Section E
Evaluation, Assessment, and Interpretation
Introduction
Counselors use assessment as one component of the counseling process, considering the clients’ personal and cultural context. Counselors promote the well-being of individual clients or groups of clients by developing and using appropriate educational, mental health, psychological, and career assessments.
E.1. General
E.1.a. Assessment
The primary purpose of educational, mental health, psychological, and career assessment is to gather information regarding the client for a variety of purposes, including, but not limited to, client decision making, treatment planning, and forensic proceedings. Assessment may include both qualitative and quantitative methodologies.
E.1.b. Client Welfare
Counselors do not misuse assessment results and interpretations, and they take reasonable steps to prevent others from misusing the information provided. They respect the client’s right to understand the results, the interpretations made, and the bases for counselors’ conclusions and recommendations.
E.2. Competence to Use and Interpret Assessment Instruments
E.2.a. Limits of Competence
Counselors use only those testing and assessment services for which they have been trained and are competent. Counselors using technology-assisted test interpretations are trained in the construct being measured and the specific instrument being used prior to using its technology- based application. Counselors take reasonable measures to ensure the proper use of assessment techniques by persons under their supervision.
E.2.b. Appropriate Use
Counselors are responsible for the appropriate application, scoring, interpretation, and use of assessment instruments relevant to the needs of the client, whether they score and interpret such assessments themselves or use technology or other services.
E.2.c. Decisions Based on Results
When counselors are responsible for rendering decisions or making recommendations involving individuals or policies that are based on assessment results, they have a thorough understanding of psychometrics.
E.3. Informed Consent in Assessment
E.3.a. Explanation to Clients
Prior to assessment, counselors explain the nature and purposes of assessment and the specific use of results by potential recipients. They engage in dialogue designed to promote understanding and provide explanations in terms and language that the client (or other legally authorized person on behalf of the client) can comprehend.
E.3.b. Recipients of Results
Counselors consider the client’s and/or examinee’s welfare, explicit under-standings, and prior agreements in determining who receives the assessment results. Counselors include accurate and appropriate interpretations with any release of individual or group assessment results
E.4. Release of Data to Qualified Personnel
Counselors release assessment data in which the client is identified only with the consent of the client or the client’s legal representative. Such data is released only to persons recognized by counselors as qualified to interpret the data, or when required by role (e.g., forensic expert) or by law.
E.5. Diagnosis of Mental Disorders
E.5.a. Proper Diagnosis
Counselors take special care to provide proper diagnosis of mental disorders, arrived at cooperatively with the client. Diagnoses, including those provided due to insurance requirements, must be accurate. Assessment techniques, including personal interviews, used to determine client care, such as locus of treatment, type of treatment, recommended follow-up, are carefully selected and appropriately used.
E.5.b. Cultural Sensitivity
Counselors recognize that culture influences the manner in which clients' problems are defined, presented, and experienced. Counselors consider clients' culture when diagnosing mental disorders.
E.5.c. Historical and Social Prejudices in the Diagnosis of Pathology
Counselors recognize historical and social prejudices in the misdiagnosis and pathologizing of certain individuals and groups and strive to become aware of and address such biases in themselves and others.
E.5.d. Refraining from Diagnosis
Counselors may refrain from making and/or reporting a diagnosis if they believe that it could cause harm to the client or others. Counselors carefully consider and discuss with the client both the positive and negative implications of a diagnosis.
E.6. Instrument Selection
Counselors carefully consider the validity, reliability, psychometric limitations, and appropriateness of instruments, including consideration of disability and culture which might influence outcomes, when selecting assessments. When possible, counselors use multiple forms of assessment, data, and/or instruments in forming conclusions, diagnoses, or recommendations.
E.7. Conditions of Assessment Administration
E.7.a. Administration Conditions
Counselors administer assessments under the same conditions that were established in their standardization. When assessments are not administered under standard conditions, as may be necessary to accommodate clients with disabilities, or when unusual behavior or irregularities occur during the administration, those conditions are noted in interpretation, and the results may be designated as invalid or of questionable validity.
E.7.b. Provision of Favorable Conditions
Counselors provide an appropriate environment for the administration of assessments (e.g., privacy, comfort, freedom from distraction).
E.7.c. Technological Administration
Counselors ensure that technologically administered assessments function properly and provide clients with accurate results. Counselors verify that the intended person is completing the assessment and is not receiving unauthorized assistance.
E.7.d. Unsupervised Assessments
Unless the assessment instrument is designed, intended, and validated for self-administration and/or scoring, counselors do not permit unsupervised use.
E.8. Multicultural Issues/Diversity in Assessment
Counselors select and use with caution assessment techniques normed on populations other than that of the client. Counselors recognize the effects of age, color, culture, disability, ethnic group, gender, race, language preference, religion, spirituality, sexual orientation, and socioeconomic status on test administration and interpretation, and they place test results in proper perspective with other relevant factors.
E.9. Scoring and Interpretation of Assessments
E.9.a. Reporting
When counselors report assessment results, they consider the client’s personal and cultural background, the level of the client’s understanding of the results, and the impact of the results on the client. In reporting assessment results, counselors indicate reservations that exist regarding validity or reliability due to circumstances of the assessment or inappropriateness of the norms for the person tested.
E.9.b. Instruments with Insufficient Empirical Data
Counselors exercise caution when interpreting the results of instruments not having sufficient empirical data to support respondent results. The specific purposes for the use of such instruments are stated explicitly to the examinee. Counselors qualify any conclusions, diagnoses, or recommendations made based on assessments or instruments with questionable validity or reliability.
E.9.c. Assessment Services
Counselors who provide assessment, scoring, and interpretation services to support the assessment process confirm the validity of such interpretations. They accurately describe the purpose, norms, validity, reliability, and applications of the procedures and any special qualifications applicable to their use. At all times, counselors maintain their ethical responsibility to those being assessed.
E.10. Assessment Security
Counselors maintain the integrity and security of tests and assessments consistent with legal and contractual obligations. Counselors do not appropriate, reproduce, or modify published assessments or parts thereof without acknowledgment and permission from the publisher.
E.11. Obsolete Assessment and Outdated Results
Counselors do not use data or results from assessments that are obsolete or outdated for the current purpose (e.g., non-current versions of assessments/ instruments). Counselors make every effort to prevent the misuse of obsolete measures and assessment data by others.
E.12. Assessment Construction
Counselors use established scientific procedures, relevant standards, and current professional knowledge for assessment design in the development, publication, and utilization of assessment techniques.
E.13. Forensic Evaluations: Evaluation for Legal Proceedings
E.13.a. Primary Obligations
When providing forensic evaluations, the primary obligation of counselors is to produce objective findings that can be substantiated based on information and techniques appropriate to the evaluation, which may include examination of the individual and/or review of records. Counselors form professional opinions based on their professional knowledge and expertise that can be supported by the data gathered in evaluations. Counselors define the limits of their reports or testimony, especially when an examination of the individual has not been conducted.
E.13.b. Consent for Evaluation
Individuals being evaluated are informed in writing that the relationship is for the purposes of an evaluation and is not therapeutic in nature, and entities or individuals who will receive the evaluation report are identified. Counselors who perform forensic evaluations obtain written consent from those being evaluated or from their legal representative unless a court orders evaluations to be conducted without the written consent of the individuals being evaluated. When children or adults who lack the capacity to give voluntary consent are being evaluated, informed written consent is obtained from a parent or guardian.
E.13.c. Avoiding Dual Roles and Multiple Relationships
Counselors do not evaluate current or former clients, clients’ romantic partners, or clients’ family members for forensic purposes. Counselors do not counsel individuals they are evaluating. Counselors who provide forensic evaluations avoid professional or personal relationships with family members, romantic partners, and close friends of individuals they are evaluating or have evaluated in the past. See also Section I (Forensic Section).