Anyone here do testing/assessment as their primary job?

[quickpsych]

I'm a Year II Psy.D. clinical psych student and over past year or so have been increasingly interested in focusing on testing and assessment (with a possible specialization in neuropsych).

Does anyone here work in the field as a psychologist (or neuropsychologist) that primarily does testing and assessment for most of their day to day work and if so what's it like?

I'm curious about day to day experience doing it (like job satisfaction and demand for your work), and salary.


Thanks!

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[Lisa44201]

I work in an assessment & testing office at a R1 University; we handle educational/academic assessment and testing, as opposed to psychometric; if you have any interest in that, I'd be happy to give you information.

 

[quickpsych]

I work in an assessment & testing office at a R1 University; we handle educational/academic assessment and testing, as opposed to psychometric; if you have any interest in that, I'd be happy to give you information.

I'm open for any and all information in various areas of testing and assessment so that would be awesome and very helpful!

 

[Therapist4Chnge]

quickpsych, this thread may be of interest to you: http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=1029911

 

[quickpsych]

quickpsych, this thread may be of interest to you: http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=1029911

Thanks that was a really helpful thread to review.

 

[erg923]

I do, kinda. Not traditional psych testing, but most of my "clinical" work is really just assessment and information gathering. Even PPVTs are pretty advanced around here....

 

[quickpsych]

I do, kinda. Not traditional psych testing, but most of my "clinical" work is really just assessment and information gathering. Even PPVTs are pretty advanced around here....

Do you like the work you do? Or do you wish you had more "traditional psych testing" work or even psychotherapy work?

I do out patient intakes part time and I guess you could consider that information gathering and enjoy it. Most people I know where I do intakes don't like anything regarding testing, assessment, or intakes. They tend to prefer straight talk therapy all day.

 

[erg923]

Yes to the first. The facility and the administration however, of which I am a part of at a low-level (even though I am the doctorally educated one) is a different story ...

No to the second, with the caveat that I enjoy trauma work with soldiers/veterans.

 

[Therapist4Chnge]

Do you like the work you do? Or do you wish you had more "traditional psych testing" work or even psychotherapy work?

I'm not sure how much actual psych testing goes on out there these days. I was just talking to a couple of private practice clinicians who have all but stopped doing personality assessments because the reimbursements just aren't there. I rarely do any formal personality assessment measures because they take too much time.

 

[erg923]

I do not think much "therapeutic assessment" goes on at all, in the real clinical world. That is, assessment used clinically to inform future or ongoing psychological treatment. I largely think that is relegated to academic training and academic training clinics. Sorry folks.

On the other hand, unnecessary testing and/or shoddy testing/interpretation is abundant, as its a cash cow for many practitioners and practices. or so I have noticed in my area...

 

[erg923]

And I dont think people are going to be giving you any numbers here, but I do well for being 2 years post Ph.D. In combination with a adjunct faculty appointment at a local university, I am not that far from 6 figures. The assessment part of my job (if you can call it that) doesn't have anything to do with that salary though. There may be a change coming in my future though, we will see...

 

[Lisa44201]

The assessment & testing center at this University is a nationally-registered testing center. We administer tests such as the ACT, SAT, GRE, GMAT, LSAT, MCAT, TOEFL, TOEIC, the FAA exam, and we are the only testing center in the state that administers the licensing exam for teachers. I know I'm missing some, but those are the majority of them.
On the assessment side, we also evaluate the extent to which the general education goals of the university are being met. GenEd assessment is fun - writing samples are collected from students as part of the normal classroom process, and those samples are evaluated using scoring rubrics corresponding to whichever GenEd goal we're assessing in a given year. The data collection and scoring is done through various academic committees, and our office handles the data analysis and writing the annual report. We also write the annual assessment report to the Regents for Higher Education.
One of the advantages to working in this office is that it's not part of any given department or school - we report directly to the Provost. It reduces the politicking, but doesn't completely eliminate it. OTOH, it's what's known as alt-ac (alternative academic); we're staff, not faculty, and that can cause some tension when asking faculty to file annual reports they really have no interest in writing, for example.
From doing some investigating, I know other universities house psychometric testing within the Assessment & Testing offices (for example, there's currently a position for a Psychometrician for a university assessment & testing center listed on one of the higher ed job sites); some universities also add accreditation as part of the responsibilities of the office, and that's its own barrel of fun.....
I'm with Erg on posting exact numbers; that said, I landed the statistical analyst position here with the ink not dry on my Master's degree and started in the mid-five figures. The Assistant Director position runs in the upper-mid fives, and I've seen Director positions listed paying in the low six figures.