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The key takeaways are that assessments are tools used to collect data about clients in career counseling and planning. They are based on the trait-and-factor approach introduced by Frank Parsons.
Some guidelines for using assessments in career counseling include that test data should be used less for prediction and more for identifying new options, the client should be involved in deciding whether and how to use assessments, and assessments must be selected carefully considering changing demographics.
Some purposes of using assessments include helping counselors learn more about clients' needs, characteristics, interests, and measuring individual or group progress in career planning.
Education, Inc. All Rights Reserved Assessment and the Career Planning Process • Step 3 - Score report from inventories given in Step 2 will suggest occupations.
Education, Inc. All Rights Reserved Characteristics of Formal Assessment • May be timed, standardized tests or non-timed, standardized inventories. • Standardized way to administer and interpret the instrument • Known validity (instrument measures what it claims to measure) • Known reliability (results of a later administration will be highly similar to those of first administration) • Test-retest reliability (defined as the correlation between two measurements obtained in the same manner)
Education, Inc. All Rights Reserved Characteristics of Formal Assessment
• Fairness related to diversity
(instrument adequately researched with kinds of individuals who will later take the instrument) • Measures of comparison (compares the scores of one individual with those of others)
Education, Inc. All Rights Reserved Career Genogram • The Career Genogram is a qualitative assessment procedure that can be used to gather information about adult clients’ histories, backgrounds, and life experiences. It is based in the basic genogram adapted from Bowen’s family therapy (Bowen, 1980) but emphasizes on the career elements of the family. • The Career Genogram, focuses on adult clients’ socialization allowing them to tell about the factors that may have shaped their identities such as growing up male or female, their race/ethnicity/culture, their socio-economic status, and their sexual orientation and the impact of family on their career choice. • A genogram oriented toward, but not limited to, career patterns is an assessment process that would be most useful to the counsellor and would help clients to begin to understand their reactions and the choices they are accepting or rejecting. (Alderfer, 2004, p. 574).
Education, Inc. All Rights Reserved • The administration of Career Genogram involves the following steps: • • Step One : Sharing the Purpose of Career Genogram • The first step in the administration of Career Genograms is to share with adult clients the purpose of Career Genograms. This can be done by explaining that it will provide them with insights into such issues as the career work, gender, and cultural socialization they experienced while growing up, environmental barriers if any, and how they have integrated and dealt with various life roles. • • Step 2: Explaining the Construction of Career Genogram • The counsellor explains to the adult clients on how to draw a diagram of three generations of their families (see Fig. 10.2). Clients are instructed to use relevant symbols and fill in the necessary details including dates of birth and death as well as the title of occupations of various family members.
Education, Inc. All Rights Reserved • Step 3: Analyse and Understand the Career Genogram
• Once Career Genograms have
been constructed and information (birth dates, deaths, divorces, occupations, and the like) about family members (brothers and sisters, parents and grandparents) has been noted, the next step is to use the structures to explore with the adult clients what growing up was like for them in their origin family. (Gysbers, Heppner and Johnston, 2003). • Counselor will analyse the information shared by the client to form relevant themes to initiate further understanding of the clients’ situation •
Education, Inc. All Rights Reserved • Counselor is also recommended to closely observe the phase of how adult clients construct their Career Genograms and amount of information the client is able to provide regarding their family. • From the discussion and self-disclosure of the client, counsellor will be able to understand the relevance of client’s family towards the career choice and development of client • Although Career Genogram is an interesting and personal way to explore client’s self-understanding on the influence of family in his career, it is also necessary to remember that some clients may not be comfortable in constructing and discussing the Genogram. • Career genogram deals with family information which may be regarded as confidential by the client, and request to disclose such information is viewed as invasion of privacy. • Time factor is also a limitation in constructing Career Genogram, where some clients may prefer the process of career counselling to be quick and brief. • Therefore, counsellors need to appropriately determine the suitability of using this qualitative methods with different clients to reap the maximum benefit from the process.
Education, Inc. All Rights Reserved Card Sort • Card sort is a semi structured method of helping client to prioritize the interest, skills, needs, values or any predetermined array of ideas. Card sort is a subjective but more structured way compared to the genogram • The counseling process involves clients sorting the cards with occupational titles on it according to certain themes, ideas, values or feelings. • Card sort do not produce any scores but depends mostly on the communication with and interpretation made by the counselor.
Education, Inc. All Rights Reserved • Missouri Occupational Card Sort (MOCS) : Consists of 90 cards with occupational titles which normally takes 30 minutes to sort out. The front of the card consists of the occupational title, while the back of the card consists of Holland three letter code, Dictionary of Occupational Title’s reference number and the main activities and responsibilities of the occupation. The process of MOCS involves client sorting the cards into three main piles; Like, Dislike & Neutral/Undecided. Counselor will then choose each pile of cards starting with the Dislike pile and discuss why the client have chosen the occupational titles to be under each pile. Each pile may be further shorted until certain theme emerge and increase clients’ understanding of their choice. • For futher explanation on MOCS, please refer to Gysbers, Heppner and Johnston (2003), pp216-235
• Card sort helps to build rapport between counselor and client earlier than any other assessment method. Quantitative assessment using paper and pencil method and online assessment method may not contribute to the bonding process. Card sort enables the counselor to be engage in the process and be more familiar with client needs, motivations, preferred was and others.
• Benefit 3 : Authenticate choices
• In the process of sorting cards, counselor encourages client to express opinions and reasons for piling cards and receive cues about strenghts and logic or client’s choices.Counselor will listen to client’s way of thinking whenever client dismiss any particular choice. This assist with the process of authenticating choices.
• Benefit 4: Promote feedback
• Feedback can be immediate and ongoing during the process of card sorting. Counselor continually incorporate new datas as it is obtain from the client and tested it against previously gained data.
Education, Inc. All Rights Reserved • Benefit 5: Provide understanding in communication • Direct communication confirms what is being said and heard. Through client’s verbalization, counselor will confirm what is happening in the client’s mind.
• Benefit 6: Minimize dependency
• Card sort method minimizes the risk of client’s dependency on the counselor. Counselor recognizes client’s most important perceptions through what is being told by the client rather than focusing on counselor’s own perceptions. • • Benefit 7: Promote inclusivity • Card sort provide a suitable alternative to help clients from different ethnicity, because interpretations are not dependent on standardized norms. Counselor learns to appreciate clients differences and uniqueness, perceptions and prior experiences rather that generalize the findings of the assessment process. The card sort assist enables both counselor and client to explore and learn anew. • • Benefit 8: Easily tailored to clients needs • Counselor can easily tailor the experience of the client during the card sorting process. A reluctant or sceptical client can be coach to explore more, while verbal client can be coached to be more focused. Client who prefer structure can be asked to make listings while client who can explore without structure can be encourage to talk more.
Education, Inc. All Rights Reserved No-Fee Assessment Websites • University of Waterloo Career Services - www.cdm.uwaterloo.ca/steps.asp • CareerKey - www.ncsu.edu/careerkey • University of Missouri Career Center - http://career.missouri.edu (Select Career Interests Game) • Motivational Assessment of Personal Potential - www.assessment.com