Brown S.D., Lent R. (Editors). Career development and counseling: putting theory and research to work

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infor

mal in nature (i.e., relatively little normative information is available). We

present alternative ways to examine these variables in counseling.

Perceived barriers have been defined in a number of ways, but generally in-

volve clients’ perceptions of negative conditions that might interfere with career

progress (e.g., discrimination, multiple-role conflict, or lack of opportunities). In

the context of research, the assessment of perceived barriers has been approached

through several different methods, many of which may be adapted for counseling

use. The simplest is using a thought-listing technique, such as requesting clients

to list any potential barriers to their educational or career progress (Luzzo, 1995;

Luzzo & Hutcheson, 1996; Swanson & Tokar, 1991a).

Researchers also have used traditional psychometric methods to develop in-

struments measuring perceived barriers. At least three measures exist to assess a

range of barriers to educational and career goals: the Perceptions of Barriers Scale

(POB; McWhirter, Hackett, & Bandalos, 1998), the Perceptions of Educational Bar-

riers measure (PEB; McWhirter, Rasheed, & Crothers, 2000), and the Career Bar-

riers Inventory (CBI; Swanson, Daniels, & Tokar, 1996; Swanson & Tokar, 1991b).

The POB measures barriers related to gender and racial job discrimination and to

attending and progressing in college, and the PEB measures barriers specific to

postsecondary education. These two measures were designed for use with high

school students. The CBI covers a range of potential barriers and was designed for

use with college students. None of these measures, however, offer normative in-

formation but may provide a useful springboard for discussion within career

counseling.

In addition to these research-based methods of assessing perceived barriers,

several authors have suggested ways to address barriers in career counseling

(S. D. Brown & Lent, 1996; Swanson & Woitke, 1997). First, counselors could use

traditional assessment tools such as interest inventories and card sorts as oppor-

tunities to examine clients’ perceptions of career barriers. For example, coun-

selors might observe and discuss clients’ choices as they complete assessment;

measured or expressed interests might reflect the influence of perceived barriers.

Any discrepancies between interests and measures of abilities or skills might

also suggest perceived barriers (S. D. Brown & Lent, 1996; Lent, Chapter 5, this

volume).

Second, as part of the decision-making process, counselors could help clients

examine perceived negative consequences of different options as a source of bar-

rier information (S. D. Brown & Lent, 1996; Lent, Chapter 5, this volume). Third,

counselors could directly ask clients about perceived barriers, whether past, pres-

ent, or future. Another approach is to ask clients to list every career option they

have considered and the reasons for their current interest or lack of interest

(Swanson & Woitke, 1997). Given the range of potential barriers identified in pre-

vious research, it is important for counselors to probe thoroughly for different

types of barriers. Items included in the POB, PEB, and CBI provide a comprehen-

sive set of potential barriers that counselors might use to ensure that they have

helped clients explore barriers as thoroughly as possible.

NTERPERSONAL

UPPORTS

The importance of career supports has long been recognized, yet, until recently,

has received little research attention (Lent et al., 2000). Within SCCT, supports

are environmental variables that facilitate the formation and pursuit of career

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Beyond Interests, Needs/Values, and Abilities 367

choices, such as encouragement, financial resources, and role models, and have a

logical and complementary link to perceived barriers. Engaging clients’ social

support networks is one of the five ingredients identified by S. D. Brown and

Ryan Krane (2000) as critical to enhancing career counseling outcomes. Further,

S. D. Brown et al. (2003) hypothesized that the positive effects of engaging sup-

port will be increased if clients examine support for the different career options

they are considering, if they learn how to marshal support, and if they do these

activities in writing.

Although several measures of social support are available, informal assessment

of a client’s social support would provide a direct and more flexible method

within career counseling. Counselors might use methods similar to those pro-

posed earlier concerning perceived barriers. For example, counselors could use

other types of assessment as opportunities to examine the amount of social sup-

port clients perceive for their various options. Interpretation of interest invento-

ries or card sorts present openings for discussion of how clients might garner

additional support for their choices (Lent, Chapter 5, this volume). Counselors

could also directly and explicitly ask clients about perceived support from impor-

tant people in their lives.

ELF

-E

FFICACY

ELIEFS

Self-efficacy is defined as “people’s judgments of their capabilities to organize and

execute courses of action required to attain designated types of performances”

(Bandura, 1986, p. 391), or “Can I do this?” As with social support, self-efficacy

may be viewed as a complementary variable to perceived barriers. If a barrier im-

pedes career progress, both self-efficacy and social support are mechanisms for

overcoming a barrier. Support may be conceptualized as an external mechanism,

whereas self-efficacy is an internal mechanism.

In the context of career development, self-efficacy has been studied relative to

specific occupational areas, gender-nontraditional occupations, mathematics per-

formance, and by Holland type (Betz & Hackett, 1997). Self-efficacy also has been

related to other important constructs, most notably, interests (Lent, Chapter 5,

this volume; Rottinghaus, Larson, & Borgen, 2003). For example, Betz (1999) dis-

cussed helping clients act on their interests by considering self-efficacy as a me-

diator to implementing vocational interests. A specific form of self-efficacy, career

ecision-making self-efficacy, was discussed earlier in this chapter.

Measures of self-efficacy typically have been developed to focus on specific

asks, such as the Mathematics Self-Efficacy Scale (MSES; Betz & Hackett, 1983) or

the Career Decision-Making Self-Efficacy Scale (CDMSE; Taylor & Betz, 1983).

Some measures of generalized self-efficacy are available; however, one conceptual

issue is that self-efficacy, by definition, contains a degree of specificity (e.g., “I

am able to learn math”).

Integrated assessment of interests and self-efficacy also is available via the

Skills Confidence Inventory (SCI; Betz, Borgen, & Harmon, 1996) as part of the

Strong Interest Inventory. This measure provides a parallel assessment of inter-

ests and self-efficacy within the same domain (Holland types), allowing coun-

selors to directly link these two constructs in their work with clients.

Self-efficacy also could be assessed via informal methods during career counsel-

ing (see Lent, Chapter 5, this volume). As with the two previous constructs (per-

ceived barriers and social support), opportunities to examine a client’s self-efficacy

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may arise during other types of assessment, such as interests. Self-efficacy

also

could be assessed directly by discussing clients’ beliefs about their abilities to

achieve specific tasks or goals necessary for various career options under consid-

eration or their ability to overcome identified barriers.

UTCOME

XPECTATIONS

The construct of outcome expectations is also central to SCCT, yet it has received

considerably less attention from researchers (Lent et al., 2000; Swanson & Gore,

2000). Outcome expectations refer to beliefs about the consequences about perform-

ing specific behaviors—“If I do this, what will happen?” (Lent et al., 1994)—and

provide a conceptual link between self-efficacy and actions. In other words, hav-

ing self-efficacy for a set of career behaviors (i.e., a specific occupational choice)

does not guarantee that a person will pursue a career direction unless he or she

also believes that the behaviors will lead to certain outcomes and that he or she val-

ues t

hose outcomes. Thus, outcome expectations complete the SCCT picture of

how career choices are made and implemented.

Unfortunately, few measures exist for outcome expectations, although there

are some promising new instruments. As with other constructs, outcome expecta-

tions could be assessed informally during career counseling, through focused at-

tention to how clients talk about the consequences of specific career choices (see

Lent, Chapter 5, this volume). Implicit outcome expectations may alter the way

clients view other factors in career choice, such as interests. For example, clients’

responses to interest inventory items may be tinged with negative outcome ex-

pectations (wherein the activity is of interest, but the eventual outcome of per-

forming that activity is undesirable). Outcome expectations also might color

clients’ self-efficacy about tasks; in other words, a client’s low self-efficacy about

math classes may be influenced by her concern about how strong math perfor-

mance would be perceived by others.

IRCUMSCRIPTION AND

OMPROMISE

In Gottfredson’s theory (1981, 1996, Chapter 4, this volume), circumscription refers

to the process by which children narrow their “zone of acceptable alternatives” by

progressive and irreversible elimination of unacceptable alternatives. The narrow-

ing of acceptable alternatives occurs in age-graded stages. Stages 1 to 3 (beginning

at age 3 and extending into early adolescence) parallel children’s increasing

cogni-

tive ability to think abstractly, and occupations are conceptualized in terms of

their sex-appropriateness, social prestige, and perceived abilities. In Stage 4, the

process of compromise becomes salient: Circumscription in the previous stages en-

tails rejecting unacceptable alternatives, whereas compromise focuses on identi-

fying which of the acceptable alternatives are most preferred.

In the life span scheme featured throughout this chapter, career counselors are

most likely to enter clients’ lives in the compromise stage of Gottfredson’s theory

(age 14 and above). However, although clients are most likely to be actively work-

ing with the compromise portion of Gottfredson’s theory, they will have previ-

ously progressed through the various stages of circumscription. The pertinent

uestion thus becomes how to assess the degree to which clients have circum-

scribed their occupational alternatives in ways that may not be beneficial to them.

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Beyond Interests, Needs/Values, and Abilities 369

Gottfredson (2002) argued that counselors ought to encourage clients to think

as realistically as possible about their career alternatives. She suggested several

criteria for determining whether clients are adequately dealing with reality, in-

cluding clients’ ability to name occupational alternatives, the match of their in-

terests and abilities to their chosen occupation, whether they are satisfied with

their choice, and whether they have unnecessarily restricted their options.

Although there are no established measures for assessing Gottfredson’s main

constructs of circumscription and compromise (other than techniques used in

research), counselors can attend to these processes through informal assess-

ment with their clients. In addition, Gottfredson and Lapan (1997) proposed an

assessment activity called Mapping Vocational Challenges (MVC), in which

different occupations are mapped onto a three-dimensional grid. In the initial

two-dimensional g

rid, clients place 42 occupations (7 per Holland type) into 15

boxes defined by prestige along one axis and sex type along the other axis.

Clients next mark occupations according to interests. Subsequent steps include

marking occupations according to self-efficacy and parental support. S. D. Brown

and Lent (1996) also offer some suggestions about how career options that might

have been previously circumscribed could be reconsidered by clients (see Lent,

Chapter 5, this volume).

ASSESSMENT OF OUTCOME CONSTRUCTS

Assessment of outcome shifts our focus to the results of career counseling. Con-

siderable research has demonstrated the effectiveness of a variety of modalities of

career choice, although research attention to outcome may be waning (Whiston

et al., 2003). In the past two decades, a series of increasingly refined meta-analyses

have focused on the outcomes of career choice (S. D. Brown & Ryan Krane, 2000;

S. D. Brown et al., 2003; Oliver & Spokane, 1988; N. E. Ryan, 1999; Spokane &

Oliver, 1983; Whiston et al., 2003; Whiston et al., 1998). In addition to document-

ing the positive effects of career interventions, these meta-analyses also have

highlighted important conceptual and methodological problems in determining

outcome. Our goals in this section are to discuss ways to conceptualize the range

of potential outcome constructs, clarify how intermediate and target outcome

constructs are connected to one another, and suggest how career counseling prac-

titioners can assess outcomes with their own clients.

ONCEPTUALIZING

UTCOME

RITERIA

The first challenge in addressing the outcome of career counseling is to describe

and classify the range of outcome criteria of interest to researchers and practi-

tioners. In response to the “chaotic approach to outcome selections” (Whiston

et al., 2003, p. 406), Whiston (2001) developed an organizational scheme to guide

the choice of outcome measures in career counseling (and other interventions).

The four major domains are content, source, focus, and time orientation. Content

includes four subcategories drawn from Fretz (1981): career knowledge and skills,

reer behaviors, sentiments and beliefs, and effective role functioning. The source

domain includes the variety of perspectives from which change might be measured,

including client, counselor, trained observer, relevant other, and institutional/

rchival sources of information. Focus is either general (such as using a measure

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of career maturity to indicate global improvement) or specific (an outcome mea-

sure tied explicitly to the goals of the intervention, such as goal attainment scal-

ing) and time orientation includes macro-outcomes (long term) and micro-outcomes

(

short term). As Whiston (2001) noted, in an ideal world, a practitioner or re-

searcher would choose an instrument in each category of each domain; however,

the organizational scheme also may be used to choose the most comprehensive

measure given constraints of the real world.

Further, Whiston (2001) presented general guidelines for selecting outcome

measures. First and foremost, given the complexity of career counseling, the pur-

pose of the career intervention must be considered. In other words, do the out-

come measures directly connect to the initial goals of the intervention? The second

guideline addresses the developmental level of the clients; selected measures must

be age- and stage-appropriate. Other guidelines include selecting measures that are

reliable and valid and that provide meaningful results, and conducting f

ollow-up

assessment (in addition to posttreatment assessment).

Several authors have raised the issue of what constitutes an appropriate outcome

(Fretz, 1981; Heppner & Heppner, 2003; Phillips, 1992; Swanson, 1995; Whiston

et al., 2003). The basic issue is that effective career counseling may lead to a wide

variety of “appropriate” outcomes for a given individual. Heppner and Heppner

(2003) noted that it is “imperative to examine whether the outcomes researchers

determine are important to assess, actually lead to a better quality of life for the

individual in the months after counseling (p. 443).” For example, a client may make

a career decision at the conclusion of career counseling, which would typically be

deemed a good outcome. However, does the client implement his or her decision?

Does the decision lead to a better quality of life for the client? (Phillips, 1992).

Another example is that of an increased number of career options under con-

sideration. Whiston et al. (2003) reported that this was a frequently used measure

of outcome in career intervention studies, yet, for many clients, a decrease in ca-

reer options under consideration may be a more appropriate outcome (see also

Brown & McPartland, in press). Thus, researchers and practitioners may want to

use more individually tailored measures of outcome, such as goal attainment

scaling

(Kiresuk & Sherman, 1968), that address questions such as: What were the

client’s initial goals for career counseling? Were these goals reformulated after

discussion with the counselor? Did clients meet their initial or modified goals for

counseling?

In the remainder of this section, we discuss outcome constructs and measures

across the life span. Some of these constructs, however, already have been dis-

cussed in earlier portions of the chapter and thus are mentioned only briefly. For

example, career maturity may be relevant to how a client approaches career coun-

seling and decision making; therefore, it may be considered a process-oriented

construct. However, we might also expect career maturity to increase as a result

of career counseling; thus, it also may be considered an intermediate outcome

that enhances achievement of an ultimate outcome. In other words, increased ca-

reer maturity may smooth the process of making a career choice.

What are important outcomes to assess during career exploration, initial choice,

and entry? In a comparison of treatment modalities, Whiston et al. (2003) reported

that the three most commonly used outcome variables were information seeking,

career maturity, and increased career choice options. Information seeking is typ-

ically considered an instrumental behavior (that is, something that the client

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Beyond Interests, Needs/Values, and Abilities 371

does), career maturity an attitudinal variable, and increased options a cognitive

variable.

Additional outcome variables during career exploration and initial choice may

be classified according to Oliver’s (1979) categories. The first category, career deci-

sion making, includes accuracy of self-knowledge, appropriateness of career choice,

instrumental behaviors (career information seeking, getting hired, decision-

making skills), attitudes toward career choice (degree of certainty, the presence of

a career decision), the number of options under considerations, and tradition

ality

of choice. Oliver’s second category is effective role functioning, including perfor-

mance variables (career-related knowledge and skills such as interviewing and

writing) and adjustment variables (career maturity, self-concept change, attitude

change, locus of control, cognitive complexity, anxiety, and identity). The third

category is an evaluation of the counseling itself, including general evaluation,

satisfaction, effectiveness, and helpfulness. Other variables not explicitly men-

tioned by Oliver include satisfaction with career decisions, self-efficacy beliefs,

and outcome expectations.

Much of the previous research concerning outcomes of career counseling has

focused on the earlier stages of exploration and initial choice. All of the previous

outcomes may continue to be relevant at later life span stages. For example, an in-

dividual entering career counseling to contemplate a substantive career change

may desire and achieve the same outcomes as an individual earlier in the career

development process. We follow the schema outlined in Table 15.1, however, to

discuss the range of outcome constructs across the life span.

NTERMEDIATE VERSUS

ARGET

UTCOMES

Target outcomes are ultimate outcomes, or those that clients probably enter career

counseling to achieve, such as making an initial career decision, achieving

greater career choice certainty and satisfaction, or improving career satisfaction

and job performance. These constructs frequently are discrete behaviors or

events, rather than attitudes or beliefs. For example, “making a career choice” is a

common endpoint of career counseling: Clients come to counseling for assistance

in making a career decision and feel better and choose to discontinue counseling

when they have accomplished that goal. As an outcome variable, this is a dichoto-

mous, categorical variable that does not need extensive inventory development to

assess. Similarly, a client’s level of certainty about a career decision may be read-

ily determined in counseling, without use of an inventory.

On the other hand, job or career satisfaction and job performance are multidi-

mensional constructs that might require more complex assessments, depending

on the purpose of the assessment (Fritzsche & Parrish, Chapter 8, this volume;

Russell, Chapter 9, this volume). Moreover, target outcomes may not occur until

well after the completion of counseling or other interventions, yet are still rele-

vant to what occurs in counseling. It might be, for example, premature to assess

career satisfaction immediately after counseling, but it would certainly be impor-

tant to assess at longer term follow-up intervals.

Intermediate outcomes can be viewed as important in their own right, but also

helpful in attaining later target outcomes (e.g., the amount of information searching

engaged in by clients is an important intermediate outcome because it relates to

clients’ ultimate ability to make a satisfying career decision). As noted in Table

15.1,

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the intermediate outcomes are similar across the three life span stages, although

some constructs may be more salient within specific stages. Self-efficacy beliefs

and outcome expectations are likely to be important intermediate outcomes

across all stages due to the central role they are hypothesized to play in forming

choice actions and goals and in attaining desired levels of educational or work

performance. Likewise, career maturity and career adaptability are important in-

termediate outcomes across the life span. Searching for and acquiring occupa-

tional information is perhaps most relevant during the early stage of career

exploration, although it may resurface as an important intermediate outcome in

later stages. Most of these constructs were discussed earlier in the section on

process-oriented constructs. The exception is occupational information, also dis-

cussed by Gore and Hitch (Chapter 16, this volume).

RGANIZATIONALLY

ELEVANT

ARGET

UTCOMES

In addition to these individually oriented outcomes, there also are relevant

organizationally-oriented outcomes. In other words, examining outcomes re-

lated to career adjustment/maladjustment or career change/transition must in-

clude a perspective other than the individual himself or herself, namely, the

perspective of the employing organization.

Only one traditional vocational psychology theory addresses work adjustment

issues from both individual and organizational perspectives, the Theory of Work

Adjustment (TWA; Dawis, 1996; Chapter 1, this volume; Dawis & Lofquist, 1984).

According to TWA, individuals have certain requirements for their work environ-

ments (work needs) and offer their work environments a set of skills and abilities.

Work environments, in turn, have certain requirements of their employees (abil-

ity requirements) and can meet certain worker needs (reinforcement systems).

Correspondence between a worker’s abilities and the work environment’s ability

requirements predicts satisfactoriness, which is a perception of satisfaction from

the perspective of the employing organization. Correspondence between a

worker’s needs and the work environment’s reinforcement system predicts satis-

faction, which is a perception of satisfaction from the perspective of the employee.

Taken together, satisfactoriness and satisfaction are hypothesized to predict

tenure of an individual within an organization.

What outcomes are important to an employing organization? Salient outcomes

can be divided into attitudes and behaviors. The two attitudes most frequently

studied by organizational psychologists are job satisfaction and organizational

commitment. Behaviors include work withdrawal behaviors such as absenteeism

and voluntary turnover (or turnover intentions), job performance, organizational

citizenship behaviors, and involuntary turnover (unsatisfactoriness).

Job satisfaction has received an enormous amount of attention from industrial/

organizational psychologists (see Fritzsche & Parrish, Chapter 8, this volume)

and is conceptualized either as global or facet satisfaction (such as satisfaction

with pay). Attention to the attitude of organizational commitment is more recent

and is conceptualized as consisting of three components: affective commitment

(emotional attachment to an organization), continuance commitment (perceived

costs associated with leaving an organization), and normative commitment (per-

ceived obligation to remain in an organization; Meyer & Allen, 1997).

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Each of these outcomes also may become an impetus for entering career coun-

seling or other forms of career intervention. For example, poor job performance

may lead to corrective measures or to involuntary turnover (being fired), both of

which may result in services such as outplacement counseling. An individual also

may seek services because of perceived stress and strain or voluntary turnover

(quitting his or her job).

A full discussion of issues relevant to measuring job performance is far beyond

the scope of this chapter (see Russell, Chapter 9, this volume). Because evaluation

of job performance is used to make decisions about so many other aspects of

ganizational functioning (selection, promotion, reward delivery systems, fir-

ing), the measurement aspects of performance ratings are particularly important.

From the perspective of career counseling practitioners, job performance and

satisfactoriness are most likely to be determined via a client’s self-report. And, as

with many other aspects of client self-report, these evaluations are fraught with

the positive and negative biases that make self-evaluations less than accurate. For

example, a client may be performing adequately (or even exceptionally) on the

job, yet present a negative self-evaluation because of dissatisfaction with the job,

depression, inaccurate self-efficacy, low self-esteem, or other mental health is-

sues. In contrast, a client truly may be performing poorly, yet attribute negative

performance evaluations to office politics, personality conflicts with superiors,

or a need to save face.

Practitioners who work within organizational settings may have access to more

“

objective” information other than client self-report and, may, in fact, be provid-

ing services to clients because they have been referred due to poor performance

evaluations or other work-related difficulties.

CULTURAL CONSIDERATIONS IN CAREER ASSESSMENT

The career development of diverse populations is complex and, therefore, diffi-

cult to describe in a few paragraphs (see Betz, Chapter 11, this volume; Worthing-

ton, Flores, & Navarro, Chapter 10, this volume). However, our purpose with this

section is to remind the reader that many of the constructs and associated mea-

sures cited in this chapter have been normed and developed with European

Americans and, therefore, do not always fit the worldviews, career decision-

making processes, and other influential factors of career counseling with minor-

ity group individuals. We hope that this brief review illustrates why career

assessment with diverse populations is indeed complex and that career coun-

selors ought not homogenize career clients in assessment and treatment.

Examination of the cultural validity of mainstream career theories and con-

structs has been one of the predominant areas of research in vocational psychol-

ogy in the past decade (e.g., Morrow, Gore, & Campbell, 1996; J. M. Ryan, Tracey,

& Rounds, 1996). Moreover, models that incorporate some of these cultural con-

siderations have been developed (e.g., Peterson, Sampson, & Reardon, 1991;

Spokane, 1991; Spokane, Fouad, & Swanson, 2003; Yost & Corbishley, 1987). One

of the most commonly cited models was developed by Fouad and Bingham (1995).

They proposed attending to both culturally specific and culturally general consid-

erations in every phase of the career counseling process. In their model, the assess-

ment phase of career counseling includes a comprehensive account of variables

that

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may impact career counseling. Fouad and Bingham proposed that there are five

spheres of influence in the assessment of the effects of cultural variables:

1. The core unit or the individual.

2. Gender (e.g., role expectations).

3. Family (e.g., definitions, expectations, and values).

4. Racial or ethnic group (e.g., cultural factors, racial-identity development,

worldview).

5. Dominant (majority) group (e.g., structural factors including perceptions,

barriers, definitions, and expectations).

ncorporating assessment of these spheres of influence is, we suggest, an important

component of effective career counseling to guard against assuming that clients

are

all alike. Career counseling that considers cultural and contextual variables is ef-

fective for all clients (Swanson & Fouad, 1999).

Another model for intervention with racial-ethnic minorities was proposed by

Leung (1995), who suggested a number of personal, cultural, and economic issues

that should be assessed. This model was designed to better guide the mode in

which counselors approach career counseling and the expected outcomes of inter-

vent ions. Leung’s model separates career-related outcomes and education-related

outcomes, reasoning that educational attainment is an important factor for most

racial-ethnic minority groups and should, therefore, be considered in assessment.

The model also proposed three modes of intervention:

1. A system intervention, which is community based and could benefit popu-

lations that are at risk.

2. A group counseling intervention, which may be more helpful for individu-

als who come from collectivist cultures.

A one-to-one intervention approach, which is obviously the mode of interven-

tion that has been addressed most frequently in the vocational literature and

which can facilitate the attainment of both educational and career-related

outcomes.

An extension of Leung’s (1995) model was later proposed by Leong and Hartung

(1997) in which they considered not only career interventions and the use of as-

sessment but also the process by which clients arrive at the awareness or recogni-

tion that they could benefit from seeking career counseling. The latter factor is

important because clients’ cultural backgrounds may affect their attitudes to-

ward seeking professional help.

Comas-Diaz and Greiner (1998) wrote specifically about the importance of

conducting what they referred to as an “ethnocultural assessment” in career

counseling, which they argued is crucial in planning other forms of assessment

and in developing treatment plans for clients. Their suggestions for this ethno-

cultural assessment evolved from previous work by Comas-Diaz (1996), which en-

tailed one of the most comprehensive lists of contextual assessment areas that has

been proposed. While counselors are unlikely to assess all of these factors with

most clients, the list serves as a reminder of the relevant factors that might be

salient to clients:

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Beyond Interests, Needs/Values, and Abilities 375

1. Ethnocultural heritage.

2. Racial and ethnocultural identities.

3. Gender and sexual orientation.

4. Socioeconomic status.

5. Physical appearance, ability, or disability.

6. Religion when being raised and what the individual is now practicing,

spiritual beliefs.

7. Biological factors (e.g., genetic predispositions).

8. Historical era, age cohort.

9. Marital status, sexual history.

10. History of (im)migration.

11. Acculturation and transculturation levels.

12. Family of origin and multigenerational history.

13.

Family scripts (roles of women and men, prescriptions for success or failure).

14. Individual and family life cycle development and stages.

15. Client’s languages and those spoken by family of origin.

16. History of individual abuse and trauma (physical, emotional, sexual, and

political including torture, oppression, and repression).

17. History of collective trauma (slavery, colonization, Holocaust).

18. Gender-specific issues, such as battered wife syndrome.

19. Recreations and hobbies, avocations, and special social roles.

20. Historical and geopolitical reality of ethnic group and relationship with

dominant group (including wars and political conflict; Comas-Diaz, 1996).

What are other cultural, economic, gender, and individual differences in the

career development of clients that may influence the process of assessment?

Farmer and her colleagues (1997) discussed many diversity and women’s issues

in career development from adolescence to adulthood. Moreover, the career de-

velopment of many diverse groups has been studied, including members of

racial-ethnic groups, lesbian women and gay men, and youth with disabilities

(Sue & Sue, 1999; Swanson & Gore, 2000). Collectively, these articles suggest

that there is still much work to do in this area. Career development theories and

career counseling practice have not fully integrated factors that affect the career

behavior of diverse groups.

How can counselors meet the needs of the wide range of clients who seek ser-

vices? S. D. Brown and Ryan Krane (2000) reviewed a number of studies and con-

cluded that there are three main types of clients in career counseling:

1. Those who need additional information about the world of work and differ-

ent occupations.

2. Those who are mainly anxious about making career choices.

3. Those who present with a variety of career decision-making and develop-

mental issues.

But these are not the only differences to consider at the time of assessment and

intervention. Heppner and Heppner (2003) described client differences based on

cultural background. They concluded that there are a number of questions still

unanswered and that the little amount of information that we know is related to

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