Self-Management
Skills Training

Skills Training-Undergraduate Students
Self-Management Course (for GRE)
PSY 460
Skills Training-Graduate Students
PSY 671 SM Projects

Skills Training- Undergraduate Students

Self-Management Course (for GRE)

Undergraduate students also have the opportunity to participate in a SM course that focuses on teaching SM skills to help them prepare for graduate school and study for the Graduate Record Examination (GRE). The course requires that students spend four hours each week studying for the GRE or doing tasks to prepare for the graduate school application process.

The students complete a performance contract that specifies they will complete four hours per week and the consequences they choose for not meeting that goal. Once a week, the students meet to turn in proof of their accomplishments and show a graph of their progress.

Homework Assignments are assigned to the students to complete each week. These assignments cover the material that they will need for the GRE. Occasional quizzes are given. These quizzes are not graded; their purpose is to help the students assess what areas in which they need further study.

The SM course is evaluated twice each semester to determine how the students feel about the course and the system managers. Data collected from this survey is used to determine the effectiveness of the course and to make any necessary changes.

PSY 460

Undergraduate students in PSY 460 are required to read the book I'll Stop Procrastinating When I Get Around To It during the first few weeks of the course. This book introduces them to SM technology and how to use it in their lives to reach personal and professional goals.

After completing this book, students are required to conduct a SM project on a behavior of their choice that they normally procrastinate on. They are required to fill out a performance contract specifying the target behavior, the performance objectives, and the added consequences for not meeting their goals. Students collect data on their target behaviors and every few weeks they show a graph of their progress to their classmates. This helps to ensure that they are actually carrying out their intervention. The students are also required to write a paper about the project and present the intervention to the class at the end of the semester.

The SM system gives a survey to each PSY 460 student at the end of the semester to determine how effective the students' felt their interventions were. We also collect the projects themselves to see what target behaviors students choose and what type of interventions they choose. The survey and some results can be found in the appendix.

Skills Training - Graduate Students

PSY 671 SM Projects

As part of their grades in PSY 671, first-year master's students are required to conduct SM projects. They conduct a project on a behavior of their choice.

For this project, students complete a performance contract specifying the target behavior, the performance objective, and the consequence chosen for failing to meet the goal. In many cases, the students choose to pay money when they fail to meet their specified goal. They can pay this money to their performance manager, but many students pay it to the "BATS fund". This money is kept in a bank account and is used to purchase things for the BATS lab or to pay for social functions.

The students are required to collect data on their target behaviors and are required to present their graphs to fellow BATS members every week in class. This helps ensure that the students are accomplishing their goals and enforcing their consequences.