Abstract:
There are a limited psychological assessment tools that accommodate diversity in South Africa. The purpose of this study was to describe group-based career counselling assessment with young people in a rural school. The study, employing secondary data analysis, purposively sampled existing qualitative data for deductive analysis guided by a priori assumptions (methodological and theoretical approaches to group-based career counselling assessment, group-based career counselling assessment foci, rural context and group-based career counselling assessment). The existing data forms part of the educational psychology data set of two cohorts of Grade 9 clients (2014 and 2015) in the Flourishing Learning Youth (FLY) study. Relevant data was co-generated by 24 groups of clients, who underwent career counselling assessment (2014 clients: n = 30 females, n = 30 males; 2015 clients: n = 30 females, n = 34 males; total number of clients: (n = 124; n = 64 male; n = 60 female). Sampling criteria aimed at including data sources of group-based career counselling assessment. Textual and visual data sources included artefacts of educational psychology services in individual client files.
The study contributes a systematic description of group-based career counselling assessment activities with young people in a challenged, rural school setting. I found that group-based assessment was adapted for language, culture and context and informed by indigenous, positive psychological and narrative psychology theoretical lenses. Innovative quantitative and qualitative assessment activities and techniques were employed to assess groups of clients’ cognitive capabilities, personalities, interests, values, aspirations and motivations, as well as life stories, with due consideration for clients’ specific cultures and contexts.
