position paper 4- mariatulkhabtiyah bt mohd khamzah ( 0716106 )

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.

The topic for position paper 4 is quite interesting because as a counselor-to-be, we cannot be separated from using assessment in our services. But the question that trigger my mind is basically most of the assessment are from America and based on their norms. Before I elaborate deeply about this issue, I would like to clarify the meaning of assessment by my understanding. Assessment is something that people use to measure the successful or the failure of one’s program and intervention. In every field, the person or researcher used varied of method to collect data, and lastly they need assessment to evaluate their performance and result.
Thus, back to the topic, I do agree that most of the assessment instruments in the market were made based on American culture and norms. If we explore internet, library, laboratory and so on we can find many assessment created and produced by American people. Sometimes, the people are not local but they contribute their thought by working at America. So the property and all creation were registered under America names. Besides, mostly assessment are based on American culture not other culture whereas there are many other culture at America.
But why they focused the assessment based on America? Researchers tend to focus on one large, developed community which is American people that involve and create many problems as they have diverse culture. So they make experiment and research at school, public places and so on. When they get the result, they implement it and publish the new result in journal, news and book. They produce and sell the assessment. It is not just ordinary assessment but the standardized one. People from all over the world use it in their services because they do not create the assessment. They just take it for granted. They can just buy it in the internet by browsing any assessment website. Sometimes, we can get it without any charge. The example of assessment like career questionnaire and so on. Besides, America is quite brilliant when they accept foreigners about 50,000 people to work in their country. Without us realizing, they make it as brain drain. So, if they want to make any experiment, they will use American people since they are in America and it suits their culture.
Then, I am a bit disagree that as a Muslim, we cannot use the standardized assessment. As for me as long as it do not contradict with Islamic teaching, we can use it. But first of all, before the counselor want to do any assessment to their client. He or she must browse and check the content. It is because counselor must see each question to make sure that there will be no sensitive issues like religion, culture and so on. In America, their religion is Christianity so we have to change it a bit because majority of our people in Malaysia are Muslim. So, we have to be alert of it.
Then, in order the change the assessment. We cannot change it and make it like our own. We must follow the procedure. As being discussed in the class that we must seek the authorization from the owner to change maybe one or two question to suit our Malaysian culture. As Malaysia is a multicultural country, the other races sensitivity will also be included. After that, we can use it to our clients.
As a conclusion, Muslim counselor can still use the standardized assessment as long as it is not contradict with our culture and religion.