Chapter 12: Assessment and Career Development in The Schools: Constructs, Design, and Data Analysis

This chapter introduces educators to strategies and tools to assist in outcome based assessment of career development. The authors discuss key constructs in career development and how to articulate an evaluation question utilizing such constructs as measurable outcomes. Utilizing school based examples of outcome based assessment of career development interventions; the authors illustrate steps in design and data analysis. The chapter focuses on career assessment instruments and data analysis tools that can be used by the practicing educator.

“If this vital period is allowed to pass without the broad development and special training that belong to it, no amount of education in after years can ever redeem the loss” (Parsons, 1909, p. 165). Anyone who has worked in a school in the past decade is aware of the increased accountability and emphasis on assessment in schools. While career counseling has long been an integral part of socio-political reform (Herr, 2003), it is absent from specific mention in recent educational reform literature. Despite the lack of a specific call for increased outcome based assessment of career development interventions in schools, efforts at assessing career development efforts in schools are important. Not because such assessment supports any given educational initiative, but because it is the right thing to do for students. Moreover, career development programs can embody advocacy/social justice in providing equal access to quality tools for students to use in recognizing and realizing career opportunities (Sampson, 2010; Sampson, McClain, Musch, & Reardon, 2011) just as outcome based assessment can be a tool to further such social justice/advocacy work (Wood & D’Agostino, 2010).