Vocational Evaluation Principles

1
Vocational EvaluationPrinciples SystemsREH
6210

• Overview for the Scientist-Practitioner

2
Training Objective

• Upon completion of this presentation, the student
  will be able to
• Describe VE from a broad systemic perspective
• Identify the importance of VE from multiple
  perspectives
• Define a basic framework for the VE Process

3
Vocational Evaluation in the Marketplace

• Employers seek workers
• Workers seek employment
• VR Counselors intervene when the system breaks
  down
• Employer points of intervention?
• Worker points of intervention?

4
Theoretical Foundations

• Career Counseling Theories
• Trait Factor Theories (decision)
• Assumes stable, underlying traits that can be
  measured
• Developmental Theories (path)
• Assumes certain predictable stages and
  describable dynamics
• Employment Selection Theories (Trait Factor)
• Point-to-Point Validation
• Direct link between content of specific job and
  assessment measures

5
Employer Perspective on VE

• Human Resource Planning
• Selection Process
• Recruit
• Job analysis and needs assessment Realistic Job
  Preview
• Screen
• Testing, Biodata,
• Hire
• Interview, work sample, situational assessment

6
Job Seeker (Worker) Perspective

• Career Development Planning
• Know yourself, know the world of work, engage a
  decision making process that compares the two.
• Job Acquisition
• Choosing
• Getting
• Keeping

7
V. E. Definitions

• V.E. is a comprehensive process that utilizes
  work, real, or simulated, as the focal point for
  assessment and vocational counseling to assist
  individuals in vocational development.
• V.E. incorporates medical, psychological, social,
  vocational, educational, cultural, and economic
  data to assist in the attainment of the goals of
  the counseling process.
• While V. E. is often associated with a step (06)
  in the rehabilitation process, it is also a
  cyclical and strategic consideration of client
  progress.

8
Counselor Expectation I

• Generate information on clients current
  vocationally relevant levels of social,
  educational, psychological, and physiological
  functioning
• Provide a detailed analysis of client vocational
  functioning
• Estimate the individuals potential for behavior
  change and/or skill acquisition
• Determine a clients most effective learning
  style

9
Counselor Expectation II

• Identify jobs the client could do without
  additional vocational services
• Identify educational or special training programs
  that might increase vocational potential
• Identify potentially feasible jobs for the client
  with further vocational services
• Identify community support services that might
  augment job retention following successful client
  placement

10
The Process

• Referral Orientation
• The IEP
• Assessment
• Model building
• Report writing
• Communicating results

11
Referral Orientation

• Collect information
• Review referral data
• Schedule evaluation
• Orientation

12
Referral Questions

• Make sure the case is Mature
• Gather as much information as possible
• Review case thoroughly
• Involve client
• Questions, questions, questions
• Open-ended format

13
Evaluator Questions

• Referral questions are further specified in the
  evaluator questions, which are posed in terms
  that can be assessed by the instruments the
  evaluator has available.

14
Interview

• Questions to Address
• Organized structure (semi-structured)
• Done correctly, the interview is perhaps the most
  potent tool of vocational evaluation
• Continues throughout the vocational evaluation
  process focus changes as the process progresses.

15
Work Samples...

• Are an effective alternative for people who are
  not well served by traditional paper-and-pencil
  tests
• Differ from psychological tests in degree of
  relatedness to criteria
• Can be as cost-effective as other evaluative
  methods
• Illustrate clients ability to function in a
  field of work

16
Work SamplesII

• Predict entry level within field
• Measure qualitative performance and a variety of
  psycho-social factors
• Provide client with experiential information to
  make vocational choices

17
Paper and Pencil Tests

• Aptitude
• Achievement
• Interest
• Personality

18
Model Building

• The Evaluator must synthesize this information
  into a model of potential worker-environment fit,
  and in doing so, answer the questions of the
  counselor and the client.

19
The Report

• Contents of a Vocational Evaluation report
• Evaluating the quality of a Vocational Evaluation
  report