer software skills including Microsoft Office programs (particularly Word and Excel) are preferred. Finalist(s) for this position will be subject to a pre-employment criminal background check as a condition of employment.

Please see Internship Program Guidelines for more information and the full list of qualifications: http://www.act.org/humanresources/jobs/intern.html