Week 6: Selecting, Administering, Scoring and Interpreting Assessment Results

Finally, moving away from the more technical aspects of the foundational elements of understanding appraisal, the course is now focusing on the assessments themselves. Before counselors administer assessments, appraisals, or inventories, they need to be fully aware of the specific areas and issues related to selection, administration, scoring, and communicating results. When problems arise in the area of testing, the culprit is often based in the clinician’s confusion or misjudgment in one or more of the above areas.

While it is tempting to see appraisal as a separate function of counseling, remember that assessment and appraisal are continual processes in the ongoing assessment of a counselee. Throughout the client/counselor relationship, the counselor will continue to monitor and assess the progress and content of the counseling sessions.

Last, keep in mind that if a counselor selects a faulty assessment tool, or mishandles an assessment, it can result in dire effects on a counselee. It becomes difficult to develop assessment strategies and do proper case management when the counselor has a heavy case load. Sometimes counselors just get too comfortable with the assessments that they know, and don’t keep abreast of the newer and often better assessments. This is a responsibility of the counselor, and will be a focus of this chapter. Remember – even though the test developers are responsible for the validity and reliability of the assessments you are using, you, as the end user are responsible for how and when and to whom they are applied. Know your competencies and your limitations before administering any test.
 

Session Objectives

By the end of this week, you will:

• Identify and describe the steps involved in selecting assessment instruments and strategies
• List and describe the various resources that provide information about assessment instruments
• Describe the process of evaluating assessment instruments or strategies
• Describe the various procedures for administering assessment instruments
• Describe the methods for scoring instruments, and discuss their strengths and limitations
• Describe the counselor’s responsibilities in interpreting assessment results
• Explain the importance of professional training and competence in asessment, and summarize the guidelines for the competencies of test users
• Summary the professional standards for test-user qualifications
• Discuss the issue of client welfare in assessment