NOR HARTINI KAHARUDIN (0730698)

SINCE MOST OF THE ASSESSMENT INSTRUMENTS IN THE MARKET WERE MADE BASED ON AMERICAN CULTURE, MUSLIM COUNSELORS SHOULD NOT USE STANDARDIZED ASSESSMENT INSTRUMENTS AT ALL.

It is good to utilize the assessments that are coming from America. It is because the assessments already has been standardized and has been accepted by the countries all over the world. Before the assessment being formed, it has been undergone a long process of research and investigation in order to make it suit with all the levels of people. The instrument that is to investigate the interest of people, the job-interest of people so on, for me, it is not wrong if the Muslim counselors use the standardized assessment instrument to the people. It is because this kind of instrument is centralized and suitable to all people.
However, not all the instruments are appropriate to the people especially to the people in Malaysia who are living in multicultural community. Sometimes, the certain thing is okay to this people, but it is wrong to that people. In this case, the counselor must take care of and aware about this sensitivity. For example, in Malaysia that we are discussing about moral issue, for Chinese, there is nothing wrong for them to drink alcohol, even their parents also drink alcohol and use it as one of the medications alternatives. Like Chinese, Hindu also has no problem with drinking alcohol. But, when it is come to Muslim, drinking alcohol is strictly prohibited. Another example is, there is a question from the assessment that asking whether the teenagers’ respondent ever having sex or not. This question is not appropriate to the teenagers especially Malay. For this kind of question, the counselor should be not bias, because the result sometimes not appropriate to the person because the scheme is based on America’s view. The counselor should ask the authorities to making some amendments in order to avoid the violation or misunderstanding.
To sum up, it is not wrong to use the standardization of assessment as long as it is not related to the sensitive and culturally-biased issues. For me, I will use this kind of assessment but I will modified or make a bit change in order to suit the question to all the respondents.