Week 2

            I remember shadowing a counselor at a local high school and she was in charge of the PSSA testing in the school.  Her office was piled high with test booklets and she spoke of that responsibility with a modicum of disdain.  While counselors may get frustrated with sharpening hundreds of number two pencils and hold the conviction that such a task should not be the focus of their work.  While pencil sharpening may diverge from the ASCA model,  the Ekstrom (2004) article makes it clear that testing has been part and parcel of the counseling profession for many years.

            I found it very interesting to think about the respective backgrounds and training of others in the school environment in regards to interpretations of assessments.  Teachers certainly do many assessments, such as quizzes and tests on academic subjects, but I wonder whether they have not all received training in the many psychometric measures discussed in our textbook.  I think parents do look to counselors to help interpret testing data.  I remember getting results on the yearly STAR tests for my children, which is the California equivalent of the PSSA’s in Pennsylvania.  The counseling department always enclosed a letter with the results, offering to be of assistance for any parent who wanted help understanding the test results.

            Given common practice in many school districts and the guidelines of ASCA, it would seem wise for any counselor to be well versed in assessment interpretation.  Additionally, school counseling programs do well to provide training to support such competencies.  Again, in California, a college level statistics course was a requirement to enter the school counseling program.  After reading this week’s assignments, I am further convinced of that wisdom, if for no other reason than to assure a certain comfort level around assessment results and design.

References

Drummond, R. J. and Jones, K. (2010). Assessment procedures for counselors and helping professionals. (7^th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.

Ekstrom, R.B., Elmore, P.B.,  Schaefer, W.D., Trotter, T.V., & Webster, B. (2004). A survey of assessment and evaluation activities of school counselors. Professional School Counseling, 8 (1), 24-30.