Praxis School Counselor Online Center
This Praxis School Counselor Online Center brings together practice, lessons, worksheets, flashcards and review tools. Choose the resource that matches the skill you want to work on next.
Praxis School Counselor Practice Center
Take a full 120-minute form, then read the explanation under every question you missed. Deliver is forty percent of this test on its own, so if that block is weak it outranks everything else you could study.
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Praxis School Counselor at a glance
The most useful thing to know about this test is that it is organized on the ASCA National Model rather than on the counseling topics you might expect. Its four categories are Define, Deliver, Manage, and Assess, and if those four words do not yet mean something specific to you, that is the first thing to fix. Deliver alone is forty percent. Note also that ETS now titles this simply School Counselor; the older Professional School Counselor wording survives mainly in state documents.
| Test code | 5422 (School Counselor). ETS dropped Professional from the title; the older name is still used in some state documents. |
|---|---|
| Status | Current. 5422 is itself the successor to the retired 5421. |
| Number of questions | 120 selected-response questions. Some ask you to select more than one answer choice. There is no constructed response. |
| Time limit | 2 hours |
| Format | Computer-delivered |
| Score scale | 100 to 200 |
| Passing score | ETS does not set one. Each state sets its own qualifying score. |
| What it is built on | The ASCA National Model. ETS also names the ASCA Mindsets and Behaviors for Student Success, the ASCA Ethical Standards for School Counselors, and the ASCA School Counselor Professional Standards and Competencies. |
ETS publishes counts and percentages for all four categories: Deliver 48 questions and 40 percent, Define 30 and 25 percent, Manage 24 and 20 percent, and Assess 18 and 15 percent. Deliver is worth as much as Manage and Assess combined, and it is the category about actually working with students.
The four categories, in plain language
ETS follows the ASCA National Model. Here is what each part asks of you.
Deliver (40 percent, 48 questions)
The work with students, direct and indirect.
- Instruction, appraisal, and advisement
- Individual counseling and its techniques
- Group counseling and its stages
- Crisis response and suicide risk
- Consultation, collaboration, and referral
- College and career readiness
- Supporting students in transition
Define (25 percent, 30 questions)
The role, the development, and the ethics.
- The role of the school counselor and what it is not
- Human growth and development across the school years
- Theories of counseling and how they inform practice
- Ethical standards and the ASCA framework
- Legal issues: confidentiality and its limits, informed consent, minors’ rights, mandated reporting
Manage (20 percent, 24 questions)
Running a program rather than a caseload.
- The annual administrative conference
- Use-of-time analysis
- Advisory councils and calendars
- Action plans, including closing-the-gap plans
- Program planning and stakeholder buy-in
Assess (15 percent, 18 questions)
Showing that the program worked.
- Data collection and analysis
- Participation, mindsets and behaviors, and outcome data
- Program results reports
- School counselor performance appraisal
- Using results to change the program
A study routine for a two-hour test
One minute per question, and forty percent of it is about direct work with students. Learn the ASCA structure first, because it is the scaffolding every other question hangs on.
Complete topic map
Every topic ETS lists under the four ASCA components, weighted the way the test is weighted.
Define (25 percent, about 30 questions)
- 01Advocate for the appropriate role of the school counselor using the practical implications of current literature, research, data, and best practices
- 02Know the benefits of membership in professional organizations for school counselors, for example resources, networking, and insurance
- 03Understand the current ASCA National Model: A Framework for School Counseling Programs
- 04Understand the current ASCA Mindsets & Behaviors for Student Success for academic, career, and social/emotional development
- 05Understand how school counselors create systemic change through their roles as leader, advocate, and collaborator
- 06Understand the difference between school counselor responsibilities and non-school-counselor tasks, for example disciplining, substitute teaching, test coordination, 504 coordination, scheduling, lunch duty, and supervision
- 07Know major theories regarding human development throughout the life span
- 08Know how to use current research to promote holistic student development
- 09Know major theories regarding cognitive development throughout the human life span
- 10Know major theories regarding personality and emotional development throughout the human life span
- 11Know major theories regarding social and character development throughout the human life span
- 12Be familiar with major theories regarding family systems
- 13Understand and apply the current ASCA Ethical Standards for School Counselors, for example confidentiality, families’ rights and responsibilities, and dual relationships
- 14Understand the professional boundaries and the legal, ethical, and school district guidelines pertaining to communication with students, families, and other stakeholders
Deliver (40 percent, about 48 questions)
- 15Know basic methods of analyzing student outcomes
- 16Understand how to appropriately use a variety of technology applications to deliver a school counseling program
- 17Understand the purposes and theories of individual counseling and apply them appropriately
- 18Understand the purposes and theories of group counseling and apply them appropriately
- 19Know the purpose of and apply techniques of educational planning, for example grade-level transition and academic plans
- 20Understand the purposes, theories, and techniques of career and post-secondary awareness, exploration, and planning, and apply those processes for students at each developmental level
- 21Understand and apply techniques and strategies of classroom management and instruction
- 22Understand the purposes and theories and apply techniques of crisis intervention and trauma-informed counseling, for example school-level crises and individual crises
- 23Know the purpose of and apply techniques of peer mediation and conflict resolution
- 24Understand methods for preventing and addressing common student concerns, for example stress, anxiety, substance use and abuse, and bullying
- 25Understand how to select and appropriately implement direct services, for example instruction, small group, and individual services
- 26Understand and respond to the needs of students with various levels of ability, for example physical, emotional, and cognitive
- 27Know the potential impact of cultural, social, and environmental influences, for example sexual orientation, family situations, and substance use and abuse, on student outcomes such as achievement, attendance, and behavior
- 28Be familiar with how to interpret and appropriately use the results of achievement tests and measures of learning
Manage (20 percent, about 24 questions)
- 29Be familiar with how to use technology applications to manage and evaluate school counseling programs
- 30Understand the school counseling program as an integral part of the total educational process
- 31Understand how to design, develop, implement, and evaluate a school counseling program
- 32Know the concepts of validity and reliability as applied to program planning and implementation
- 33Understand the importance of having a school counseling program vision and mission statement
- 34Know the difference between participation data, Mindsets & Behaviors data, and outcome data
- 35Know how to develop annual student outcome goals
- 36Know and identify the components of an annual administrative conference as found in the ASCA Fourth Edition Annual Administrative Conference Template
- 37Know methods of gathering relevant data to assist in selecting appropriate lessons, interventions, and activities
- 38Be familiar with basic principles, interpretation, and psychometrics of measurement, for example trends, stanines, percentile rank, validity, and reliability
Assess (15 percent, about 18 questions)
- 39Know how to assess a school counseling program
- 40Know the goals and methods of evaluating program effectiveness and student outcomes, including achievement, attendance, and behavior or discipline
- 41Know how to use and report data for program improvement, for example results reports, surveys, and needs assessments
- 42Be familiar with the ASCA School Counselor Professional Standards and Competencies Assessment
- 43Understand the reasons for assessing the school counseling program
Before test day
Two things decide most of the hard items. The first is the boundary of the role: a school counselor consults, collaborates, and refers, and does not diagnose or provide ongoing therapy, and the right answer usually respects that line. The second is confidentiality, which is real but not absolute; know exactly when it ends, because that is where the test lives. And on any item about how you spend your week, the model wants most of your time in direct and indirect student services rather than in administrative duties.
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