PSY 504 – Dr. V
1
PSY 504 – Lecture Notes
Assessment in Career Counseling
Career Assessment
 Origins of assessment in career counseling can be traced back to __________________
 “______________________” approach ______ reflective of current status of career assessment
 Purpose is to gather information to facilitate __________________________________________
Assessing Individual Differences
 Interests
o
Often used in career counseling because they can be helpful in describing individual’s
general occupational interests
o
Counselors can also assess interests by using measures of expressed and manifest interests

Expressed interests – _______________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________

Manifest interests – ________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________
o
Interest inventories have been found to promote career exploration and connect the
client’s interests to specific occupations
o
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
o
________________________________________________________________________
o
Interest inventories have been found to promote career exploration and connect the
client’s interests to specific occupations
o
Some common interest inventories:

_______________________________________

Career Assessment Inventory

Self-Directed Search
PSY 504 – Dr. V

o
Kuder instruments

Kuder Occupational Interest Survey

Kuder General Interest Survey

O*NET Interest Profiler

Card sort techniques (not an inventory)
Strong Interest Inventory

One of the most widely used, researched, and respected instruments; not only
in career counseling, but also counseling in general

_________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________


Compares individuals’ responses to items with the response patterns of
people in different occupations

Appropriate for high school students, college students, and adults
There are six sections that address preferences in occupations, subject areas,
activities, leisure activities, people, and their characteristics
 Abilities/Skills
 ___________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
 Aptitude tests are often used in career counseling because they are ____________________
___________________________________________________________________________
 Important for counselors to verify aptitude assessment results with other information (e.g.,
interest inventory)
 Some common abilities/skills inventories:
o
Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery; O*NET Ability Profiler
o
Campbell Interest and Skills Survey
2
PSY 504 – Dr. V
o
Skills Confidence Inventory

o
Perception of one’s capabilities in performing the necessary activities – i.e.,
self-efficacy
Self-estimates of Abilities (includes self-efficacy estimates)
 Values
o
________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________
o
________________________________________________________________________

Clients may value something that is not assessed on the instrument being used

___________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________
o
Some common values instruments:

Minnesota Importance Questionnaire

O*NET Work Importance Profiler

Values Scale


Measures both work-related values and general values
Salience Inventory

Focuses on roles valued by individuals
 Integrative Career Assessment Programs
o
________________________________________________________________________

Kuder Career Planning System

COPSystem

Integrated assessment and career information systems

These systems include multiple assessments as well as an integration of
occupational information
o
DISCOVER Program
o
SIGI-Plus
3
PSY 504 – Dr. V
 Integrating Assessment Information
o
________________________________________________________________________

Integrates the results from multiple career assessments:

Adult Career Concerns Inventory

Career Development Inventory

Strong Interest Inventory

Values Scale

Salience Inventory
o
Informal assessments/exercises
o
Portfolio assessment
Career Choice Process
 Career Decision-Making
o
o
There is a difference between experiencing normal developmental undecidedness and
indecisiveness

Undecided ________________________________________________________

Indecisiveness _____________________________________________________
Career Decision Scale

Provides a measure of career indecision, but it does not indicate the source or
the type of indecision
o
My Vocational Situation
o
Career Decision-Making Self-Efficacy Scale

o
Measures the confidence individuals have in their ability to make career decisions
Career Decision-Making Difficulties Questionnaire

Constructed to measure a theory-based taxonomy of decision-making difficulties
 Career Maturity
o
The “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).
4
PSY 504 – Dr. V

_________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________
o
Career Development Inventory
o
Adult Career Concerns Inventory
o
Career Maturity Inventory
 Other Career Choice Process Measures
o
Career Thoughts Inventory

o
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
 According to Goldman (1990):
o
Qualitative assessment is not standardized tests that usually yield quantitative scores
and norm-based interpretation
o
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
o
Emphasizes a holistic study of the individual compared with relying on more discrete
measure of human constructs such as interest, abilities, and personalities
 ______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
 Qualitative career assessment is not a set of specific assessment instruments or techniques
 Savickas (1993) recommends assisting clients in inventing a workable personal framework for
their lives that includes their work role
5
PSY 504 – Dr. V
o
Client and counselor can act as coauthors in:

Authoring a coherent, continuous, and credible career story

_________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________

Developing a narrative or plan to learn the skills needed to perform the next
episode in the story
Issues and Trends in Career Assessment
 Technology and Internet-Based Career Assessments
o
The Internet is not regulated

o
For many Internet users it can be difficult to ascertain whether the instrument is
sound and methodologically/psychometrically strong
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________

o
________________________________________________________________________

o
Misinformation has the potential to harm individuals
Some sites do this better than others
Technology-assisted career assessment systems have many advantages:

The systems can store large amounts of information that can be easily updated

Clients can retrieve information that corresponds to their individual needs

Clients can progress through the assessments and information at their own pace

Many of these systems guide clients through a systematic decision-making
process that can serve as a framework for future career decisions
 Gender and Career Assessment
o
Interest inventories typically use questions that are reflective of differential experiences

_________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________
6
PSY 504 – Dr. V
o
Use of less-structured assessment methods has been suggested as a supplement to
structured interest inventories

This would allow to more easily incorporate discussion of gender and cultural issues

Interpretation should be in line with the “opportunity dominance” rather than
“socialization dominance” approach

The opportunity dominance approach ____________________________
___________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________
o
Important to examine both internal and external barriers

External barriers – __________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________


__________________________ – women in higher education are often
neither supported nor encouraged; thus, women are in an environment
that is void of assistance
Internal barriers – __________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________
 Ethnic and Cultural Differences in Career Assessment
o
7
Cultural validity vs. cultural specificity

Cultural validity – __________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________

Cultural specificity – ________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________
PSY 504 – Dr. V
o
Interest inventories

o
Recent research has provided some support for traditional methods of assessing
career interests by indicating that individuals from diverse ethnic groups use the
same cognitive map or structure of preference when examining career interests
Culturally appropriate model of career assessment (Flores, Spanerman, and Obasi, 2003)

Culturally encompassing information gathering

Culturally appropriate selection of instruments

Culturally appropriate administration

Culturally appropriate interpretation of assessment data
8