Assessment in

counseling
Narayan Prasad Sharma
Suppose, a boy in your neighborhood has
facing a difficulty. Someone asked you
to help him. What will be the first task
for you?
 …………………….
To understand the problem, you may ask
the questions like……
 What is the problem?
 When did it start?
 Did it relate his past traumatic event?
 Did it relate to his school history?
 Had the family environment contributed that problem?
 What is the Intelligence level of the boy?
 Past sickness, if any ..
 ……………………
 ……………………..
The Methods Collecting Information

 ………………….
 …………………..
To assess the problem, you may …
 Conduct interview with boy, guardians, …
 Ask about the symptoms and problems to them.
 Ask about past events faced.
 Observe child’s behavior, ……
 Tell him to write something like ……, fill questionnaire.
 Ask about school achievement.
 Take personal and family history.
 …………………..
 ………………………..
 Assessment
 The action of assessing someone or something.
 Theaction or an instance of making a judgment about
something :  the act of assessing something :  Appraisal
(Merriam-Webster Dictionary)
 Assessment is an umbrella term for the evaluation
methods counselors use to better understand
characteristics of people, places, and things. Other terms
used interchangeably in counseling to describe
assessment are appraisal and evaluation. [Hays, D. G.
(2013). Assessment in Counseling, 5th edition, American
Counseling Association]
Assessment cont……

 TheStandards for Educational and Psychological

Testing (American Educational Research
Association [AERA], American Psychological
Association [APA], & National Council on
Measurement in Education [NCME], 1999) defines
assessment as “any systematic method of
obtaining information from tests and other
sources, used to draw inferences about
characteristics of people, objects, or programs”.
Assessment in (different stages of) counseling
1. Problem orientation
 Problem viewed (positive or negative) by the person/client,
recognized and accepted or not. (Assessment of attitude,
belief, perception, ..)
2. Problem identification
 Client and counselor agree on nature of problem (Assessment
of symptoms, psychological problems, mental status,
intelligence, personality, ....)
3. Generation of alternatives
 Counselor and client generate solution alternatives jointly to
resolve the problem (Assessment of strengths, weaknesses, …)
Assessment in (different stages of) counseling
4. Decision making
 Client gets ahead the consequences of the various
alternatives, client will consider best alternative
(Assessment of personality fit, intelligence fit, situation
fit, adjustment, social skills, …. option)
5. Verification
 Counselor discusses with client on how the client will
know when the problem has been solved (Assessment of
changes of own …)
Conclusion

 Assessment is the action of assessing attitude,

belief, mental problem, level of intelligence,
personality, etc. through the means of interview,
observation, questionnaire, ….. whenever
necessary in the counseling interaction.