Culture and Assessment: Nomothetic and Idiographic Considerations

This article summarizes presentations on career assessment delivered at the 2007 joint symposium of the International Association for Educational and Vocational Guidance, Society for Vocational Psychology, and National Career Development Association. Notable among the many themes that emerged from this discussion group were the concepts of culture and assessment and the mutually beneficial outcomes of idiographic and nomothetic approaches to career assessment. Brief reviews of each presentation highlight these recurring themes. At the 2007 joint international symposium held by the International Association for Educational and Vocational Guidance (IAEVG), Society for Vocational Psychology (SVP), and National Career Development Association (NCDA), participants gathered in discussion groups to address particular themes. In Group 5, "Procedures, Suggestions, and Instruments for Assessment," participants thoughtfully discussed the issues, tensions, and best practices related to career assessment from an international perspective. This discussion group echoed some themes from the 2004 IAEVG-NCDA joint conference adeptly summarized by Watson, Duarte, and Glavin (2005), such as the issues involved in cross-cultural assessment. Given the multinational focus of this group and its presenters, this emphasis was not surprising. Capturing the range of issues raised by these eight presenters is challenging; however, the tension between nomothetic and idiographic considerations in career assessment was a shared theme in these presentations. Although every presentation contained both elements, each presentation emphasized either a nomothetic or an idiographic perspective regarding the issue of career assessment. To guide the discussion of these presentations, we have categorized each presentation as either nomothetic or idiographic, a rough categorization that frames our review of these thought-provoking offerings. Defining Nomothetic and Idiographic Perspectives We categorize each presentation as nomothetic or idiographic by its correspondence to one or the other of these two perspectives in the literature. Presentations categorized as nomothetic were those that emphasized making inferences and predictions based on groups of individuals and for which career development constructs were defined a priori and assumed to be relatively stable and consistent across cultural groups. In the process of career assessment from this perspective, a construct or domain of interest is defined and is then operationalized and measured by a given set of test items. The cultural validity of a given instrument is then established by that instrument's psychometric properties with a given population (Blustein & Ellis, 2000). These presentations emphasized a classic approach to career assessment, were framed in a positivistic or postpositivistic set of epistemological and ontological assumptions, and were generally more quantitative in nature. Generally, idiographic assessment places more emphasis on the individual. Presentations categorized as idiographic assessed career development constructs on the basis of participants' subjective constructions. These presentations emphasized a postmodern approach to career assessment, were framed in a constructivist or social constructionist set of epistemological and ontological assumptions, and were generally more qualitative in nature. In this approach, semistructured interview questions or open-ended prompts, rather than a standard set of items, are used to collaboratively assess an individual's career development and its associated influences (e.g., cultural, familial) based on that individual's subjective perspective. Rather than trying to assess more universal career development constructs across different groups, idiographic approaches emphasize understanding the "local" differences in career development in cultural groups. These presentations also emphasized the cultural and social milieu of career development both in the process of career assessment and in establishing what Leong and Brown (1995) would label the cultural specificity of assessment instruments in a given cultural context. …