Assessment in Career Counseling
Chapter 9
Origins of assessment in career counseling can be traced back to Frank Parsons
“Test and tell” approach not reflective of current status of career assessment
Purpose is to gather information to facilitate decision making by counselor/client
Career Assessment
Interests
Abilities/skills
Values
Integrative Career Assessment programs
Assessing Individual Differences
Interest inventories often used because they can be helpful in describing general occupational interests
Counselors can also assess interests by using measures of expressed and manifest interests
Interest inventories have been found to promote career exploration and connect the client’s interests to specific occupations
Interests
Common interest inventories Strong Interest Inventory Career Assessment Inventory Self-Directed Search Other instruments
O*NET Interests Profiler Jackson Vocational Interest Survey For elementary students: Career Finder,
Judgment of Occupational Behavior-Orientation (JOB-O), What I Like to Do (WILD)
For individuals with disabilities: Wide Range Interest-Opinion Test-Second Edition
Interests
Strong Interest Inventory (Donnay et al., 2005)
One of the most widely used instruments in counseling
Compares individuals’ responses to items with response patterns of people in different occupations
Appropriate for high school students, college students, and adults
Assesses preferences in occupations, subject areas, activities, leisure activities, people and characteristics
Interests (cont.)
Assessment of abilities and skills often conducted to identify occupational possibilities in which client could be successful
Aptitude tests often used in career counseling because they are good predictors of occupational success
Important for counselors to verify aptitude assessment results with other information
Some common abilities/skills inventories Campbell Interest and Skills Survey Skills Confidence Inventory Self-estimates of Abilities (ability estimates & self-
efficacy estimates)
Abilities/Skills
Work values more highly correlated than interest with work satisfaction (Rounds, 1990)
No inventory is inclusive of all possible values Clients may value something not assessed on
instrument used Need to supplement use of values inventory with
exploration of other possible values Some common values instruments
Minnesota Importance Questionnaire O*NET Work Importance Profiler Values Scale
Values
Combine interests, abilities, and values assessments Kuder Career Planning System COPSystem Integrated Assessment and Career
Information Systems These systems include multiple assessments as
well as an integration of occupational information
DISCOVER Program SIGI3
Integrative Career Assessment Programs
Career Development Assessment and Counseling Approach (C-DAC) Integrates results from multiple career
assessments: Adult Career Concerns Inventory Career Development Inventory Strong Interest Inventory Values Scale Salience Inventory
Informal assessments/exercises Portfolio assessment
Combining Assessment Information
Career Decision Making
Career Maturity
Other career choice process measures
Career Process Measures
Career Decision Scale Provides measure of career indecision, but
does not indicate source or type of indecision
My Vocational Situation Career Decision-Making Self-Efficacy
Scale Measures confidence individuals have in their
ability to make career decisions
Career Decision-Making Difficulties Questionnaire Constructed to measure theory-based
taxonomy of decision-making difficulties
Career Decision Making
Career maturity “extent to which the individual has mastered the vocational tasks, including both knowledge and attitudinal components, appropriate to his or her stage of career development” (Betz, 1988, p. 80) Measures the client’s level of readiness for mastering
career development tasks
Career Development Inventory
Adult Career Concerns Inventory
Career Maturity Inventory
Career Maturity
Career Thoughts Inventory Designed to measure dysfunctional thinking
about career decision making
Career Transitions Inventory Designed to assess clients’ perceptions of
psychological resources available as they go through career change
Other Career Choice Process Measures
Qualitative assessment is not standardized tests that yield quantitative scores and norm-based interpretation
Tends to foster more active role for the client rather than more passive interpretation of results
Emphasizes holistic study of the individual
Goldman, 1990
Qualitative Career Assessment
Qualitative career assessment is not a set of specific assessment instruments or techniques
Savickas (1993): Career assessment process focuses on stories Client and counselor act as coauthors and editors to:
(1) author coherent, continuous, and credible career story(2) identify themes and tensions within story lines and attribute meaning to those concepts(3) develop narrative or plan to learn skills needed to perform next episode in the story
Qualitative Career Assessment
Qualitative career assessments should consist of small, simple, and sequentially logical steps (McMahon et al., 2003)
Construction of narratives should elucidate socially and culturally embedded nature of career and facilitate greater understanding of relationship between individual and social context (Cohen, Duberty, & Mallon, 2004)
To use qualitative career assessment, practitioner must understand philosophical underpinnings of the approach
Qualitative Career Assessment
Technology and Internet-Based Career Assessments
Gender and Career Assessment
Ethnic and Cultural Differences in Career Assessment
Issues and Trends in Career Assessment
Assessments provided by professionals, as well as amateur and illegally-adapted instruments available online
Additional research needed to determine if Internet versions of instruments are comparable to paper-and-pencil Can be difficult to ascertain whether the instruments are
sound and methodologically strong Misinformation has potential to harm individuals
There are also concerns about privacy and confidentiality Some sites do this better than others
Technology and Internet-Based Career Assessments
Gender differences in interest inventories
Same-sex norms vs. combined norms
Use of less-structured assessment methods
Examination of internal and external barriers
Gender and Career Assessment
Cultural validity vs. Cultural specificity
Appropriate use of interest inventories
Culturally appropriate model of career assessment
Ethnic and Cultural Differences in Career Assessment
Culturally encompassing information gathering
Culturally appropriate selection of instruments
Culturally appropriate administration
Culturally appropriate interpretation of assessment data
A Culturally Appropriate Model of Career Assessment (Flores, Spanerman, & Obasi,
2003)
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