Assessment in school counseling can occur in the classroom, in conversation with the student, or by observation, and can provide a holistic profile. This describes which approach?

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In school counseling, informal assessment is about gathering information through everyday, natural interactions and observations. It happens in places like the classroom, during conversations with the student, or by watching how the student behaves and engages over time. Because it’s flexible and ongoing, it helps the counselor build a holistic profile that reflects the student’s strengths, needs, and progress across different contexts, not just in a single moment or test score.

Formal assessment, in contrast, uses standardized instruments with fixed procedures and scoring. Standardized testing is a subset of formal assessment designed to yield norm-referenced or criterion-referenced results under controlled conditions. Summative assessment refers to evaluating learning or progress at the end of an instructional period. These approaches don’t inherently provide the same naturalistic, context-rich picture that comes from informal assessment.