Career Counseling
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Assessment and Testing
Types of Assessment
• Objective: This assessment is usually in test form (e.g. the
Scholastic Aptitude Test, interest inventories, personality tests
etc.) These tests or inventories are standardized.
• Qualitative: These are more subjective and are interpreted
ideographically rather than normatively. These include card
sorts, values clarification exercises, work samples and
observations etc.
• Clinical: The counselor synthesizes data from a variety of
sources and makes a diagnosis and/or prediction.
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Assessment and Testing
Criteria for Choosing Standardized Assessments
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Validity of the assessment
Reliability of the assessment
Cost
Time for administration
Client response to the particular instrument
Is the test gender or culturally biased?
Does the counselor need special training in order to score it?
Is it difficult to score?
What group was the test normed upon?
Is training needed to interpret the test?
Is the test useful to the client?
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Assessment and Testing
Interest Inventories
Objective
• Examples are the Strong Interest Inventory and the SelfDirected Search.
• These are generally easy to administer, score and interpret.
• These help clients understand their preferences and how these
might relate to possible career opportunities.
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Assessment and Testing
Personality Inventories
Objective
• Examples include the Myers-Briggs, 16PFQ, and the NEO
Personality Inventory.
• These usually measure some aspect of personality such as the
“big five” personality dimensions: Neuroticism, extroversion,
openness, conscientiousness, and agreeableness which is
measured with the NEO Personality Inventory.
• These are helpful because they help build a cognitive
framework for clients to view occupational choices.
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Assessment and Testing
Multiple Aptitude Test Batteries
Objective
• These are supposed to measure a person’s potential to acquire
a skill or learn specialized knowledge but often only measure
what has already been learned.
• Some examples of these are: Differential Aptitude Test (DAT),
the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB) and
the O*NET Ability Profiler.
• These are used to predict whether or not an individual will
succeed in a career field.
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Assessment and Testing
Career O- Gram
Qualitative
• A developmental, symbolic, representation of a client’s career
choices.
Example: Symbols are used to denote certain information. As
the client talks about his or her career history a record is made
to pictorialize the information.
might be a client’s initial career goal.
might be a client’s next career goal.
might represent a negative experience
Other information such as drug use, illness, marriage or a divorce
might also be recorded in this manner.
The goal is to increase understanding of the contextual factors
that led a client to make career choices.
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Assessment and Testing
Role Play
Qualitative
• The client acts out a situation to demonstrate what he or she
did, or what he or she would do, if given the chance in the
future.
• Can also be used to help the client determine strengths and
weaknesses in, for example, interviewing for a job.
• Role-reversal: The counselor plays the part of the client while
the client plays the part of the job interviewer.
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Assessment and Testing
Card Sorts
Qualitative
• Used to assess a multitude of variables such as interests, job
skills, lifestyle preferences and job preferences.
• Clients literally sort cards into piles that have information written
on them, categorizing them into stacks of: no importance, some
importance or great importance.
• Card sorts are dependent upon a client’s ability to verbalize
about the patterns they see in their world.
• Card sorts help clients organize and prioritize their interests,
skills, needs etc.
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Assessment and Testing
Genograms
Qualitative
• It looks similar to a “family tree,” and usually includes three
generations with information such as career choices, culture,
religious orientation etc.
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Paternal
Grandfather
The genogram is useful because it sheds light on many
aspects of a client's life that might affect his or her career
choices, successes, disappointments and expectations.
Cook
Maternal
Grandfather Farmer
Paternal
Grandmother
Maternal
Grandmother
Homemaker
Father
Homemaker
Mother
Machinist
Client
Secretary
Secretary
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Assessment and Testing
Test Interpretation
• The counselor should ascertain whether or not the test results
are valid. Was the test normed on a group that represents this
individual?
• The counselor should prepare the client for test interpretation.
• The counselor should explain the results to the client, describe
how the results relate to the client’s goals, discuss
measurement errors, and try to phrase “bad news” in a positive,
yet accurate, light.
• The counselor should follow up with the client to check client’s
understanding of the results.
• The counselor should explain how the test can aid the client in
making career decisions.
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Assessment and Testing
Integrating Test Data
• Each test should present information that will help the
counselor understand the client and help the client understand
himself or herself.
• It can be helpful to record all the scores from all the tests, using
the standardized test data. This enables the counselor to see
the relatedness of the various scores
• It is also helpful to use a “talk sheet” which is an interpretive
guide that contains written explanations of the test data.
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Career Counseling Presentation
Resources
Gysbers, N. C., Heppner, M. J. & Johnston, J. A. (2003). Career
counseling: Process, issues, and techniques, 2nd ed. Boston, MA.:
Allyn & Bacon.
Brown, D. (2003). Career information, career counseling, and career
development, 8th ed. Boston, MA.: Allyn & Bacon.
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