Cross-Cultural Perspectives on Career Assessment

Abstract

The authors present an overview of the discussion and presentations that took place concerning techniques and assessment in educational and vocational guidance at the recent symposium International Perspectives on Career Development. Two topics were examined. The 1st focused on the theoretical foundations of and psychometric issues in career assessment. The 2nd focused on the practice of career assessment and the use of career measures, particularly in cultural contexts for which the measures were not originally developed. Participants in the 2004 symposium, International Perspectives on Career Development, that was sponsored by the International Association for Educational and Vocational Guidance and the National Career Development Association explored issues and outcomes that differentiate career development practices in different nations. One of the designated discussion groups focused on issues of techniques and assessment in educational and vocational guidance. In this article, we report on the general discussion and specific presentations of participants from eight countries: Canada, China, Croatia, Portugal, South Africa, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The discussion and presentations on techniques and assessment in career psychology addressed a wide range of issues that can be grouped into two main areas: the development of career measurement and the practice of career assessment. The first area explored both the theoretical foundations of career assessment and the psychometric issues in test development. The discussion on the practice of career evaluation and assessment focused on the issues of qualitative and quantitative career assessment and the use of career tests in cultural contexts for which they were not originally developed. These two areas of discussion and presentation are described below. They are followed by a summary of the group's conclusions concerning career assessment. The Development of Career Assessment The broader level of group discussion and individual presentation initially focused on the nature of career assessment and the definition of culture. Defining the terminology seemed a logical step in setting parameters for the group's discussion. A core issue that emerged was whether career assessment is psychological or psychosocial in nature. Glavin (2004; the third author of this article) differentiated between psychological tests, which represent an internal measurement of a specific personality trait, type, or competency, and psychosocial tests, which measure an individual's ability to adapt to the environment. He argued that career measures should be considered psychosocial tests in that they are based on assessing relationships between social factors and the individual. As such, career tests measure an individual against externally defined goals, such as career maturity, career adaptability, life role salience, and career self-efficacy beliefs. This discussion of the definition of career tests was pivotal to the ensuing discussions. At the core of this debate was Glavin's viewpoint that the constructs measured by career tests are not endogenous to all human beings. If one accepts this argument, then career constructs are not universal and, consequently, should not be generalized across cultural groups. It could be argued that subsequent presentations offered considerable support for this differential definition of assessment. For instance, Rossier (2004) reported on the cross-cultural equivalence of several personality inventories in frequent use. Rossier's paper examined personality traits in Burkina Faso, a sub-Saharan African country, and in Switzerland. His results indicated that the structural equivalence of tests is affected by the theoretical differences on which the tests are based. More specifically, when tests are based on theories that ascribe the origins of traits as biologically based (such as McCrae & Costa's, 1999, five-factor theory), then partial and full structural equivalence can be observed across cultural groups. …