This thread is really starting to scare me.
First, as Bob Hill points out, how reliable are any of these measures at
predicting any kind of meaningful behavior? How much of the variance can
they account for in such a complex task as being a good counselor or
clinician?
Second, it seems that you are making the assumption that a "pathology" that
you can "detect" is a permanently debilitating condition justifying
exclusion from a profession. If this is so, why are you in the profession
that you chose?
Third, why should we assume that, because someone suffers from a pathology,
they are incapable of providing help to others?
Fourth, it would seem that reliance on interviews for screening may be a
valid indicator of how well faculty might get along with a graduate student,
but it would be a real case of hubris to assume that you are able to
meaningfully predict who will be the most successful with greater accuracy
than past performance indicators. Might you not run the risk of picking
people who look most like yourselves?
Sorry for sounding abrasive, but since the purpose of the list is sometimes
best served by stirring up controversy and we all like a good argument, I
thought I would err on the side of bluntness. Or maybe I'm just sensitive
because too many people lately have told me they know my Myers-Briggs Type.
Michael B. Quanty, Ph.D.
Psychology Professor
Senior Institutional Researcher
Thomas Nelson Community College
PO Box 9407
Hampton, VA 23670
Phone: 757.825.3500
Fax: 757.825.3807
-----Original Message-----
From: Bob Hill [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Wednesday, November 01, 2000 9:28 AM
To: Rick Froman
Cc: TIPS
Subject: Re: Personality test for counselors
Screening candidates for pathology before admitting them into a graduate
program
for mental health professionals appears a responsible admissions criteria.
We
use personal interviews with 3 different clinical faculty for our short list
applicants and look for interpersonal skills, maturity and a lack of
personality
disorder pathology among other things.
Using a clinical measure may be problematic for screening applicants due to
the
lack of validity data supporting the use of such measures for the purpose of
predicting success among mental health professionals. That said, if I were
to
use a measure I would probably use the Personality Assessment Inventory
(PAI) or
perhaps the CPI, and watch for any prominent elevations on clinical scales.
The
PAI scales are more interpretable than the MMPI. Such elevations might lead
to
further assessment during interview rather than exclusion based solely on
test
scores.
Bob Hill
Psychology
Appalachian State Un.
Rick Froman wrote:
> Our graduate school is looking for an appropriate personality test to give
> to students in the counseling program to identify personality
> characteristics relevant to counseling. They are attempting to screen for
> people who may have a difficult time in a counseling placement. Do any of
> you use personality tests for a similar purpose in your graduate programs
or
> know of a test that might be useful for this purpose. They had been using
> the MMPI but it wasn't working for them. Thanks for your help.
>
> Rick
>
> Dr. Richard L. Froman
> Psychology Department
> John Brown University
> Siloam Springs, AR 72761
> e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> http://www.jbu.edu/sbs/psych/froman.htm
