Career Guidance Tools for Practical Applications I Introduction This module examines and details the tools currently available for aiding the career development of all students as they relate to the 16 career clusters designated by the US Department of Education. We highlight tools that can be employed for assessing interests, personality, career development issues, work values, and aptitudes and demonstrate techniques for assessing students with special needs. The module also proposes strategies for collecting career related data through the curriculum already in place. Employability Skills and Access to Assessment Alvin Pollard: Here s a question that we hear all of the time: What is it that the employers are really looking for in the employees they are about to employ? Mostly what we hear from employers is that they are interested in them having basic skills that they show up for work and on time, that they have good communication skills and math skills, that they can work in teams, [and] they can get along with others very, very well. Janet Peterson: Our job is to teach the work ethics, leadership skills, expectations for attendance and punctuality, customer service, attitude, and professional dress. Employers stress that our job is to teach those kinds of content areas. Alvin Pollard: Whether they are referred to as being SCANs, or the basic skills, or the fundamentals these again are the things that the employers are looking for. Additional Reading: http://www.aces.edu/crd/workforce/publications/employability skills.pdf Why Career Assessment? Dr. Lakshmi Mahadevan: This module, which is meant to give you information regarding career guidance and tools for practical applications, is based on research based practices. For example, the National Collaborative on Workforce and Disability for Youth, which published its report in 2005, has emphasized that we ensure that there are guideposts in place so all our youth have access to multiple assessment batteries. The standardized assessment tools as they exist today, such as the TAKs, measure necessary academic skills, but they do not necessarily look at things like interest, personality traits, aptitudes, or any of the SCANs skills that we talked about earlier. What we need for these are comprehensive career assessment packages. In this module, we will provide you with very practical ways of ensuring that you do measure these employability skills for all of your students, including your students with special needs. The specific employability skills that we will talk about in the module are things like interests for example, what are your students preferences? Do they prefer one task over another, or does she prefer one job over another?
Secondly, what types of aptitudes are in place? Does the student have a true potential for success, either in training or in employment? Thirdly, we will look at things like work values. For example, does your student value creativity, recognition, working under deadlines, etc., or would they prefer to work at their own pace? Would they prefer to follow directions or just prefer not to have recognition and awards, and just have a job? Fourthly, we will talk to you about career development issues such as beliefs and rationalizations that come into play in ensuring your student s success beliefs such as: I don t need a job; I can just find one if I decide to. This belief could impede your student s progress, so we will help you measure these and ensure your student is ready for employment. We also want to make sure that we don t add to your burden, so we will give you different approaches that will be simple [and] can be initialized in your classrooms as they exist today. We want to make sure that you track your students from the eighth grade on all the way through 12th grade so that eventually, they are matched to their most suitable post secondary options once they graduate. Key Aspects of Successful Assessment Two key concepts that we want you to keep in mind when ensuring the success of your students career plan is the appropriateness and the comprehensiveness of the assessment package that you use with your students. What do we mean by comprehensiveness? Research has shown that in order to ensure the success of any career assessment package, we measure the different aspects that come into play when it comes to career success. For example, interests of your student, their personality traits, their value systems, and their different aptitudes, as well as different career development issues. In addition, we want to look at the appropriateness of the assessment package. How can you determine appropriateness? You can look at the technical manual that often accompanies any assessment tool. The technical manual any good technical manual should have three key aspects highlighted. The first aspect is the norming procedure. A norming procedure essentially means that they took the test and administered it to several different students so you will have comparable scores. For example, if you are assessing your students on the Differential Aptitude Test and you administer it to, say, grade eight students, males and females, you would ensure that you look at this test booklet, which accompanies your regular assessment tool, and you look for an appropriate table. You look for the grade eight; below that, you look for scores pertaining to males and females, and then the specific raw score that was generated from your assessment booklet. You will compare to find their percentile rank, their stanine, and their scale score. This ensures that the procedure is appropriate and fair for all students. In addition, you can also look at the scoring procedures. You determine whether it is a grade equivalent score that is, you get a student and you determine what grade level they should be performing at, or you get an IQ score, or you get a raw score that can then be determined as average, above average, or below average. But all of these scores need to be appropriate by making sure that you
compare that student to the appropriate norms. So, an African American male of 16 years of age should be compared to other African American males of 16 years of age. That way, we make sure that the process is fair and appropriate for your students. Norming and Scoring Procedures Sometimes you will find that the norming procedures mentioned in the administrator s booklets are not applicable to all the students currently enrolled in your classroom. For example, typically we do not have norming done on students with special needs. So, how do you ensure that you have the appropriate tools for all of your students? One way is to administer the tool to your current group of students and create what we call local norms. Essentially, you are comparing the one student to the rest of his class, who are probably similar to him in age, ethnicity, and other pertinent information. CTSP Center Resource: http://ctsp.tamu.edu/checkout/checkout_details.php?inventory=105 Commercially Available Tools There are different sources of information available to you today so you can select a comprehensive and appropriate package for your students with and without disabilities. Books The textbook, Psychological Testing by Anastasi and Urbina, the seventh edition, goes into great detail about norming procedures, reliability and validity, and all of the issues that are essential to ensure appropriateness. Using Assessment Results for Career Development. This book addresses what is available today when it comes to career assessment and how you can administer, interpret, and score these assessment tools appropriately for your students. The Counselor s Guide to Career Assessment Instruments goes into great detail and presents reviews of different career assessment instruments that exist today. Comprehensive Career Assessment Tool The Planning Career Goals packet is an example of a comprehensive assessment tool. It includes three measures. o The first measure is the ability measure. This measure examines the student s skill levels and the potential they have for success in training or employment in a certain career area. o The second tool is information measures. It measures how much your student already knows when it comes to career planning and what else he or she needs to know so they can move on and become a success. o The third aspect is the interest inventory, which is very important for any career assessment packet. The interest inventory looks at vocational preferences and makes sure you place your student or give to them those opportunities in which they are most interested.
Finally, every good comprehensive packet should include an examiner s manual or administrator s instruction manual and a counselor s manual. The examiner s manual makes sure you administer the assessment tool in an appropriate manner standardized and fair for all students. The counselor s manual ensures that you interpret the scores in an accurate manner. Examples of Interest Inventories: The COIN Package o appropriate for all grade levels o available in English and Spanish The Self Directed Search o enables fitting your student s personality to a specific environment to ensure career success The Strong Interest Inventory compares your student to occupations and then decides what occupation best suits your student. Examples of Aptitude Measures: Differential Aptitudes Test Battery Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery Examples of skill sets measured by these tests include: o numerical reasoning o spatial reasoning o abstract reasoning o verbal reasoning Examples of Personality Inventories: 16 PF Myers Briggs Type Indicator Examples of Values Scales: Minnesota Importance Questionnaire Values Scale Examples of Career Issues Assessment Tools: Career Beliefs Inventory Career Decision Scale Career Attitudes and Strategies Inventory Career Factors Inventory Creating a Card Sort
A vocational card sort is a tool that utilizes cards with occupations or work values listed to determine career interests. Card sort task options include: Option One o Utilize a commercially available card sort. o Students pick whether they like, are neutral towards, or dislike the labeled occupation. o Students rank order the careers they put under like. Option Two o Use a commercially available card sort. o Force choice them to pick five out of all the cards. Option Three o Build your own card sort using Microsoft Word software. o Remember to use an increased font size for the visually impaired. Option Four o Utilize pictures instead of words to depict occupations and work values. Option Five o Use a word to depict an occupation, and include outlook information regarding that occupation on the back of that card. o A reference website is provided in the toolbox with information that can be customized to Texas Internet Resources Career Assessment Internet Resources: CPP, Inc. Psychological Assessment Resources Pearson Assessment Test Locators Available through University Websites or Public Library Systems: Burrows Silver Platter Interest Inventories Available online: Strong Interest Inventory Kuder Career Planning System Self Directed Search Personality Inventories Available online: Myers Briggs Type Indicator Keirsey Temperament Sorter Aptitude Inventories Available online:
Differential Aptitude Test Battery Arms Services Vocational Aptitude Battery Comprehensive, computer guided systems are available online. Components of the systems include: interest inventory work value scale aptitude inventory extensive student profile generated based on occupational and educational choices examples include: SIGI 3 Discover Choices CTSP Center Resource: http://ctsp.tamu.edu/checkout/checkout_details.php?inventory=2178