Post 11 - Assessment and Accountability in School Counseling

I found both a challenge and encouragement as I read Producing Evidence to Show Counseling Effectiveness in the Schools (Studer, Oberman, & Womack, 2006) this week.  I was challenged to become an accountable counselor by documenting measures of professional activity outcomes.  Failing to provide this type of documentation can lead to dire outcomes, yet Studer, Oberman, and Womack (2006) assert that school counselors can be reluctant to engage in accountability procedures for many reasons.  Counselors may hesitate to engage in accountability procedures out of fear of being overburdened with extra work, fear that they do not have the necessary skills to conduct research, fear that accountability would negatively impact their performance, fear of litigation or the belief that students are not reliable sources for obtaining information, or due to lack of time, funds, or additional resources.  While Studer, Oberman, and Womack never use the word “fear” when listing the reasons why school counselors may shy away from accountability measures, I found fear to be an underlying theme in all of their rationale.  Perhaps fear stood out to me because I, like other counselors, am fearful that I might not be able to design an assessment instrument that would produce dependable results.  However, failing to produce any type of assessment instrument for programs that I might create or oversee would probably create larger issues.  If I’m not assessing students both during and after my program(s) I will not know how my program(s) could be improved to better meet students’ needs.  As I work on developing a program for my graduation project, I’m sure I will want to do some formative evaluation in order to figure out what I will need to tweak before potentially presenting my project at a job interview and/or implementing it in my school. 

I found the discussion on action-based research to be encouraging as I consider how to go about working on my graduation project.  The steps of identifying an area of concern, collecting data, analyzing the data, and developing a plan seem practical and somewhat familiar.  While I’m not a scientist by any means, the process of action-based research reminds me of the scientific method.  First, you make a hypothesis (identify an area of concern), then you test your hypothesis (collect data), you analyze your data, and finally decide what you need to do next (develop a plan).  Are your findings significant?  If so, how?  Is further testing needed to assess another variable?  These are all questions that one might also ask during the action-based research and evaluation process.  As I return once again to the topic of the large project looming ahead of me, I have a better picture of what steps I will take to develop a plan (program) that will actually benefit a specific population of students, and the task no longer seems quite so overwhelming and scary. 

Reference

Studer, J.R., Oberman, A.H., and Womack, R.H. (2006). Producing evidence to show counseling effectiveness in the schools.  Professional School Counseling, 9 (5).