19.4 – Report Assessment Results

Purpose & Context

Career Development Professionals (CDPs) assess clients to inform interventions, following professional and ethical standards regarding the use of assessment and evaluation results. CDPs are accountable for how the results will be used and the protection of client rights. Test results are communicated in a format that ensures client understanding of the meaning and interpretation of results, and how they can support career decisions. CDPs advise clients on the benefits and limitations of test results. Results are released only with the consent of the client or the client’s legal representative, to persons qualified to interpret the data.

Effective Performance

Competent career development professionals must be able to:

P1. Explain results:
- Use format relevant to context of assessment and client level of understanding
- Summarize results
- Describe norms, raw scores or derived score scales clearly, as applicable
- Explain how to use results to inform decisions, e.g. career decision, developmental needs
P2. Advise client on benefits and limitations of test results and interpretations:
- Benefits: provide insight on career interests which can better inform career decisions
- Limitations: results are based on self-reporting and may be limited by familiarity with career opportunities
P3. Apply results to career development intervention:
- Develop exploration strategies based on career interests identified in assessment
- Identify educational programs related to careers of choice

Knowledge & Understanding

Competent career development professionals must know and understand:

K1. Testing principles and ethical use of tests
K2. Psychometrics and measurement, e.g. classical test theory
K3. Descriptive statistics, e.g. frequency distributions, measures of central tendency, measures of variation, indices
of relationships
K4. Scales, scores, and transformations, e.g. types of scales, types of scores, scale score equating
K5. Reliability and measurement error
K6. Validity and meaning of test scores

Contextual Variables

Competent career development professionals must be able to perform this competency in the following range of contexts:

None

Glossary & Key References

Terms

Industry-specific terms contained in the standard defined here, where applicable.

None

Information Sources and Resources for Consideration

Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing. American Educational Research Association (AERA), American Psychological Association (APA), and the National Council on Measurement in Education (NCME), 2014.

Test in Print IX. Buros Centre for Testing. Nancy Anderson, Jennifer E. Schuleter, Janet F. Carlson, and Kurt F. Geisinger, 2016.

Context Rating Scales

Criticality

Q: What is the consequence of a professional being unable to perform this skill according to the standard?

Moderate risk: CRITICAL

Frequency

Q: How frequent and under what conditions is this skill performed?

Routinely, regular course of procedure

Level of Difficulty

Q: Under routine circumstances, how would you rate the level of difficulty in performing this skill?

Moderate difficulty or complexity

Time Required to Gain Proficiency

Q: What is the average length of time or number of repeated events that are minimally necessary for an individual to become proficient in performing the skill to the standard?

A career development professional requires a minimum experience of reporting assessment results to at least 40 clients with varying assessment needs.

Autonomy

Practitioners typically perform this competency without supervision, and alone.

Automation

It is somewhat likely that this competency will automate.

Requisite Work Aids, Tools, Equipment or Materials

None