Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Acknowledgement
First of all, I would like to dedicate my thanks to my parents who always give their support in so
many way for countless times and keep on believing in their daughter. I would also like to thanks
Dr. Priyalatha Govindasamy for her patience and guidance in helping me through the application
procedure of fieldwork placement. I would also like to express my gratitude to my university
supervisor, Mr Nuszep Almigo for his kind words, enthusiastic speech, deep insights and for
acknowledging my work and effort. I am forever grateful for that. Last but not least, my beloved
Psychology Management Unit, MOSTI, thank you for teaching me everything, thank you for
showing me everything, thank you for giving me everything.
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Supervised Fieldwork actually also a period of learning for students to brush up their
skills in psychological practice, in which instead of learning psychology theoretically, this time
the students will have the opportunity to apply the principles and theories that they have learned
from the courses throughout the previous semesters in a real world setting and learn psychology
from the practical aspect. Aside from providing the opportunity to practice what they have
learned, Supervised Fieldwork also can become the place and period in which students can
observe, develop appropriate professional skill, explore career options, develop network with
professionals, expand and brush up their clinical and interpersonal skills, and most importantly,
help people.
e) Maintain a high standard of ethics during the fieldwork and when writing the report.
As stated in the objectives, all students are required to write a report describing their
experiences and observations throughout their industrial training program. Therefore, the aim
of this report is to introduce the agency that I have been worked in during these 16 weeks,
together with the roles of the psychologists in my workplace and the structure and roles of the
psychology unit in the agency. I would also share my experience throughout my fieldwork
period; this includes the activities and responsibilities that I have took hold while working in
the agency and the programs that I have been involved in, and last but not least, my reflection
towards the whole experiences of working in a real world workplace setting.
For my SFW, I have applied and been accepted to undergo my internship with Ministry of
Science, Technology and Innovation (MOSTI) located at Aras 1-7, Blok C4 & C5, Kompleks
C, Pusat Pentadbiran Kerajaan Persekutuan, 62662 Putrajaya. I was placed under Human
Resources Management division, where Psychology Management Unit was located.
The main reason as to why I choose this organization to do my fieldwork is because I have
always been fascinated with this ministry because I have always been a fan of creative
technology and science. As a ministry that centralized on science-based research and
technology, I am wondering whether the psychology management would be a little different
from the usual too, maybe perhaps in terms of innovative implementation of psychological
theory in programs or activities or even the existence of new technology to assess psychological
defects in human maybe. Of course, I knew this is impossible but one can dreams. However
still, I was still intrigued and need to see how a psychology management unit operates in a
researcher-based population. I want to know is there a difference between working with office-
oriented employees and laboratory-oriented science researcher?
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First of all, I want to experience the life of psychology officer working in an organization. Until
now, I am still not really clear with the roles of psychology officer in an industrial and
organizational setting. I was hoping I can clear all of my doubts and questions after I went
through this fieldwork. Aside from that, I want to apply and implement the knowledge that I
have learned about psychology in classes to the outside world. It was educative and entertaining
to learn all these psychological theories in classes but there was very little opportunity to
practice what I have learn in class in real life. By doing my fieldwork and being surrounded
with people who are implementing psychology aspects in their work, hopefully I can brush up
my skills and competency and keep on learning new things.
Figure 1.
MOSTI’s vision is to lead the National Science, Technology and Innovation (STI)
Agenda, and its mission is to explore, develop and utilize STI to generate knowledge, create
wealth and ensure societal wellbeing towards achieving a competitive, sustainable and inclusive
high income economy. The core business of MOSTI revolving around 5 aspects which is STI
services, STI acculturation, management services, STI policy and STI development.
Meanwhile, the types of services that this Ministry has provided to the country consisted of 10
types which includes:
A mention beforehand, the ministry consisted of divisions, department and agencies, and also
some government-owned companies and NGOs. All of the divisions under MOSTI are located
in headquarter office at Government Complex C, Putrajaya, and usually referred as MOSTI in
general. Most of the people working in MOSTI consisted of management and professional
workers, and working in office setting. Departments and agencies on the other hand, apart from
consisted of management officers, they are also consisted of researchers and scientists, and they
work in labs or special workplace that accommodate the main research or roles of their agencies.
Example of the agencies are Department of Chemistry Malaysia (some of their tasks
include running forensic tests for hospitals or law officers, investigating the chemical
composition of a material and many more), Malaysia Meteorological Services (run tests and
predict the weather forecast throughout Malaysia) and Malaysian Nuclear Agency (they do
researches on how to use and utilize nuclear as one of the power source that can be used safely).
These agencies are distributed throughout the country, and compared to those who work in
MOSTI, their jobs are more stressful and tasking since they are dealing with apparatus and
harmful substance and spend many hours in labs daily as opposed to those who work in an
office.
As these departments are working on different materials and equipment and also in
different setting with different type of workload from each other, the psychological approach
and intervention needs to be different across departments too. It is important to identify the
source of problems that might causing issues to these employees as they resemble different
types of population. In my opinion, the first thing that I need to do is not to generalize the
employees’ situations or condition. For example, people tolerate and handle stress in their lives
differently from each other and there fact that MOSTI employee worked in various departments,
the causal factor of stress might be different too, and thus needing a different set of approach.
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UPPsi is a unit under Bahagian Pengurusan Sumber Manusia (BPSM) and was
established in July 2009. It is located in BPSM, on level 5 in Block C4, C Complex,
Putrajaya. The organizational chart of MOSTI and placement of BPSM can be seen as
follow.
Figure 2
The office setting is open with partitions separating the officers’ workspace. There is a
counseling room located in the back of our unit’s partition, where most of the counseling
session were usually conducted.
The unit consisted of four members; two psychology officers, one psychology
officer assistant and one clerk. The organizational chart can be seen as follow:
Figure 3
clinical service based on Psychology and Counselling service circular that was issued
by Psychology Management Division, Civil Service Department (JPA) towards
increasing self-efficacy of MOSTI’s employees. UPPsi also aims to help officers and
staffs that has been associated with poor performance and disciplinary problems to:
Assess self-strengths and weaknesses so that true potential can be improved.
Work constructively.
Deal with interpersonal and intrapersonal matter productively and efficiently.
UPPsi has also established a mentoring program called Pementoran, which mainly
revolve around the pairing of senior (in terms of grade position and period of service)
with a junior that is those who just recently elected into higher grade position or
newcomers to the ministry. The seniors will later set up some tutoring or sharing session
with their juniors, to help the juniors to fit themselves in a new work setting and learning
something new in lieu with their new position in the organization.
Throughout the four months of internship in UPPsi, I have been assigned various tasks
that I have never done before in university. Pn Yvonne has specifically said that I will
be given everything to try and experience in the context of UPPsi tasks. For me, the
tasks are interesting, educative, and somewhat challenging at first; mainly due to the
lack of experience and knowledge on how to do it on the first place. However, after
quite some time I finally got the hang of it and able to perform it without any difficulties.
I learned a lot through these tasks and activities, and performing these tasks helped me
to really understand the context of psychologist’s roles better. The following are the
tasks that I have been assigned to.
Starting from my second week in MOSTI, I was given the role to create and
design an informative poster for Sharing is Caring. The contents for each week
is different, and have involved many fields of psychology for instance
cyberpsychology, positive psychology, clinical and health psychology. Usually,
I will browse the Internet looking for suitable topics and then discussed them
with Pn. Yvonne or En. Megat. After receiving the green light by them, I
proceed to design and creating the poster.
I was also assigned by Pn. Yvonne to carry out some tasks needed for her
clients. I was assigned to search some information on clinical mental disorders,
which include the complete diagnosis criteria, and the type of medication or
treatment plans that are effective for these disorders.
During my internship too, I have been given some opportunities to share new
information and knowledge to officers in MOSTI. I have shared some
information about the relationship between emotion and motivation during
annual meeting of AKRAB MOSTI. In my last week internship, I have
conducted a sharing session in the form of a tutorial class with my officemate
of PSM on how to design posters or any publicity materials using Adobe
Illustrator.
UPPsi also had provide me the chance to experience first-hand and conduct
a guidance session with client. This was a great opportunity for me to really
know what it feels like to listen to people and also to implement what I have
learn in class about CBT session and such. Since I was only a student and not
qualified to do more other than just listen and give some guidance, En. Fauzani
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will be present alongside with me in the room, and he acted as an observer only.
I had the chance to participate in two sessions.
6. Reflections
I have started my internship with the ambition to learn something new and makeover
myself into a positively-changed person by the time the end of October comes. By the
end of my internship, I feel like I have become a whole other person, so different form
who I was when I first arrive in MOSTI. I have grown mentally and intellectually, and
my view point has also changed. My expectations when I applied for this organization
in hope to encounter new technology advances that can help psychology field however
were crushed during the first two weeks in MOSTI. Apparently, that kind of technology
has yet to exist. But it does not matter, because I had found solace in other activities that
I have been involved in the whole time in MOSTI.
at workplace, it automatically came into my mind that people has their own personality
traits, and have different need and other things that causing them to act the way they
did. Same goes when Pn Yvonne shared and introduced me to her clients that are having
some kind of symptoms, I would try to figure out the disorder that the clients were
suffering from.
However, there are also a moment where I failed to integrate the fieldwork
experience with theoretical knowledge, which is during a guidance or sharing session.
As a psychology student, I think it was crucial to have the basic skill in conducting a
session with client. Even though I know the step by step in conducting a sharing session
in my mind, I still lack in the practice. I also think it would be helpful if this skill was
trained practically and not taught theoretically in classes. Even by showing example of
it using the role-model techniques was not helping, so far. I found that this skill is really
important for introverted people like me.
I can talk but I still need some preparation and real-life interaction as a practice to
help me compose myself during the session. For people who are extraverted, it should
not be a problem for them, however there are still other factors that are needed to take
into consideration like the empathy and listening skill. If only the lecturers of
psychology courses can provide this knowledge in the form of projects like for example,
students need to complete the accumulative 5 hours in guidance sessions with 5
strangers or something similar instead of writing assignments based on information that
can be found from the Internet, I think this would really help to brush up our skills and
eventually preparing us better to delve into our future career.
that they will utilize the technology to know better about psychology, which is a major
part of mankind. Turns out, they were not.
I think persistency is key in educating people, and also the passion behind the act
itself. If we are trying to educate people but we do not care whether they got the message
of what we are teaching, the effort would be fruitless and time-wasted. Same goes with
psychology. I love psychology and proud to be a part of it, but it was sad to see that
there is not much effort that has been done to promote this area. People associate
psychology with counselling, and while it is true, the fact that they equalize psychology
AND counselling is maddening. Counselling is a field under psychology. Psychology
is so much bigger than counselling. It was like saying Perdana (counselling) is the same
as Proton (psychology), while it is true, Proton is the massive brand but Perdana is
merely just one product from the brand.
I know this seems redundant and a simple matter, but I am a believer that a tree can
only grow from a seed, and in this context, the fact that people seem nonchalant to the
difference between counseling and psychology, will further implanted the perception
that psychology is only restricted with counseling only and do not branch out into other
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To be honest, I was more inclined towards clinical psychology rather than industrial or
organizational (I/O) psychology. But after working in here, I must say my standpoint might
have wavered a bit. Though my interest would still revolving around clinical psychology,
I actually has fallen in I/O due to the fact that as we are working in an organization, I could
not help but think that we need to take care of each other like we are a family. If someone
is hurt or facing challenges in their lives, it has become our responsibilities to acknowledge
the pain that they are going through and try to help them in a way. We could never know
if we actually contributed to their pain directly or indirectly because in an organization,
everyone is linked to each other in one way or another whether by their line of job, actions,
or as simply as by sharing the same elevator this morning.
whole time in university I was the boss of me, so when I design something for a
project I always do it with my style and implement the layout of my poster in the
way that I want it to be. However, in here I have to accommodate my style because
of the prospect of the reader (MOSTI staffs) and in doing so I need to work under
the guidance of Pn Yvonne and En Megat. Even though I prefer to work alone, I
am totally fine with the idea of collaboration and I am so full with ideas that I
needed to share with others. Cooperating with Pn Yvonne and En Megat is easy
because we work as a team. Aside from giving insights, they also listen to my ideas
and we work on that. When I was being the secretariat for UPPsi program too, I
asked around for any task that I could do, and help around without being told to
because for me, as a member of the secretariat team, I have to become cooperative
and active in playing my part.
I am also proud to say that I am always excited to try something new and absorb
new information and knowledge as much as I can. I practically tried everything
from administering a mental test with a client, performing a mindful meditation
session with clients to conducting a poster designing workshop with PSM staffs. I
would never get this opportunities during classes in UPSI, so whenever there is a
chance to do something, I took it. I am not this kind of person before, but
considering that my internship was only for four months, it taught me to not waste
any chance and grab any opportunities that can help me grow. Somehow, it
increases my confidence and self-esteem.
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I am always worried about this fact because I really do want to help people and
interact more with society but somehow I fear that my personality is not going to
be very helpful in this situation. Regardless, at least I knew what it feels like to be
in a session with a client. Being an introvert, it was also quite tasking for me to
approach people in my workplace. Having a stern resting face is also not helping.
But over time, by meeting new people too many times and conducted slots in UPPsi
programs, I have become more interactive and less shy with other people. MOSTI
also trained me to treat other people with equal respects, regardless the position or
age, and despite the close friendship that we have, professionalism and
responsibilities in workplace always come first.
I also took the opportunity to show off my skill and creativity in doing what
I like the most; designing. As I found that UPPsi was lacked in creativity and
passion to create a new image of UPPsi, I volunteered to create creative posters and
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proposed some ideas with my psychology officers to make UPPsi seems more
interesting.
Some threats that I found that could potentially affecting my learning and
performance during my internship is miscommunication and lack of practice or
skill.
Sometimes when Pn Yvonne gave me tasks, I always become confused with her
instructions because she tended to repeat the instructions too many times and every
single time the instruction would change a little bit. I being shy did not dare to ask
for clarification. In the end, the task need to be corrected again. Since then, I will
ask for clarification or repeat back the instruction after her.
The lack of knowledge, skills and practice on my part also becoming a challenge
for me to fully experience every aspect of my internship. UPPsi has opened so many
opportunities for me to try everything, yet because of my lack in skills in conducting
a guidance session for example, has become a barrier for me to conduct another
session. Therefore, I could not stress enough the importance of skill in psychology
students because when I first came to MOSTI, the first thing UPPsi asked me is that
“Do you know how to conduct a session?”
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7. Conclusion
Fieldwork in UPPsi MOSTI has educated me in different ways than how I usually learn my
knowledge. I have learned from my mistakes, observations, interactions, mentoring and trial-and-
error throughout my internship. Even so, I still wish that I can do so much more than what I did.
UPPsi has left me with a free reign on what I want and intend to do during my internship. I
personally did not like to be given the reign because I myself do not know what I am truly supposed
to do in the first place. But if I was being told to do something, I would gladly do it. The concept
of “letting her try every single thing” is great but it would be greater if there is a systematic
procedure or tentative on what activities the internship student should do next. That is my
recommendation for UPPsi MOSTI so the next intern would gain so many experience in the future.
My internship has also taught me that psychology is not only about helping people or
understand people, but the most important thing is implementation of psychology on oneself. As
a future psychologist, I need to implement psychology values on myself first before I try to
implement them on others. In conclusion, this period of 16 weeks is nothing short of enlightening,
educative and challenging phase of my life that I will cherish forever and to look back as a bench
mark for me to improve myself more in the future.
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Appendix
Picture 4, 5, 6 &7. Some of the Sharing is Caring posters that I made for UPPsi