Assessment in Career Counseling Chapter 9

Career Assessment 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

Assessing Individual Differences Interests Abilities/skills Values Integrative Career Assessment programs

Interests 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 (cont.) 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

Abilities/Skills 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)

Values 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

Integrative Career Assessment Programs 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

Combining Assessment Information 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

Career Process Measures Career Decision Making Career Maturity Other career choice process measures

Career Decision Making 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 Maturity 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

Other Career Choice Process Measures 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

Qualitative Career Assessment 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

Issues and Trends in Career Assessment Technology and Internet-Based Career Assessments Gender and Career Assessment Ethnic and Cultural Differences in Career Assessment

Technology and Internet-Based Career Assessments 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

Gender and Career Assessment Gender differences in interest inventories Same-sex norms vs. combined norms Use of less-structured assessment methods Examination of internal and external barriers

Ethnic and Cultural Differences in Career Assessment Cultural validity vs. Cultural specificity Appropriate use of interest inventories Culturally appropriate model of career assessment

A Culturally Appropriate Model of Career Assessment (Flores, Spanerman, & Obasi, 2003) Culturally encompassing information gathering Culturally appropriate selection of instruments Culturally appropriate administration Culturally appropriate interpretation of assessment data