Free Time Boredom1

FREE TIME BOREDOM1

Free Time Boredom

Makayla Smith

Western Carolina University

The client that I chose was one of my roommates’ friends that is also a fellow Western Carolina University student. To protect her identity, I will refer to her as Morgan. Morgan is a 21-year-old Caucasian female from Ellenboro, North Carolina. This is her first semester at Western Carolina University because she transferred from a community college in her hometown. She studies communication science disorders at WCU, so I knew she would be competent enough to take this assessment. Her family unit involves her biological mom, stepdad, biological dad, step mom, and half-sister. She loves spending time with her sister’s children when she goes home to visit. Morgan is currently single and loves spending time with friends. When I asked her if she would take an assessment for one of my classes, she agreed without hesitation. We set the date for Tuesday, October 11th, 2014 at 4:00 pm. We then set the date to go over the results for Wednesday, October 12th, 2014 at 4:00pm. The meetings were to be held in the study room of my apartment complex. I chose this place because it has less distractions than my apartment. The study room has plenty of table space and chairs, it has good lighting, it is not too hot or too cold, it is painted a neutral color, and it is located below the site owner’s office which means it is always quiet.

On October 11th, 2014, Morgan came into the study room at 4:00pm where I was waiting on her. She sat down and smiled at me and did not seem nervous at all. I gave her a copy of the Free Time Boredom assessment for her to record on and I also had a copy to read the questions aloud. I read the scale to her and she repeated back to me what the scale ranged from to show that she understood how she was supposed to answer. When I started reading the questions she answered fast although she said “um” a lot before she would answer. I know that is because she was thinking about it and maybe a little too much. I reassured her that there are no wrong answers and that she should just go with her gut instinct. She answered the rest of the questions quickly as if she had no trouble in what the questions were asking. There were no interruptions in this meeting because not a lot of people even use the study room on a normal basis so there was no one else in there. As soon as she answered all the questions I had, I told her that our session was over for today and reminded her of our scheduled meeting time the next day. She replied and told me that she already had an alarm set on her phone to remember and not to worry.

Our meeting to discuss the results was on October 12th, 2014 at 4:00pm and I waited for her in the study room as well on that day. She came in and this time she seemed a little nervous to know what her scores were on the assessment. I know she was nervous because she was tapping her foot when she sat down. I sat with her and went over each section’s scoring and let her know what her strengths were as well as a couple areas that she could work on. She stated that her results seemed like an accurate representation of her free time use. I explained what her overall scores were as well as what the subsections meant. She understood because she was shaking her head and saying “okay.” Morgan was very pleasant both times that we met. She asked to clarify some things but she was otherwise not very chatty until after we were done going over the assessment. This was great because she was getting right to the point and very involved in answering my questions. There were also no distractions in this meeting either since no one else came in the study room during our session. I expected that she may go off on a tangent and I might have to redirect her attention back to what we were doing. To my surprise, she waited until after we left the study room to spark up a normal conversation. This helped me to get a more professional experience out of this instead of just a casual conversation.

The Free Time Boredom Scale is a twenty-question assessment that takes about ten minutes to finish. It assessed just how the client perceives their free time as well as how they are spending this free time. Free time means time left to a person after daily obligations are met such as sleep, work, or school. This scale should only be used on clients that can read at the fourth-grade level and above. The client answers the questions on a scale from one to five. One is strongly disagree, two is disagree, three is in-between, four is agree, and five is strongly agree. There are twenty statements that start out “During my free time, …” the rest of the sentence is filled in differently per twenty items. After the client rates all the items, the CTRS then scores each section per physical involvement, mental involvement, meaningfulness, and speed of time. To prevent inaccurate data, there are some negative questions as well as positive ones. The scoring involves a combination of addition, subtraction, as well as division that is specific to each subscale. The total score is adding all the subscale scores together and then dividing by four. The scoring of this assessment should take about five to ten minutes (Burlingame & Blaschko, (2009).

The assessment process went well; I scheduled with Morgan over text message when I got her number through my roommate. We set up the time, date, and place of the meetings and she showed up exactly as planned. When we got in the study room, I started off the assessment reading the instructions to Morgan and asked if she had any questions which she did not. After that we clarified the scale and I asked her the questions and she responded accordingly. Morgan was very involved when I was giving her the assessment and did not need much clarification. She was straight to the point and stayed on topic throughout the whole assessment process. Her posture was great as well as her eye-contact which let me know that she was interested in what I was saying. After the first meeting, I took about five minutes to score the assessment and thought of how to discuss this information on the following day. During the second meeting, we discussed her results and she understood what her strengths were when I explained them as well as what she needed to work on. She was very respectful and gave me her full attention. I could tell because she was nodding and agreed with what I was telling her. Overall, I would say that the process went very well and the place that I picked to do the assessment in was perfect. There were no interruptions to this process and it ran smoothly.

Morgan’s scores were mostly similar however there was an outlier. Morgan scored a 2.6 in the physical involvement section which is significantly lower than her other scores. This shows that she needs to improve on being more active. Her scores for mental involvement was a 4.4 and the meaningfulness score was a 4.2. These are good scores and this shows that she is doing things in her free time that stimulates her brain and has a purpose. Having a purpose in free time is great because that means Morgan knows how to fill up her free time with things that mean something to her. These areas she can improve a little bit but they do not seem to be a problem in my eyes. Morgan’s highest score was in the speed of time category in which she received a 4.8. This is a great score and shows that she does not see her freetime as pointless and she wishes that it lasted longer.

The two lowest scores are in meaningfulness (4.2) and physical involvement (2.6). The meaningfulness could be improved upon a little bit but that one is not my main concern. The physical involvement is the area that needs to be worked on since there is such a low score. Physical activity during free time has many benefits including being healthy as well as relieving stress. I believe that Morgan needs to incorporate more physical tasks in her free time and that could increase overall quality of life as well as to prevent doing meaningless tasks to keep her occupied. To address these weaknesses in physical involvement and meaningfulness, I came up with a couple of goals and objectives for Morgan to work on. These goals and objectives are:

1. Goal- To improve meaningfulness of activities during free time
2. Objective- After making a list of 20 meaningful activities, client will perform two activities from that list every week for five weeks to improve meaningfulness of activities during free time.
3. Goal- To improve physical involvement during free time
4. Objective-After making a list of physical activities the client is comfortable doing, client will successfully complete one of those physical activities during one hour of her free time twice a week for five weeks to improve physical involvement during free time.

After completing the assessment process with a real client, I realized that it is much different than simply doing assessments in class and thinking about a hypothetical client. I learned that there is a lot to consider when setting up assessments such as a time and day that works best along with a setting that is quiet with no distractions. I also learned that if I am calm and comfortable with the client, I can get my words out slower. I know that when I talk slower, that reduces my chances of having to repeat myself. I learned that the environment has a lot to do with how I can control my anxiety around assessments. When I was in the neutral room with no distractions or pressure, I could be as cool as a cucumber.

I believe that my strengths in assessing client needs are my ability to speak clearly and slowly. I also believe that I am a very personable person and that is an advantage when working with patients. Another strength I possess is that I can clarify things so that I can put the question into words that the client can understand more. I was on time and prepared with all the materials needed for the assessment which proves that I can be professional.

In my next assessment, I do not have a whole lot I would change since it went so well. However, I wish I had chosen someone in a different age group than myself. I believe that this would be able to let me see how comfortable I am at doing assessments when I do not have that much in common with them. I believe that it would be a better learning experience, especially since in the field I will work with many different age groups.

References

Burlingame, J., & Blaschko, T. M. (2009).Assessment tools for recreational therapy and related fields (4th ed.). Ravensdale, WA: Idyll Arbor, Inc.