Page 285 - DEDU502_GUIDANCE_AND_COUNSELING_ENGLISH

Unit 26: Testing and Non-Testing Techniques: Psychological Tests

could be systematic or unsystematic, it could concern only the individual’s major events in life, it Notes
could be a trenchant defense of certain actions (for instance, Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kempf), it could be
in the nature of a confession (for instance, Confessions of St Augustine, The Confessions of a Thug,
etc.) or it could be a self-analytical account (Gandhi’s My Experiments with Truth). The major difficulty
with unstructured autobiographies is the relative emphasis they place on different themes. They
may contain irrelevant material which may fail to provide information to specific questions. The
structured autobiographies are asked to be written along a suggested outline consisting of topics
such as (1) my family, (2) my childhood, (3) my years before school, (4) my years in the elementary
school, (5) places I have lived, (6) trips I have taken. (7) how I spend my time every day. (8) my
experiences in the high school, (9) my teachers and my class fellows, (10) the newspapers I read, (11)
the books I like, (12) my interests, (13) my ambitions and aspirations, and so on.
The advantage of this structured autobiography is obvious. It is designed to provide answers to
specific questions posed by the counsellor.
Autobiographies are also categorized according to the comprehensiveness or the topicalness or
limitedness of their contents (Annis, 1967). Combining the two dimensions we could have four
types of autobiographies, namely (1) structured comprehensive, (2) structured topical, (3) unstructured
topical and (4) unstructured comprehensive. In interpreting autobiographies the counsellor looks
for (1) the client’s willingness to reveal himself, (2) his self-insight and self-understanding, (3) his
ability to understand the content of the topic and (4) his ability to communicate. There is a very
important inherent weakness in this technique, namely, it is very subjective and the real magnitude
of each problem is not known—whether the writer has exaggerated anything or whether he has
tried to under-estimate its importance.
Baldwin (1942) has suggested a personal-structure analysis technique to obtain a quantitative analysis
of autobiographies. For example, he looks for the frequency with which a particular item appears.
This is indicative of its importance. The second is contiguity of two items and their frequency of
appearance. Dollard and Mowrer (1947) have developed a discomfort-relief coefficient to assess
tension changes applicable to autobiography. Notwithstanding the research efforts made so far, it is
safe to conclude that there is no fool-proof analysis and interpretation of autobiographies.
The chief defects of autobiography are : (1) the difficulty in determining the consistency and
authenticity of the data and (2) the lack of any criterion for evaluating the subject’s internal attitudes
and feelings concerning the important events in his life.
The defects, therefore, limit the use of autobiographies in counseling practice.
26.2.2 Anecdotal Records

The recorded observations usually made by teachers are called anecdotal records. This technique
assists in the understanding of each student better.
Froehlich and Hoyt (1959) define anecdotal records as follows: “An anecdotal record consists of an
objective description of pupil behaviour in a particular environmental setting, an interpretation of
the behaviour by the observer writing the description, and a recommendation for future action
based on the incident and its interpretation”.
According to Prescott (1957), the characteristics of a good anecdote are :
1. It gives the date, place, and situation in which the action occurred. This is called the setting.
2. It describes the actions of the individual (pupil/child), the reactions of the other people involved
and the responses of the former to these reactions.
3. It quotes what is said to the individual and by the individual during the action.
4. It states ‘mood cues’—postures, gestures, voice qualities, and facial expressions—which serve
as cues to help understand how the individual felt. It does not provide interpretations of his
feelings but only the cues by which a reader may judge what they were.

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