Understanding Potential Career Assessments
As a parent concerned that our kids grow up and achieve success, we hear about career tests that will provide answers. Answers to the question: what should I be when I grow up? This question will likely take a great deal of time to answer, and test results will only be a part of this knowing yourself process. I intend to use this article to provide ideas for you to think about when considering using any career test.
An important message to keep in mind is that being a child or an adolescent parallels constantly changing opinions and choices. The answers that are chosen for test questions today will probably differ from those made on a date closer to adulthood. That makes one important dimension of these test results less important than it is for adults. That dimension is reliability. A test is most reliable when it produces the same results after repeated testing with the same test. Another dimension most important for useful test results is known as validity. In career planning terms, this means that groups of satisfied workers in the same occupation would get test results that indicate an interest in that career field, and not in other fields. Some test makers will base their research on theories about what they think workers in certain career fields test scores would show. The most valid career tests use actual workers to base their results on, after using large samples for their data.
A third consideration for career testing is that of useful results. In other words, does the test report require interpretation from experts to be understood? It is important that the results be available immediately after testing and be displayed in ways that show potential career fields to explore further. It might also be helpful if additional resources are suggested for more detailed study. Typically, four aspects about a person can be discovered using tests that are available for career planning. Being Internet available might be an additional consideration.
Four Personal Aspects To Test
Interest Assessments provide information on what a person likes and dislikes about a wide range of activities, relationships, school subjects, occupations and work environments. An example is: www.careerfit-test.com. When given choices to select from, it measures which is most interesting, not which tasks can be performed best. This is an important distinction to be made. Someone might be very interested in sports, but have little capability to perform. This could, however, suggest pursuing careers closely related to performance in sports. Values Tests rely on questions about personal principles, working characteristics, and the importance each has for the test taker. In many cases they are developed based on values theories and are supposed to provide insight into potential career choices. Youth are still clarifying values, so be careful in the importance of these measures.
Personality Instruments are designed to measure personal characteristics of individuals to assist with self-understanding. Many of these are designed to detect deviances from normality rather than relate to career choices. The results should be compared to personal feelings to be beneficial. Aptitude Measures come in two types. Educational aptitude is the measurement most teachers and schools use to assess future success in advanced learning opportunities. They form the basis for predicting some levels of career progression. Skills and natural work related abilities are measured by vocational aptitude measures. Test takers are given samples of tasks drawn from actual work requirements to assess potential success at that line of work.
These may be used as tools to discuss potential career choices. This is the eighth in a series of articles to focus on career development over a lifetime. Other topics in the series will follow. Some will undoubtedly be initiated by responses to these thought-provoking writings. Your comments and suggestions are appreciated.
Source: www.buzzle.com