Blog 7: Communicating Test Results

Tinsley and Bradley (1986) state that two principles make up the foundation upon which good test interpretation is built: 1) test interpretation as a part of the ongoing counseling process, and 2) tests are instruments which provide information about a client in an efficient manner.  These principles make a lot more sense to me as I sit here and reflect on my very recent experience with administering and interpreting assessments.  I felt a bit unsettled as I left the high school where I delivered my interpretation of my client’s assessment results today.  I believe that I felt this way because I recommended that my client seek a Solution-Focused counselor to help her work through a couple of personal issues that surfaced in the Baron EQ assessment.  As someone who practices Solution-Focused counseling, it felt strange to just deliver this recommendation and then walk out the door, especially since this client expressed interest in finding a counselor.  I wished that I would have just made her my client for Theory and Practice II.  Since we had already identified areas that she struggles with and wants to change, we would have already had a great foundation to begin our first session.  I could also see how using these assessments or others like them might have been helpful in my counseling sessions with my first client in Theory and Practice II, who I had to stop seeing because she could not come up with anything that she wanted to change about herself.  I wonder if things might have worked out differently if I had been able to present her with data about how she functions.  Would she have been surprised?  If so, would she have been propelled to make changes that she might not have been willing to make before seeing the assessment report(s)?  I guess I will never know.

Overall, I found the Tinsley & Bradley article (as well as the Drummond & Jones text) to be very easy to understand and full of practical advice surrounding the issue of test interpretation.  I felt much more competent and prepared going into my interpretation session after reading it, and I also felt that I was able to integrate the concepts that Tinsley & Bradley advocate.  For instance, I began the session with the more concrete information (KBIT2 scores) and then moved toward more abstract information (BarOn EQ scores).  Before delivering the scores and my interpretation of them, I spent a little bit of time building rapport with my client and asking her what she remembered about the assessments that she took and what she thought about them.  Another thing that I incorporated into my interpretation session after reading both texts was to refer to the Verbal portion of the KBIT2 as a learned abilities test rather than an intelligence test.  Finally, the Drummond & Jones (2010) text was incredibly helpful to me as I created my assessment report in preparation for my interpretation meeting.  The reading for this week really helped me to experience first-hand the assistance that assessments can bring into counseling sessions.

References

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

Tinsley, H.E.A. & Bradley, R.W. (1986). Testing the test: Test interpretation. Journal of Counseling and Development, 64, 462-466.