COMPUTER:  CD-ROM:  Windows (486/66 Minimum) or Macintosh (68040 or higher)
                         Specifications:  Memory-16MB Minimum, 32 MB Recommended
                                                Monitor-VGA 256 Color

SPECIFIC FEATURES:  The CareerScope Interest Inventory assesses the user's interest in careers that correlate to the U.S. Department of Labor's Interest Areas which include:
 

Artistic	Accommodating	Industrial
Plants/Animals	Lead/Influence	Selling
Mechanical	Scientific	Humanitarian
Business Detail	Protective	Physical Performing

The CareerScope Aptitude Assessment measures the user's aptitudes which include:
 

General Learning Ability	Spatial Aptitude	Motor Coordination
Verbal Aptitude	Form Perception	Finger Dexterity
Numerical Aptitude	Clerical Perception	Manual Dexterity

DESCRIPTION:  The CareerScope program includes two primary assessment components, the "CareerScope Interest Inventory" and the "Aptitude Assessment." Also included is a  "Mouse Practice" program which provides students an opportunity to improve their mouse skills prior to the aptitude testing.  The "CareerScope Management System" provides an Assessment Profile which documents, analyzes, and graphs the interest inventory responses into twelve Interest Areas and identifies the strongest areas.  The aptitude portion of the profile reports and graphs the standard and percentile scores and recommends career clusters based on interest and aptitude scores. The profile also includes a section which defines each interest area and aptitude and provides concrete occupational examples and specific job tasks in simple language.  A Counselor's Report provides interest, task, and aptitude scores and a list of the work groups for which the student has qualified.  A third, concise Summary Report is also available.  The career recommendations and reports are based on the standards set by the U.S. Dept. of  Labor.

EVALUATION SUMMARY:  As a teacher and examiner for adult and high school alternative education students, I found the CareerScope assessments to be straightforward and trouble free to administer.  The reports are quick to generate and simple to interpret.  More importantly,  my students found the tests to be easy to understand, interesting to take, realistic, and beneficial to them in their career planning.  After a few minutes of initial instruction, most of my students independently continued through the interest inventory and the nine aptitude tests by using the computer directions. Most students were finished in about one hour.  The only weakness in the program is that a student must me comfortable and confident in using a mouse for some of the aptitude test results to be valid. My younger adults are usually "mouse savvy," but my older adults needed the mouse practice program to improve their skills in order for the motor coordination and dexterity aptitude tests to be accurate.  Teachers should note that the "CareerScope Mouse Practice" is not automatically loaded in the initial installation program, but the instructions are referred to in the Startup Guide (page 7).  Since the computer reports are generated instantly, my students enjoyed reviewing the results and immediately understood the important connection between their interests, aptitudes, and job direction . These comprehensive reports helped them to realize that different combinations of aptitudes are important for particular occupations.  Teachers who find themselves in the role of career guidance counselor without much training, will be quite comfortable with this software program. Careerscope is an excellent career assessment and aptitude measurement reporting tool for adult and alternative educators.