Week 11 Blog

 

Chapter 7 and the article by Studer, Oberman, and Womack have a lot of practical and sage advice along with many helpful charts and checklists. I can see myself referring back to these works in the future. I must admit that this area of assessing our school counseling programs makes me a bit nervous. The article really pointed out that school counselors are doing a disservice to their programs and the profession by not showing evidence of effectiveness. “Unfortunately, because school counselors did not heed the early warnings to actively demonstrate success, programs and personnel were eliminated.” (Studer, Oberman, & Womack, 2006). With cutbacks and consolidations, proving our services are invaluable is crucial.

I enjoyed reading the descriptions of the examples of action-based research that is described in Studer’s et al article. I can see where they could all play a place in conducting research. I got a laugh reading about the story of “Kagan the Dragon” and how after much time and money spent working in a Hispanic neighborhood using this tool, it was found that “Kagan” can translate into “pooper” in Spanish. I laughed but also realized how easy this could happen when creating an instrument and how important it is to keep the gender/cultural/ethnic group makeup in mind when designing your instrument and testing its reliability. (Studer et al. 2006).

Drummond’s textbook highlighted sources of assessment instrument information which I used to gather more information on the testing instrument I will be presenting to class soon. I found some great reviews of the instrument I chose and they raised questions and concerns I had not previously considered. I found the Mental Measurements Yearbook a very helpful reference source. (Drummond & Jones, 2010). I also found the rest of the chapter very helpful in preparing for, administering the assessment, and interpreting the assessments with my client. I feel it is important to keep these recommendations fresh in your mind as you work with clients and various assessment tools.

 

Drummond, R. J. and Jones, K. (2010). Assessment procedures for counselors and

            helping professionals. (7^th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.

Studer, J.R., Oberman, A.H., and Womack, R.H. (2006). Producing evidence to show

            counseling effectiveness in the schools. Professional School Counseling, 9(6).