The Academy of Work Science

Enhancing Educational Outcomes, Graduates’ Employability, and Long-Term Career Success

AWS provides a suite of offerings designed to complement educational outcomes with early-career professional development in four psychological skills that can have a profound impact on professional performance and career growth:

• Mental Toughness: persisting through obstacles, resilience, controlling emotions, tolerating stress, & maintaining confidence
• Emotional Intelligence: being empathic, managing the emotions of others, influencing and persuading, being self-aware
• Intellectual Curiosity: exploring the possibilities, ideation, inquisitiveness, social curiosity, having to know
• Drive: self-discipline, taking initiative, work ethic, lifelong development

As a first step in the certification process, participating faculty and other educators complete the Psychological Skills Profile (PSP), an assessment of 17 psychological facets as they apply to the four psychological strengths. Customized reporting provides interpretation of scores as well as detailed developmental content tailored to the individual’s assessed strengths and development gaps. Participants are then scheduled to work with one of our consultants for deeper interpretation of results and to formulate a comprehensive development plan.

From there, participants engage in self-directed, online training to become certified in the interpretation and application of the PSP and other psychometric assessments, as well as in the Cognitive Behavioral coaching techniques that are designed to enhance the 4 psychological skills in students and early-career professionals. Application will focus on the widening skills gaps observed in new graduates’ in areas such as self-regulation (dealing with adversity, remaining adaptable, emotional management), social skills (e.g., professional communication, collaboration, understanding norms, cultural sensitivity), work ethic (e.g., being persistent, taking initiative, engaging in ongoing development), as well as critical thinking (e.g., effectively formulating problems, thinking analytically) (Burrus, Jackson, Xi, & Steinberg, 2013; Casner-Lotto & Barrington, 2006; Conley, 2010; Kyllonen, 2012).

Upon completion of the program, participants will be certified to support students’ development in these skills . While not everyone starts at the same developmental point with respect to these skills, we now know that each can and should be consciously developed in early career professionals across all performance areas. Further, the science tells us that the psychological and neurological bases for performance in these applied areas continue to develop though the college and early post-college years (ages 18 through 25). So, the earlier these current or soon-to-be early career professionals begin focused development, the greater the impact on overall career success. While this program is offered as a structured certification program, it can be configured to meet the specific teaching and development goals of individual programs. ,

The certification process is almost entirely self-directed and can be completed after approximately 30 hours of engagement. The following table describes the courses required and available through his certification process:

Course Descriptions

Becoming Certified in the PSP Assessment (Complete all)

PSP 100: Applying the Academy of Work Science Career Success Model Extensive organizational research shows that there are 4 psychological constructs (Mental Toughness, Intellectual Curiosity, Emotional Intelligence, & Achievement Striving) that significantly support work performance and career success. Participants learn how to identify these traits in others, as well as how to begin to leverage these traits to improve the career success and performance of individuals and teams.

PSP 101: Interpreting and Applying the Psychological Skills Profile I The Psychological Skills Profile (PSP) is a psychometric assessment that measures 4 broad psychological constructs (Mental Toughness, Intellectual Curiosity, Emotional Intelligence, & Achievement Striving) that have been found to support career success across a wide range of performance domains. Participants learn how to interpret the 16 facets that underpin these psychological skills, and how to provide constructive feedback, as well as career and performance coaching, based on interpretation of various combinations of facet scores.

PSP 102: Interpreting and Applying the Psychological Skills Profile II This course is a continuation of PSP 102 and focuses on application of PSP results and associated deep developmental content to a wide variety of career and performance contexts. Participants also learn how to apply the assessment in support of a variety of academic goals, as well as in support of early career success.

Applying AWS Coaching Techniques (Complete all)

COA 200: Cognitive Behavioral Techniques (CBT) for Coaching I The Cognitive Behavioral approach is a set of scientifically developed techniques used to improve individuals’ motivation, behavior, performance, outcomes and well-being. At the core, Cognitive Behavioral Techniques (CBT) challenge individuals to interrogate their own patterns of thought, how they perceive the social environment, how they come to fix their beliefs, and how they come to make decisions. While CBTs are employed in a wide range of development context, this course will focus exclusively on those techniques most consistent with needs of students and early career professionals.

COA 201: Cognitive Behavioral Techniques (CBT) for Coaching II This course is a continuation of CBT for Coaching I and guides participants through the application of specialized techniques that are customized for the educational and professional development setting. These techniques are designed to help individuals improve performance across the AWS psychological strength constructs by discovering and practicing new ways of framing and interpreting situations, managing the emotions and motivation of self and others, and developing effective coping mechanisms.

COA 204: Addressing the Unique Needs of Students and Early Career Professionals

Coaching for Mental Toughness (Select 2)

MT 101: Driving Through Obstacles and Challenges Incorporating findings across diverse performance contexts such as professional sports, sales, entrepreneurship, and the military; participants learn what it takes to persevere in overcoming difficult challenges, setbacks, and obstacles to achieve critical objectives. Participants develop and learn how to leverage psychological strengths as they apply to self-regulation, self-efficacy, and locus of control to eliminate fear of failure, avoid distraction, and reverse a “fixed mindset.”

MT 102: Building Resilience Participants learn the psychological skills required to adapt positively to significant adversity, threats, setbacks, rejection, and other sources of stress. Participants will learn and apply techniques based on the most recent advances in the science of resilience, with strong focus on factors that are amenable to targeted development.

MT 103/EI 103: Regulating Emotions This course provides insight into the science and function of emotions, with emphasis on identifying triggers, recognizing patterns of thinking, and effectively managing emotionality toward better decisions and positive performance outcomes. Participants learn to apply techniques in the three components of emotional regulation: 1) initiating actions, 2) inhibiting actions, and 3) modulating responses triggered by emotions, with basic cognitive behavioral techniques (CBT) such as cognitive reappraisal, mindful awareness, and ABC functional analysis.

MT 104: Strengthening Self-Efficacy Self-efficacy is one’s belief in their capacity to execute behaviors necessary to produce specific performance levels and goal attainment. Participants learn how to identify and manage cognitive self-evaluations that influence a sense of control over one’s motivation, behavior, social environment, and career outcomes. Application will focus on developing self-efficacy as the basis for enhancing resilience, self-regulation, curiosity, initiative taking, communicating persuasively, and performing under stress.

Coaching for Emotional Intelligence (Select 2)

EI 101: Empathy and Open-Mindedness Participants learn to apply the techniques of active listening and fostering two-way communication. Techniques applied in specific business contexts include perception check, interpretive listening, paraphrasing, and questioning.

EI 102: Managing Others’ Emotions Participants learn to recognize and predict the response patterns of others in various contexts, with emphasis on stressful, emotional, and challenging situations. Leveraging basic behavioral cognitive techniques, participants will leave this course better able to diffuse highly charged situations, respond optimally when others react emotionally, and help others re-channel emotions in constructive ways.

EI 103: Emotional Regulation This course provides insight into the science and function of emotions, with emphasis on identifying triggers, recognizing patterns of thinking, and effectively managing emotionality toward better decisions and positive performance outcomes. Participants learn to apply techniques in the three components of emotional regulation: 1) initiating actions, 2) inhibiting actions, and 3) modulating responses triggered by emotions, with basic cognitive behavioral techniques (CBT) such as cognitive reappraisal, mindful awareness, and ABC functional analysis.

EI 104: Influencing and Persuading The ability to win respect, influence people and cultivate cooperation is essential to career success to get them to support a specific agenda or to take a specific course of action. Participants learn to apply techniques for both rational (central) and emotional (peripheral) appeals. Application will focus on communicating ideas, presenting proposals in a compelling way, and motivating others to act.

Coaching for Intellectual Curiosity (Select 2)

IC 100 How We Come to Believe The process by which people fix their belief about events and the world around them is a complex coming together of cognitive, emotional, motivational, and situational factors that frame the way we perceive and think. In turn, these beliefs serve as the filter through which we continue to adjust and reinforce the interpretations we make about our environment. Participants learn how work and other performance contexts interact with personal attributes to give rise to the beliefs, perspectives, values, and personal philosophies that significantly impact just about all work and career outcomes.

IC 101: Critical Thinking for Business Participants learn to identify and formulate problems, opportunities, and challenges within the framework of the organization’s mission, prevailing business environment, relevant business model, and strategic goals. application will focus on assessing business-related threats and opportunities, building on compelling ideas, developing rational arguments with strong construction and support, and communicating proposals in a credible and persuasive manner to garner support.

IC 102: Eliciting Ideas and Opinions from Others Participants learn how to apply active listening techniques to engage others in

IC 103: Enhancing Creativity Through Paradox Mindset In this course, participants learn to leverage apparent contradictions in order to break down assumptions, spot hidden connections between diverse ideas, and discover new ways to look at business problems and opportunities. Participants learn to use contradictions and to re-frame everyday work paradoxes such as dual performance requirements (e.g., minimizing costs while maximizing innovation) and resource scarcity (i.e., having to perform at high levels under limited time or financial resources) to fuel creative and divergent thinking.

IC 104: Thinking Globally With a focus on increasing diversity of experience, perspective, and thought in organizations; participants learn how to integrate values, beliefs, and points-of-view from different cultures. Participants learn to recognize situations in which demands from both global and local factors impact organizational performance, and combine an openness to and awareness of diversity across cultures and markets with a willingness and ability to synthesize across this diversity. This course is especially useful for those who are, or plan to be, working in global organizations.

Coaching for Achievement Striving (Select 2)

AS 101: Why Do We Work?: Intrinsic vs. Extrinsic Motivation Participants will learn how to leverage intrinsic motivators to encourage behavior change. this course explains the science behind internal motivation and shows how to apply these techniques to everyday motivation challenges. Application will focus on the rapidly changing jobs and performance needs, with emphasis on greater complexity, need for specialization, and related need for high level collaboration.

AS 102: Personal Values & Ethics in the Workplace Recent research has uncovered 5 intuitive systems that form the basis for how we develop our moral ethical beliefs. These intuitive systems form the basis for a number of ways in which employees perceive and interact with the organization and work environment. Participants learn techniques to identify these intuitive systems in employees, as well as coaching strategies to help those employees become more self-aware. Application focuses on how these systems relate to effective leadership communication, employee engagement, performance and organizational citizenship behaviors.

AS 103: Setting Personal Performance and Career Goals

AS 104: Creating Healthy Competition

AS 105: Achieving Flow Flow describes a motivational state in which one is so involved in an activity that nothing else seems to matter; the experience is so enjoyable that people will continue to do it even at great cost, for the sheer sake of doing it (Cziksentmihalyi, 2008). Leveraging the psychological nature of this active experience, participants learn techniques that support greater awareness and perceived control over one’s emotions, thoughts, and behaviors.