The Case for Personalized Guidance Assessment

1. The Case for Personalized Guidance Assessment Alliance of Career Resource Professionals 2013 Annual Conference Scott Gillie Executive Director Encouragement Services, Inc.

2. Today’s Agenda • Examine personalized guidance assessment data • Review personalized guidance assessment for two students • Discuss implications for guidance and support

3. Today’s Agenda • Review personalized guidance assessment for the US – the big picture • Context • Trends • Targeting

4. Today’s Agenda Make the case • Enter evidence into the record • Summarize case in closing argument

5. The Case for Personalized Guidance Assessment • Rationale for Personalized Guidance Assessment • Obtain actionable knowledge of the person for guidance and counseling purposes • Identify common issues across many people for group guidance, program development, large-scale information campaigns, and group interventions • Engage other adults in supporting young people • Track group guidance assessment data to indicate progress

6. The Case for Personalized Guidance Assessment • Rationale for Guidance Assessment • Provide contextual clarity in supporting students • Document needs, interests, preferences • Show hidden positive traits of students

7. The Case for Personalized Guidance Assessment • Identify Factors Related to Motivation, Perseverance, Engagement, Optimism, Goal Orientation, Planfulness, College and Career Readiness • Aspirations • Desire for assistance • Family influences • Interest in guidance and support activities and services • Career development interests and experience • Environmental support • Challenges

8. The Case for Personalized Guidance Assessment • Construct these factors as they relate to • Desired activities, services, and experiences across three counseling domains • Benchmarks that indicate significant behaviors or achievements • School engagement concerns • College readiness concerns • Career readiness concerns

9. The Case for Personalized Guidance Assessment • Importantstudent context is largely unknown • Context may provide roadmap to performance improvement • Performance data without context leads to premature foreclosure of options

10. Review the UEP Profiles of Students A and BGrade 9 Females with Average Grades • Consider: • Prospects for high school success • Prospects for college readiness • Prospects for postsecondary enrollment • Prospects for postsecondary success • Interventions or supports that you would recommend

11. Universal Encouragement Program Individual Student Report for female, grade 9, age 15, white/non-Hispanic, earns mostly Bs and Cs, lives with mother and stepfather. This student is one of 471 freshman at her school.

12. Universal Encouragement Program Individual Student Report for female, grade 9, age 15, white/non-Hispanic, earns mostly Bs and Cs, lives with mother and stepfather. This student is one of 471 freshman at her school.

13. Universal Encouragement Program Individual Student Report for female, grade 9, age 15, white/non-Hispanic, earns mostly Bs and Cs, lives with mother and stepfather. This student is one of 471 freshman at her school.

14. Universal Encouragement Program Individual Student Report for female, grade 9, age 15, white/non-Hispanic, earns mostly Bs and Cs, lives with mother and stepfather. This student is one of 471 freshman at her school.

15. Universal Encouragement Program Individual Student Report for female, grade 9, age 15, white/non-Hispanic, earns mostly Bs and Cs, lives with mother and stepfather. This student is one of 471 freshman at her school.

16. National Data Report • Personalized guidance assessment data • Selected data • A sampling of ways that data may be viewed

18. Zero Hours of Homework per Week Males and Females Grades 9-12 At every grade level, males are more than twice as likely as females to report doing zero hours of homework per week. Alarmingly, for both sexes, the vector is in the wrong direction. In twelfth grade 41 percent more males and 37 percent more females indicate doing no homework as seniors than as freshmen.

19. Highest Level of Education Planned Grades 9 -12 The planned level of education remains remarkably constant throughout the grades; however, this slide masks significant differences in the planned level of education for various subgroups.

20. Bachelor's Degree or Higher Intention Grades 9 and 12 Males and Females

23. School is Providing ‘a Lot’ of Preparation for the Future Males and Females Females tend to find more value in their schooling than their male counterparts, but what does it mean when nearly two-thirds of high school seniors do not perceive school to be providing significant preparation for their future?

24. School Is Providing ‘a Lot’ of Preparation for the Future Grades 9-12 by Race-Ethnicity In ninth grade, there is a divergence of perception about school providing ‘a lot’ of preparation for the future. By twelfth grade, there is considerable agreement that it is not.

25. Suspension and Expulsion A single instance of student suspension in ninth grade… …Doubles that student’s probability of dropping out of school. Opportunities Suspended: The Disparate Impact of Disciplinary Exclusion from School. Losen, D.J. & Gillespie, J. UCLA Civil Rights Project, 2012.

26. Suspensions and Expulsions Males and Females All Grades 9-12

27. Suspensions and Expulsions by Grade and Race-Ethnicity

28. Various Factors: Low Household Education and High Household Education

29. Talked with Counselor about Plans and Hopes for the Future Males and Females Grades 9-12 and Race-Ethnicity

30. Would Like to Talk with Counselor about Plans and Hopes for the Future Males and Females by Grade and Race-Ethnicity

31. Student household living arrangements affect goals, plans, and the steps students take to pursue postsecondary education.

32. Student household living arrangements affect goals, plans, and the steps students take to pursue postsecondary education. The chart indicates steps taken by students, as reported in UEP.

33. Student Interest in Career-related Services Student interest in career development services is fairly high throughout the grades. These kinds of services are in short supply in many schools.

34. Targeted Communications • Information - one-to-many • Activity and service invitations – one-to-many • Announcements

35. Targeted Communications • School • District or Program Group • State

36. Targeted Communications Factor-based Report* Factor N Student Listing Send Message to this Group Students Parents * School Engagement, College Readiness, Career Readiness, Student Involvement Preferences, Key Benchmarks, and High School Transition.

37. The Case for Personalized Guidance Assessment • Personalized guidance assessment informs • Counseling • College and career planning • School improvement efforts • Mentoring • Personalized guidance assessment enables identification of • Students who are at-risk • Programming needs and opportunities • Progress (or the lack thereof) in meeting guidance objectives • Target groups for specific communications and services

38. The Case for Personalized Guidance Assessment • Personalized assessment reveals • Unseen qualities • Characteristics • Motivations • Plans • Aspirations • Perceptions • Interests • ~30 minutes to collect the data – is there another half-hour investment with such ROI?

39. The Case for Personalized Guidance Assessment • Individualized attention is scarce and expensive – personalized attention is abundant – using targeted messaging • Annual data collection yields trends, comparisons, and other measures of change • Guidance data provides overwhelming evidence of the need for counseling and support services • Personalized guidance assessment provides the foundation for working one-to-many

40. The Case for Personalized Guidance Assessment Alliance of Career Resource Professionals 2013 Annual Conference Scott Gillie Executive Director Encouragement Services, Inc.