Treffer: Computer-Assisted Testing in Counseling and Therapy. ERIC Digest.

Computer-assisted testing (CAT) in counseling and therapy is becoming increasingly common due to dramatic improvements in cost-effectiveness and increased counselor familiarity with computer applications. The assumption underlying the use of CAT is that the effectiveness of counseling is improved by allocating repetitive computational and instructional tasks to the computer, thus allowing counselors to concentrate more fully on interpersonal tasks. Options for using CAT in counseling and therapy include: (1) test administration; (2) test scoring; (3) test score profile generation; (4) narrative interpretive report generation for both client and practitioner; and (5) videodisc-based generalized test interpretation provided to the client immediately following test administration. Benefits of CAT include enhanced test administration, scoring, interpretation, and integration. A potential limitation is the need to establish equivalency for each instrument. Other limitations include scoring errors, test validity, and ethical concerns about counselor misuse. (JBJ)