Assessment review and evaluation frameworks

¶ … Clinician's Mirror: Cultural Self-assessment

In Chapter 3, the author talks about the importance of cultural self-assessments and how these self-assessments can make clinicians more aware. The purpose of this chapter is twofold. First, it hopes to introduce future clinicians to the idea that their cultural backgrounds are going to influence their decisions as clinicians, so that they need to be aware of how their own background will impact their clients. This is particularly relevant when looking at issues of privilege, which some non-minority clinicians may not even realize that they possess. Second, it provides clinicians with the tools that they need in order to carry out a self-assessment. This article does not really contain any specific research findings, but it does do a good job of presenting information discovered by prior researchers. It advocates use of the ADDRESSING model to look at one's own cultural heritage. This involves Age and generational influences, Developmental disabilities, Disabilities acquired later in life, Religion and spiritual orientation, Ethnic and racial identity, Socioeconomic status, Sexual orientation, Indigenous heritage, National origin, and Gender. Each of these dimensions can influence whether or not a person experiences privilege in society.

Understanding one's own perspective is a crucial part of working with others, because every human being brings their own personal history to a scenario. Understanding how exerting privilege or experiencing a lack of privilege has impacted an individual helps one understand how those issues might impact clients. Moreover, it helps even when working with non-minority clients, because those who are in the dominant cultural groups may not even be aware of the privilege that they have in their daily lives and may be struggling to work through resentments for others because they perceive them as getting special treatment or opportunities in a system that is supposed to be free of bias.

Summary: Assessment research in correctional settings

In "Assessment research in correctional settings: Methodological issues and practical problems," Edwin Megargee investigates the fact that there is a dearth of assessment research in correctional settings. He looks at the methodological and practical problems that can impact assessment research in correctional settings, including the distinctive culture in correctional institutes. Megargee's reason for doing the research is today's huge population of incarcerated persons and the fact that psychological research that has been conducted on people outside of the incarceration setting may not be applicable to people who are incarcerated. He recognizes that there is a need for research in this area to determine whether tools developed elsewhere are applicable. He points out the irony of this lack of applicable research because clinical psychology was developed in the criminal justice setting. He does not really conduct any individual research, therefore the methodology is most akin to a literature review in which he assesses the information available about correctional institutions and draws conclusions from that information to determine why there is a lack of research on assessment in correctional settings. The first methodological issue that he identifies is the problem of educating the researcher so that the researcher is aware of the differences between the outside world and a correctional setting. One of the other problems that he has identified is looking at what assessment issues are most pressing in their setting.