Abstract

Psychological tests are important parts of counseling process. The purpose of this study is to investigate which tests are used by the youth counselors and how often that are used. For this, I visited and investigated 16 local youth counseling centers and interviewed with 42 counselors. Generally, the youth counseling centers used, by average, 8-9 kinds of the test. And MBTI, MMTIC, aptitude test, MMPI, career-interest test, K-WAIS or KEDI-WISC, and learning-skill test are most often used. In individual counseling, counselors used frequently MBTI or MMTIC, sentence completion test, MMPI, career-aptitude test, drawing test, intelligence test and learning-skill test. Tests play a role not only as a tool to understand clients but also as a bridge to build relationships between a counselor and a client. So, we need to consider the relationship building between the counselor and the client as well as the effectiveness when we develop a new test. 88% of counselors acknowledged the usefulness of the psychological tests, from which they could gee objective and effective data for diagnoses. They pointed out, however, the weaknesses of the tests such as difficulties in executing or analyzing, and obsoleteness. Counselors prefer the easy and less offensive tests. Counselors were educated for MBTI, intelligence test, and drawing test. And only 17% of them took supervision for the tests. The length they took for learning the tests had a significant correlation with frequency and diversity of the tests used. Counselors point out the absence of the education for applying the tests for counseling, and the nonsystematic curriculum. And they need the education system for using the test in counseling and for making a link between the two. The purpose of the tests is limited to build a relationships or co understand clients. Meanwhile, the expertise and considerations in executing and analyzing the tests are in some cases neglected, which are needed.