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.”

Assessment can be defined as the procedures used to obtain some information about something. Assessment can be done in various ways or methods. In counseling, assessment is needed as it can give benefit to client and counselor as well. It is a tool that can be made for exploring one’s personality, strength, ability, feedback and values. It is also for improving the services provided by the counseling unit itself. Assessment inventories consist of a set of questions that are used to highlight individual’s interests, attitudes, values and style. The examples of assessment can be seen in a questionnaire on personality test, ability test, emotional intelligence test, motivation test and many more. These tests originally created by the psychologists in Western society about many decades ago. The dilemma now is, are the assessment instrument developed by American psychologist is suitable to be used in our culture as a Muslim? In my point of view, I strongly believe that Muslim counselors should not use standardized assessment instrument because it is totally differ from our own culture and some of the content might be irrelevant to be applied in our cultures and norms.


As the differences between American culture and Muslim culture are quite contradict in terms of values, the assessment developed by American psychologist become arguable nowadays. Muslim counselor should not use the instrument as the content is not suitable with the norms of Muslim society. The instruments were made based on the lifestyle or values of the American, where certain values or beliefs that they saw or practice as fine, might not acceptable in Muslim culture. Furthermore, the religious value also totally difference from what American believes in their religion. The instruments were made totally not based on the religion, but it is made in sense of belief, lifestyle and values in their perspectives. However, in Muslim culture, everything must be done according to religion, Islam and must be based or referred to the Al-Quran and As-Sunnah, the guidance for Muslim. Islam is a way of life. So, the instrument made by American psychologist that does not consider the religion at all cannot be used by Muslim counselor because it might hurt sensitivity of others Muslim.


However, it also can be said that standardized assessment instrument in counseling should also be referred by Muslim counselors and it should not be banned hundred percent. This is because the originality of the instrument comes from American psychologist. Since us as a Muslim cannot accept certain criteria in the instrument, the Muslim counselor should reflect and develop new assessment instruments that are acceptable in Muslim point of view. American instrument can be referred as useful references to develop a new instrument that would be much relevant for Muslim and its society. For example, there are many assessment instruments that had developed by Muslim counselor such as TAJMA e-Psybermatrix, whereby it is a new assessment that contains three psychological profiles, namely Personality Profiles, Career Profiles and Stress Profiles. Such a good effort is very important in developing the counseling field for Muslim society.


So, as the conclusion, I can say that standardized assessment instrument made by American can be used only as a reference, but not utilize the entire content of the instrument.

HARTINI BINTI ABU BAKAR
0720842