Learning about career assessments

Ethical guidelines for responsibly approaching testing are outlined by several professional associations. In the US there are many organisations with strict codes around assessment, including the American Counseling Association the Association for Assessment and Research counseling, the National Career Development Association, the Alliance of Career Resource Professionals, National Board of Certified Counselors, and others. In New Zealand we must consider the CDANZ Code of Ethics (2016).

In order to ensure that we take an ethical approach to testing, and thinking about if we should use assessments, and - if so - what assessment we should use, Osborn and Zunker have a 9 step approach (2016, p. 3) which will help familiarise us with the assessment we are proposing that our client takes:

1. Take the instrument yourself. Have a trained professional review your results.
2. Thoroughly read the professional manual.
3. Administer the instrument to a friend or colleague. Practice explaining the purpose of the instrument.
4. Look for any flaws in how the instrument is administered.
5. Learn to interpret the instrument by going over the results of a friend or colleague with them.
6. Practice going over the interpretive report and seek additional information to make scores more meaningful. Consider whether it would be helpful to create a summary page, or to highlight certain terms.
7. Search educational journals or even the developer's website for empirical research using that inventory.
8. Join relevant social media boards of practitioners using career assessments, or follow the publishers' social media sites to keep abreast of updates.
9. Attend training at professional conferences or webinars on the career assessments that you use often.

It is surprising how often we may all have given a test without actually having thought through or taken action on all nine of these approaches.

A very useful list.


Sam

References:

• CDANZ (2016). Code of Ethics. http://www.cdanz.org.nz/uploads/CDANZ_CoE_Word%20English%20Final.pdf
  
• Osborn, D. S., & Zunker, V. G. (2016). Using Assessment Results for Career Development (9th ed.). Cengage Learning.