Advantages Of Career Assessment

In education, research is a primary tool utilized to enhance academic curriculums and examine new perspectives and opportunities for teaching strategies. According to Oxford Dictionaries, research is “the systematic investigation into and study of materials and sources in order to establish facts and reach new conclusions,” (n.d). Education evolves and furthers complexity as time progresses, and using research and data analysis, educators can adapt to expansions in curriculums and standards.
Career counseling requires complex techniques and assessments that convey a client’s abilities, desires, and goals, whether the service is conducted in a school setting or beyond. Individuals seek career counseling for various reasons, expecting dependable

In the article, “Telling Stories of Career Assessment” by McMahon and Watson (2012), a quantitative approach is applied for researching benefits of using narrative career counseling and story telling approaches with the self-directed search model (SDS) and the integrative structured interview process (ISI). Blustein and Flum (1999) suggested that career assessment be judged by the degree to which it promotes a self-exploration process in clients rather than confirms an end product, for example, a career choice (as cited in McMahon and Watson, 2012, p. 441). The ISI process allows for personalized assessment of the client to better understand the results, how they were formulated, and include quantitative SDS codes. For this research, a case study is presented exploring a female’s attempt to change career paths by seeking assistance from a career counselor. The career counselor utilizes the ISI process to conduct an evaluation of the candidate, Margaret. With the codes presented from the SDS model, the career counselor incorporates the ISI process by collecting information from Margaret through narrative career counseling and story telling. McMahan and Watson (2010) express “during the process of career counseling, life themes are identified that enable connectedness between stories that may have been previously viewed as disconnected or discrete events,” (p. 447). A table is provided to display the code relationships defined through the ISI

The FCA case study can be improved in certain areas. For instances, Rehfuss and Di Fabio (2012) stated, “the small number, single sex, and restricted geographical location of participants limit the generalizability of the findings,” (p. 460). Also, since the FCA is a technique used to show change within a client’s life through narrative counseling, other related data, stating previous life goals, would support findings from the FCA. Rehfuss and Di Fabio (2012) explained, “since, the eight thematic constructs were developed to focus upon occupational change, (Rehfuss 2009), their utility in describing changes in personal life proved to be somewhat cumbersome,” (p. 457). Developing a model to assist counselors in personal life changes would benefit the findings from the FCA