Chattrelle Gillyard

September 1, 2014
Pre-test Reflection Essay
SW 3000
Dr. Karen Watkins

Initial thoughts and Scores

When I was first told that an assignment in our class was to take a self- assessment test I
was quite excited, I love taking self-assessment test. I was a little skeptical about taking an
assessment that was over 10 pages long but fount it quite easy to take. Due to the fact that the
questions were categorized was very helpful. On the first self-assessment pretest I received a
score of 66 which was in the Level 1 unlikely category and on the Cultural diverse Groups &
Social & Economic Justice pretest I received a score of 126 which was still in the Level 1
unlikely category.

Surprises and Feelings

I was actually shocked to see that my score was so low on the Culturally Diverse group
pretest because I thought I knew more about diversity and economic justice. In the Social and
Economic Justice category majority of my answers were unlikely and not very likely. My
responses were so low mainly because I didnt understand the concepts of distributive justice and
moral exclusion and fairness. I also did really poorly in the European Americans and Asian
Americans because Im not very educated on their culture. On the self-assessment pretest I was
shocked to see that my responses were actually pretty good when it came to Cultural Awareness
but I didnt do so well in the Skill Development and Knowledge Acquisition categories.
Question 9 asked did I understand terms such as critical thinking, identity development, social
constructionism, and marginalization. I know the terms Critical thinking and identity
development I just wasnt aware of what the other two terms meant.

Life Events
Growing up I was raised being around a heavy amount of Latinos and African Americans
so when I approached those categories in the cultural diversity portion of the pretest I answered
definitely to almost every question. Being African American I know the characteristics of a
typical African American and the unique historical background involving slavery, segregation
and oppression. Latinos are much like African Americans and growing up with Latinos friends I
learnt about their culture as well so I also can understand the immigrant exploitation in
employment and housing and the current and historical oppression. I also scored really high in
the gay, lesbian, transgender, and bisexual category and thats because I have family and friends
who fit into that category. I dont agree with some things but I was taught to never judge so a lot
of people I know who fit into this category put a lot of trust in me. This is why I am familiar with
the (PFLAG) Parents, Family, and Friends of Lesbians and Gays organization, and I can
understand the different meaning of the terms and Im aware of their life and cultural
distinctions.

Score Improvement
The score that I received was very low and slightly hurt my feeling only because I
thought I knew more than I did. Im more than willing to improve my score and advance my
knowledge on culture competency. By taking my communication and cultural diversity class
seriously and learning everything I need to know and more will definitely help me to further
educate myself. Also by reading up on different cultures and on justice couldnt hurt either. My
main focus to educate myself more on is cultural diversity though because of the fact that I didnt
know as much as I thought I did. Social and Economic Justice, Asian Americans, European
Americans, Skill Development and Knowledge Acquisition are all things I would like to do
better on throughout the semester.