Running Head: PRETEST SELF-ASSESSMENT

Pretest Self-Assessment
Jennifer Warner
Georgia State

Communication and Cultural Diversity

Fall 2014
Dr. Karen Watkins

PRETEST SELF-ASSESSMENT

2
My Pretest Self-Assessment

Developing a basic knowledge of cultural diversity as a social service provider, would

enable me to be a more efficient helper, and give me a boost of confidence as an up and coming
professional. Regardless of the career path I choose to take, I will be interacting with peoples
from various backgrounds and ethnicities so I am expecting to have a good grasp of multiple
cultural values which I did not know of prior to taking Cultural Diversity. To begin my learning
journey in this course, I have assessed myself to determine the levels of my cultural competency.
I will discuss my results, my responses to these results, as well as what I am looking forward to
improving.
Surprises
I thought I was a cultural diverse individual, but I no longer think I am. I was surprised at
the knowledge of skills application the how tos that I retained from this class previously. I
was also taken aback as to how little I retained from my last class, in the Cultural Diverse
Groups and Social and Economic Justice sections of my self-assessment. Though, I have friends
of different ethnicities I realized how we still have a lot of the same values and cultures.
Therefore, even though I have multiethnic friendships I did not realize how little attention I have
given to the multicultural aspects of these friendships; such as upbringings of their family
members who were not raised in America with American-centered values. I was surprised at how
unaware I am of the experiences of a foreigner in or outside of America. The fact that I am more
open to learning about different groups is surprising, I was not too open a year ago. Now to be
knowledgeable of specific groups, no longer makes me uncomfortable.
My Feelings
I scored a 100, putting my competence at a level 3 out of 4 on the first assessment. That
is fair I can live with that score. It makes me excited to work with clients and apply my skills but
the second part helped me see how unprepared I am to do this with clients of diverse cultural
backgrounds. I scored 228, placing me at level 2 out of 4 on the Cultural Diverse Groups and
Social and Economic Justice of the self-assessment. As I was going through the second portion
of the assessment I said to myself, I do not know about thisbut I would like to as I circled #1
(minimal competency) for many of them. I feel like I expect better and it was interesting but no
surprising that I knew much more about African Americans and European Americans rather than
Latino, Asian, and others various Americans. There is lots of learning to be done. But I feel
better about going through this class than I did before. I feel confident about learning this goaround, the assessment pointed out areas that will be important to my future clients that I may
not know about and need to further understand.
Life Events
Lack of exposer played a major role in the ignorance I felt comfortable living in.
Spending more time studying my beliefs as a Christian has improved my understanding of the
human race so here is where my values lie. Of course there was a desire within me to learn more
about Blacks in America because I associate with this population. So I have learned about Ida B.
Wells and lynching, Malcolm X, Muddy Waters, the truth about Lincolns beliefs, the struggle of

PRETEST SELF-ASSESSMENT

Black in America and the togetherness of many ethnicities during the era of the Civil Right
Movement. From Social Policy and Case Management classes I learned of some of the struggle
LGBTQs, poor Whites in America, and of the struggle of children and mothers in America. In
Sociology classes I learned about the Chicano movement, and Clark doll experiment, gruesome
brutality against First Nations people, and the struggle of biracial couples. Being exposed to new
information has caused me to be more aware of the severity of discrimination in my country.
Also, it has provided me a deeper understanding of the many peoples, negatively affected by
choices made in American history.
Willingness to Improve
In addition to Cultural Diversity, I have taken; African American studies, Intro to
Sociology, Sociological theory, and Human Behavior courses and they have all contributed to
my willingness to be more open. The pretest assessment asked about how to apply skills working
with diverse populations, and I am specifically willing to improve my learning of all groups
listed in the self-assessment. I am open to helping all the populations covered in the assessment;
if I am competent enough of their cultural values so not offend. I was not open to do this a year
ago. This has come from knowledge in classes and just having a self-awareness that for me at the
end of the day people are just people and we all need love and assistance. The goal is to
empower and care about people and how can I do that if I am closed minded what is important to
them?
Conclusion
After this assessment I feel I would do well connecting with clients at this time, but I
want people to be comfortable with me. Questions are healthy in the right setting so I plan to ask
more questions so to be more connected with friends and clients. This will allow me to be less
nervous when helping people. The self-assessment experience has made a more curious person I
think. I am excited that I am a lot more open to learn about any population and working with any
population I am informed about and prepared assist.