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How good are you at collecting and managing information? How much do you think you鈥檇 enjoy a job where you teach an exercise routine, or raise fish in a hatchery? Can you complete this exercise that asks you to recognize patterns in groups of numbers? Now, try this one, which asks you to figure out which in a series of pictures go together.

These questions or tasks might sound like the sort of things you鈥檇 be asked to address or do as part of a job interview, not as a middle or high school student. But that鈥檚 part of the point behind a proliferating breed of career-interest inventories, self-assessments, and aptitude tests that school districts are using to help steer students to a future vocation.

More than 17,000 schools use YouScience, a commercial aptitude assessment that seeks to gauge a test taker鈥檚 skill in areas like idea generation and spatial awareness. The DeBruce Foundation has created Agile Work Profiler, a free interest inventory used primarily by districts in the Kansas City, Mo., area. And many states鈥攊ncluding Ohio and Nebraska鈥� offer free, online versions of the assessments.

Recently, Tennessee passed a law requiring districts to provide middle schoolers and 9th graders with free interest inventories, such as the Kuder assessment, the Myers-Briggs personality test, and the College Board Career Finder. The results can be used to inform the student鈥檚 study plan for high school, an approach championed by many educators, but questioned by others, who worry it could be used to track students into specific careers too early in their lives.

It鈥檚 hard to pinpoint just how many districts or schools are using self-assessments or skills inventories to help give students career guidance, experts say. But Emily Passias, the director of the Education Strategy Group, a consulting organization that works with states and districts on career and technical education policies, said that, anecdotally, she鈥檚 noticed an uptick lately.

As schools focus on preparing students for the workforce, 鈥渄istricts are certainly looking for ways to help students figure out what they are interested in,鈥� she said. 鈥淭here鈥檚 a booming business around providing these types of services.鈥�

Many educators are fans of the tools, including Susan Browning, the assistant superintendent for teaching and learning for the Paulding school district in suburban Atlanta, which has used YouScience for at least five years.

Paulding students take a shortened version of the test in 7th grade to help decide which of 17 career pathways offered by the district to pursue, including health care, culinary arts, computer science, and business and finance. (Students are permitted to switch pathways during their high school career.) They take an expanded version in 10th grade, as they begin to research postsecondary options.

The assessment had a profound impact on one student, Browning recalled, who came from a family of police officers and always assumed that she would pursue a career as a cop. YouScience, however, told her she had a great aptitude for engineering. She got excited about that alternative career path, began taking advanced math courses that she previously hadn鈥檛 considered, then went on to study engineering in college.

鈥淚t changed her entire trajectory because she never thought of herself鈥� that way, Browning recalled. She said students take the assessment and realize, 鈥淚 now know that I can be good at something that I thought I wasn鈥檛 good at before.鈥�

But Passias cautioned that the assessments should never substitute for a more comprehensive, deep approach to career exploration and counseling.

They should be just 鈥渙ne tool in the toolbox. They are not a replacement for work-based learning鈥� and other, more hands-on opportunities that help students figure out whether they are suited to a particular career path, she said. Experiences like internships or job-shadowing will 鈥渉elp students see what the world actually looks like, rather than just taking a quiz.鈥�

Kyle Hartung, the associate vice president of Jobs for the Future, a nonprofit that concentrates on education and workforce alignment, agreed.

Schools need to give students exposure to work-based learning opportunities, he said, rather than just allowing the 鈥渋ll-formed mind at 13 [to say], I want to be x and all of a sudden you just push them into that without having a chance to test out different鈥� possibilities, Hartung said.

How You Think

For instance, some students, Hartung said, may think they want to work in health care until they do a micro-internship at a hospital and learn what it鈥檚 really like to draw blood or do other tasks. YouScience, the program that the Paulding district uses, asks test takers to perform a series of tasks to determine their aptitude in areas like spatial visualization, idea generation, work approach, vocabulary, and inductive reasoning. Test takers might look at long pairs of numbers and mark those that are alike and those that are different.

After completing the assessment, students have increased confidence in their ability to make career decisions, according to post- and pre-test data, said Armando Garza, the senior vice-president for-sales and marketing at YouScience, a for-profit company.

The test doesn鈥檛 ask academic questions like the SAT or ACT does, Garza said.

鈥淚t鈥檚 really around how do you think,鈥� he explained. He thinks YouScience has a leg up on other types of career assessments that rely primarily on a students鈥� own evaluation of their skills. 鈥淲e are actually using performance-based metrics, psychometrically assessing your true ability.鈥�

That鈥檚 because students might not have a good sense of what their strengths and weaknesses are.

鈥淎t 16, I thought I could do anything,鈥� Garza said.

Having an objective gauge of students鈥� skills is a huge plus for Jennie LaMothe, who works as the director of school-based services for NaviGo College and Career Prep Services, a division of the Learning Grove, a nonprofit in Covington, Ky., that offers career-counseling services to nearby school districts.

Some of the kids who take YouScience 鈥渁ren鈥檛 high-performing academic students,鈥� she said. 鈥淭hey take this and they鈥檙e like, I鈥檓 awesome at XYZ.鈥�

More Than 鈥楥hocolate and Vanilla鈥�

Another option that aims to help give students some career direction: the Agile Work Profiler, which was created in 2018 by the DeBruce Foundation, a Kansas City, Mo.-based organization that concentrates on workforce-readiness issues.

The tool measures test takers鈥� skill in 10 areas based on their own perceptions of their abilities, including developing others, innovating, inspecting, judging and estimating, managing, operating objects, organizing, selling and communicating, serving and caring, and working with information. Students are then given the chance to explore potential careers that are in demand and match their skills and interests.

The list is wide and varied. And that鈥檚 by design, said Leigh Anne Taylor Knight, the executive director and chief operating officer of the foundation.

Most young people think of the careers that they鈥檝e had broad exposure to鈥攄octor, teacher, construction worker. They鈥檙e less likely to think of in-demand jobs like telecommunications repairer and mechanical engineer, as well as outside-the-box occupations like locksmith or landscape architect.

鈥淜ids are thinking about careers in vanilla and chocolate terms,鈥� Taylor Knight said. 鈥淥pening this up is all about expanding those pathways and helping them see more options that are available in those careers.鈥�

Cindy Schluckebier, a high school teacher in Independence, Mo., whose class consists of helping students from three different high schools run a 鈥渟pirit wear鈥� store, gave the assessment to her students. The students鈥� 鈥渁gilities鈥� helped determine their roles in the store鈥攚hether they would concentrate primarily on design, managing, finance, marketing, or another aspect of the business.

鈥淚t kind of guides them so that we have that strong organizational structure from the beginning,鈥� Shluckebier said.

But she added that she thinks students鈥� strengths may shift over time. A student鈥檚 鈥渁gilities鈥� at age 16 may be different by age 18. 鈥淭he thing is, we鈥檙e human beings. And they are teenagers, for crying out loud,鈥� Shluckebier said.

Experts caution the approach has its limits. Assessments that rely primarily on students鈥� assessment of their own skills may be of minimal help to students who don鈥檛 have a clear idea of their own strengths and weaknesses, Passias said.

鈥淚 think those types of tools really rely on students having a well-developed understanding of what they are good at, what their qualities are,鈥� she said.

She would also like to see some evidence that these inventories or assessments improve students鈥� decision making.

鈥淚鈥檒l be interested to see if, after these types of products have been in use for years whether they are connecting students to careers they wouldn鈥檛 have been interested in themselves,鈥� she said.

Her own son, she said, recently took an assessment that pointed him towards a career as a soccer coach鈥攏ot really an outside-the-box suggestion for a kid who is passionate about the sport.

Hartung agreed that the assessments aren鈥檛 sufficient on their own. They are just, 鈥渙ne small star in a constellation of things we need to do to help people understand who they are going to be in their working life.鈥�