Social change is a continuous change of innovative ideas, behaviors, morals, and thoughts. However, those changes could add valuable, lasting, memorable alteration to education, relationships, belief, and society. These changes could come through extensive research, naturally, or through innovative programming from qualified researchers. However, the way you initiate social change will impact your success as a psychologist or perhaps hinder it in some way. In addition, social change also impacts your role in society and creates opportunities to become the positive voice in the community or for those that feel they have no voice in this world or for those that have become stagnant and complaisant in life due to abnormal circumstances. Moreover, social change creates opportunities for one to be the inspiration for that one child that feel social class and economic disparity has doomed him/ her to repeat that same dreamless existence as his/her ancestors. Opportunity and professionalism puts every scholar practitioners in the position to declare and reiterate that it is alright to be different than what is expected of you. It is perfectly fine to be college bound in a family that places a grater enfaces on work ethics as opposed to education.
The tools we learn in these classes teach us to be kind, compassionate, and nurturing to all not just as a scholar practitioner but as a human with impeccable morals and ethics. My philosophy as a scholar-practitioner is epistemology. I believe that we develop awareness from the world we live in by the way we interact within it (Blaikie, 2004). I believe we are molded and formed by what we observe or what we are exposed to during the growth of our life. I believe that it is vital to be acquainted with the world around us by being active in it, experiencing life, and gaining knowledge (Blaikie, 2004). Therefore, I think we are the future leaders of social change; we are the face of Walden University as we go out into the world and create social change. Walden’s primary mission is to construct scholar practitioners that initiate and successfully uphold social change (Walden, 2012). However, knowing one’s self, value systems, beliefs, biases, and personal theory is important as a scholar-practitioner that desire to promote social change because the first change starts within you (Laureate Education, Inc., 2010). When looking back on this class I have learned that my personal theory on becoming a psychologist has not changed.
However, I have learned valuable skills that will propel me to yet another level of social change through research methods and development. I know that if I see a gap within any social development or system I use quantitative (to study existing theories and research that have proven sound across time), qualitative (to initiate innovate theories and design methods), or mixed methods (combination of both) to research and institute positive changes within my community. Moreover, this class has taught me how to recognize needed changes, gaps, or improvements and cultivate my abilities as a researcher to initiate positive social change; I have the skills to research and develop specific changes to improve society. I am not so sure what my next step will lead me to as a researcher because my goal is to work with troubled children. Nonetheless, I am very sure that the skills I have learned in this class will assist me in that quest by having an idea how to at least begin with creating a research plan for any theories I may have about programming that I feel are not complete.
I surely did not expect to learn so much in this class about myself and about research. With that said, I can honestly say that every skill I learned in this class was not expected. However, now that I have specific skills to guide me with social change I feel one step closer to my goals as a psychologist. Furthermore, theories in research are carefully structured explanations, assumptions, and suggestions that soundly develop a logical theory test of an observable reality by recognizing the association between the variables (Creswell, 2009 p. 51). According to Laureate Education (2009) everything thing starts off as a theory is researched until the theory elucidate or makes sense of how the world is and why.
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