1. Assessment in Career Counseling
PSY 504: Psychological Measurement

2. 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

3. Assessing Individual Differences
Interests
Abilities/skills
Values

4. Interests
Often used in career counseling because they can be helpful in describing individual’s general occupational interests
Counselors can also assess interests by using measures of expressed and manifest interests
Expressed interests – asking clients about their interests, which can be a useful indicator of vocational interests
Manifest interests – interests identified by examining how clients choose to spend their time and the activities they select
Interest inventories have been found to promote career exploration and connect the client’s interests to specific occupations
Strong interests do not guarantee occupational success; these instruments do not provide an indication of ability
Interests can be good predictors of career direction

5. Interests
Interest inventories have been found to promote career exploration and connect the client’s interests to specific occupations
Some common interest inventories:
Strong Interest Inventory
Career Assessment Inventory
Self-Directed Search
Kuder instruments
Kuder Occupational Interest Survey
Kuder General Interest Survey

6. Interests Strong Interest Inventory
One of the most widely used, researched, and respected instruments; not only in career counseling, but also counseling in general
Designed to assist counselors in facilitating the identification of interest patterns and examining where the client has interests similar to those working in various occupations
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

7. Abilities/Skills
Assessment of abilities and skills are often conducted to identify occupational possibilities in which the client could be successful
Aptitude tests are often used in career counseling because they are good predictors of occupational success
Important for counselors to verify aptitude assessment results with other information (e.g., interest inventory)
Some common abilities/skills inventories:
Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery
Campbell Interest and Skills Survey
Skills Confidence Inventory
Perception of one’s capabilities in performing the necessary activities – i.e., self-efficacy

8. Values
Work values are more highly correlated than interest with work satisfaction
No inventory is inclusive of all possible values
Clients may value something that is not assessed on the instrument being used
Counselors need to supplement the use of a values inventory with an exploration of other possible values
Some common values inventories:
Minnesota Importance Questionnaire
Values Scale
Measures both work-related values and general values
Salience Inventory
Focuses on roles valued by individuals

9. Career Choice Process Career Decision-Making Career Maturity
Other Career Choice Process Measures

10. Career Decision-Making
There is a difference between experiencing normal developmental undecidedness and indecisiveness
Undecided means the client has not yet made a career decision
Indecisiveness indicates chronic problems with indecision
Some common career decision-making inventories:
Career Decision-Making Self-Efficacy Scale
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

11. Career Maturity
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)
Measures the client’s level of readiness for mastering career development tasks (i.e., identify limitations or deficiencies)
Can also be used as an evaluation to determine if career counseling has increased the client’s career maturity
Some common career maturity inventories:
Adult Career Concerns Inventory
Career Maturity Inventory

12. Qualitative Career Assessment
According to Goldman (1990):
Qualitative assessment is not standardized tests that usually yield quantitative scores and norm-based interpretation
Tends to foster a more active role for the client rather than a more passive interpretation of the results provided
Emphasizes a holistic study of the individual compared with relying on more discrete measure of human constructs such as interest, abilities, and personalities
Also important to assess and examine the relational influence in career assessment because work and important relationships (e.g., relationships with family members) are complexly interwoven constructs, and sometimes relational influences are ignored

13. Issues and Trends in Career Assessment
Gender and Career Assessment
Ethnic and Cultural Differences in Career Assessment

14. Gender and Career Assessment
Interest inventories typically use questions that are reflective of differential experiences
It is suggested that same-sex norms should be used rather than combined norms
Would increase the likelihood of nontraditional interests being identified
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 emphasizes that low interest scores may be a reflection of an individual’s restricted learning experiences and opportunities and that new interests can develop if individuals are exposed to new experiences

15. Gender and Career Assessment
Important to examine both internal and external barriers
External barriers – gender-role stereotypes, obstacles in educational systems, lack of role models, and the “null environment”
Null environment – women in higher education are often neither supported nor encouraged; thus, women are in an environment that is void of assistance
Internal barriers – low self-efficacy, performance anxiety, and lower aspirations and expectancies (often due to the socialization process)

16. Ethnic and Cultural Differences in Career Assessment
Cultural validity vs. cultural specificity
Cultural validity – addresses the concept of whether instruments that have been developed primarily from a Eurocentric perspective can be used with clients from other cultural backgrounds
Cultural specificity – concerns the extent to which variables, such as worldview, cultural identity, communication style, and decision-making preferences, are addressed in the assessment process
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