NURASIKIN A.HALIM
0814226
POSITION PAPER 4.
“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” discuss.
Holland typology, extroversion and introversion test, personality test and much other assessment were made by American counselor and researcher which are based on their culture. Thus what is considered permissible or acceptable to them might not be acceptable to Muslim community and beliefs. Muslim scholars should take proactive act such as should not use all the instruments were made by American due to the clashing of what American generalized is different with what Muslim generalized.
All the above statement likely to be true, however for me, it is slightly different. From my point of views, Muslim counselors should use the assessment were made by American counselors, but the methods of interpretation of such assessment needs to be localized or adjusted due to the Muslim society framework and belief. Why I claimed with such of that view? Well, this is because of a few causes that we should take into consideration. My first point is because of the expertise among Muslim counselor. We have to accept the truth that we do not have many expert and researches to make up with our own assessment that tally to our Muslim community. In facts, in order to have references in counseling also hard to find rather than used the American references which are many and easy accessible. Thus, we need to accept that western are more well develop and well organized rather to Muslim counselors. To find Muslim organization handling counseling also difficult compare to the westerners that already have any organization in making researches and assessment. We still too depend to them in many factors.
My second point is about the reliability and validity of the assessment or test before it is being used or recognized by all. In order to have such instruments, we need to have enough resources, researches and have being proven by qualified measurements. For example, in order to make Holland typology is suitable or being recognized as good assessment, it has to get through with many respondents, experiments and proven empirical studies which can only be done by expert, enough resources and research. However we are still lack in this field. We do not have enough research and resources that reliable.
My third point is not all the assessment made by the westerners is not relevant at all to our beliefs and culture. In facts, some of the assessment can be used by universal. Hence, if the assessment is not really suitable or fit to our customs, but we can modify a few things that can be acceptable to our customs and beliefs. For example, personality test or inventory test, it is suitable to all and can be used by any people. Perhaps, if arguing about the assessment that being made by American, we need to take into consideration about the theories or therapeutic techniques we chose to used, most of it also from the American framework that are not really suitable to us as Muslim. For instance, Freudian Theory Maslow or even Rogers. Sigmund Freud which used sex gratification that are really not suitable to us as Muslim, however we can used some part of the theories which is acceptable to us as Muslim.
In conclusion, for my point of view, as Muslim counselor, we can used the assessment made by the American but we need to modified the way of interpretation of the assessment, so that it can suit to our society, beliefs and frameworks. Perhaps, we also need to have and try to develop our own assessment based on our custom, beliefs and frameworks.