Inspiring Practitioners to Appropriately Use Career Assessments

Round Table Presentation at NCDA 2009-St. Louis, MO

Lindsay Andrews, Mary Buzzetta, & Emily Bullock

General Considerations:

  • Knowledge for Using Psychological Assessment (Whiston & Bouwkamp, 2003)
  • Selecting a Career Assessment(Schwiebert, 2009)
  • Interpreting a Career Assessment (Drummond & Jones, 2006)
  • Self-Help Career Assessments (Gati, 1996; Prince, Most, & Silver, 2003)
  • Internet-based Assessments (Osborn & Zunker, 2006; Sampson, Purgar, & Shy, 2003)

Specific Populations and Instruments:

  • Ethnic Minorities (e.g., Osborn & Zunker, 2006; Ponterotto, Casas, Suzuki, & Alexander, 2001; Zunker, 2008)
  • Female Clients
  • SDS, SII, and Kuder Occupational Interest Survey continue to yield different results for women
  • Counselors should evaluate suggested options with respect to opportunity and socialization
  • Challenge statements made by female clients such as “I’m not good at math” (Osborn & Zunker, 2006)
  • Sexual Minorities
  • Review inventory to make sure that there is no evidence of heterosexist bias (Osborn & Zunker, 2006)
  • Consider utilizing non-traditional assessment methods such as card sorts (Chung, 2003)
  • Individuals with Disabilities
  • Three factors to consider in career counseling:
  • Limitations in early career exploratory counseling
  • Limited opportunities to develop decision-making abilities
  • A negative self-concept resulting from societal attitudes toward persons with disabilities (Beveridge, Heller Craddock, Liesener, Stapleton, & Hershenson, 2002)
  • Strong Interest Inventory (SII; Harmon, Hansen, Borgen, & Hammer, 1994)
  • Supported use across U.S. ethnic groups (Subich, 2005), mixed support internationally (Bullock, Andrews, Braud, & Reardon, in press)
  • Attemted to reduce sex bias; however, sex differences still exist (Whiston & Bouwkamp, 2003)
  • Self-Directed Search (SDS; Holland, Fritzsche, & Powell, 1994)
  • Mixed support internationally (Bullock, Andrews, Braud, & Reardon, in press)
  • Gender differences are greater than racial and ethnic group differences (Subich, 2005)
  • Values Scale (VS; Super & Nevill, 1985)
  • Research, although limited, has demonstrated the VS to be sensitive to cultural influences (Subich, 2005)
  • Career Self-Efficacy
  • Research with diverse ethnic and racial groups support reliability with CDSE (Taylor & Betz, 1983) and SCI (Betz, Borgen, & Harmon, 1996) (Subich, 2005)
  • Career Decision Status
  • Mixed support for use with diverse racial and ethnic groups, CDS (Osipow, Carney, Tiner, Yanco, & Koschier, 1987) and CDI (Super, Thompson, Lindeman, Jordan, & Myers, 1981) better supported than CMI (Crites & Savickas, 1996) (Subich, 2005)

Integrating Career Counseling into General Mental Health Counseling

  • Stress experienced in the work place
  • Significance of addressing multiple life roles
  • Depression and its impact on career development
  • Personality development and disorders and their effect on career (Zunker, 2008)

Further Information Available at:

Contact Information:

  • Lindsay Andrews –
  • Mary Buzzetta –
  • Emily Bullock, Ph.D. –

References

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