Unit 6: Assessment, Testing, And The Diagnostic Process Flashcards
A multifaceted process that involves a variety of functions, such as testing and evaluation, that counsellors go through in an effort to determine and individuals characteristics, aptitudes, achievements, and personal qualities. Can be viewed as an integrative process that combines a variety of information into a meaningful pattern reflecting relevant aspects of an individual
Assessment
What are some of the important steps that a counsellor seeks to accomplish in the initial assessment process?
- Familiarizing yourself with the clients world and characteristic functioning
- Learning about past events and developmental issues that have been significant
- Studying family history and the current living situation
- Assessing the clients strengths and weaknesses with regard to intellectual, academic, emotional, interpersonal, moral, and behavioural functioning
- Checking out risk factors related to substance abuse, suicide, or harm to others
- Identifying presenting problems
- Formulating a diagnostic impression
- Developing a treatment plan to reach mutually agreed-upon therapeutic goals
Assessment is a multifaceted process. Discuss how assessment must be an integrative process and why.
Assessment can be viewed as an integrative process that combines a variety of information into a meaningful pattern reflecting relevant aspects of an individual. It never depends on a single measure, nor does it emphasize one dimension at the expense of another. For an assessment profile to be meaningful and useful, it must provide a means for understanding the individual from as broad and integrative a perspective as possible
What are some of the practical concerns that need to be considered in this process of assessment?
We want the most accurate information as possible, but There is limited time and resources, we need a shortcut method. A shortcut method might be a standardized test
A measure of past academic performance
Standardized test score
Tests that have been designed to ensure uniformity of administration and scoring and for which norms are generally available
Standardized measures
These do not ensure uniformity of measurement and tend to be subjective, and take a more general and diverse approach to gathering information
Non-standardized measures
What were some of the historical events that brought assessment to the forefront and how have these events affected how assessment is conducted today?
The history of assessment is interwoven with a parallel evolution of the testing movement. For instance, in the 20th century James Cattell was one of the first experimental psychologists and coined the term mental test to describe his attempts to measure the intellectual ability of students building on the work of sir Francis Galton and his development of rating scales, questionnaires, and statistical methods. Researchers in Europe such as Kraeplin and Binet we’re also assessing the mentally ill, and Binet’s scales measured children’s mental abilities.
The development of group intelligence testing during World War I gave real impetus to psychological and educational testing as we know it today. The US Army Alpha and Beta were the first group intelligence tests used to screen out those who might be unfit to serve. The armies experience with group intelligence and personality testing provided the basis for a significant expansion of the assessment process in the 1920s 1940s where many other tests were developed to measure a wide range of characteristics, including intelligence, attitude, ability, attitude, personality, and interests.
The second major acceleration in the development and use of testing occurred in the ears around World War II for many of the same reasons mentioned earlier-to find more efficient ways to screen personnel and thereby make use of their talents in optimal ways
Refers to the consistency or accuracy of a test score
Reliability
Refers to the extent to which tests actually measure what they purport
Validity
A standardized test of intelligence that consists of several factors: abstract thinking, problem-solving, capacity to acquire knowledge, adjustment to new situations, and sustaining of abilities in order to achieve desired goals.
Most of these tests also include a set of tasks that require a client to demonstrate memory, pattern recognition, decision-making, verbal and analytic skills, general knowledge, and the ability to manipulate the environment
Tests of ability
Two of the most popular intelligence tests are the Stanford-Binet and the Wechsler scales which both attempt to measure IQ as a general underlying composite of intelligence
These standardized test are concerned primarily with prediction of a person’s performance in the future
Aptitude tests
Example: the scholastic aptitude test or SAT, the American college test or a CT, the law school admission test or LSAT
A standardized test, often called proficiency tests, used to measure learning, acquired capabilities, or develop skills
Achievement tests
Widely used and can be adapted to almost any type of task from measuring course content to administering the road test for a drivers license. Results can be used as diagnostic tools, as demonstrators of accountability, and, because past performance is the best measure of future performance, as predictors
Tests designed to measure an individual’s day-to-day behaviour or performance that are interested not in what a person can do but in what a person does.
Typical performance tests
What are two common categories of typical performance testing?
Personality inventories and interest inventories
