NCE-ABE Exam Dumps - National Counselor Examination

In Donald Super’s career development theory, career maturity refers to a person’s readiness to successfully complete the career-related tasks appropriate to their developmental stage. This includes:

Making realistic career decisions at that stage.

Possessing attitudes and competencies needed for age-appropriate career exploration and choices.

Thus, career maturity (C) is the concept that explicitly focuses on completion of appropriate tasks at each developmental stage.

A. Self-efficacy refers to belief in one’s ability to perform tasks, but it is a broader construct (Bandura), not specific to Super’s framework.

B. Maintenance is one of Super’s life-span stages (maintaining one’s career status), not the overarching concept of task readiness.

D. Crystallization is a sub-stage where a person begins to clarify and firm up a vocational preference, but it is only one part of the broader picture.

In the NBCC Counselor Work Behavior Areas, understanding career development theories and tasks across the lifespan is a core clinical focus for career counseling.

A work sample is a screening or assessment technique in which an applicant is asked to perform a task that closely resembles an actual job duty. In this case, writing a response to a commonly encountered situation in that counseling setting simulates the type of clinical writing, judgment, and communication the job requires.

Thus, C. A work sample is the correct term.

Why the other options are incorrect:

A. Structured interview involves a standardized set of interview questions asked face-to-face or virtually, not a written job-task simulation.

B. Content analysis is a research or evaluation method used to analyze written, verbal, or media material, not the name of a screening tool itself.

D. Role-play would involve acting out the situation, usually live or via video, rather than writing a response.

Knowledge of different assessment and screening methods, including work samples, fits within Intake, Assessment and Diagnosis competencies, since counselors must understand assessment strategies used in both clinical and organizational contexts.

The term “outsider witness groups” comes specifically from narrative therapy. In this approach, clients tell and re-author their stories, and selected others (outsider witnesses) listen to these stories and then respond by sharing what moved or resonated with them. This process:

Brings in social resources and supportive witnesses.

Strengthens the client’s preferred identity and alternative story.

Helps the client feel seen and supported in a broader community context.

Thus, option D. Narrative therapy is correct.

Adlerian therapy (A) uses family constellation, early recollections, and encouragement, but not outsider witness groups as a standard technique.

Gestalt therapy (B) emphasizes experiential awareness, here-and-now work, and empty-chair techniques.

Community psychology (C) incorporates social systems and resources but does not specifically use “outsider witness groups” as conceptualized in narrative therapy.

NBCC Counselor Work Behaviors expect counselors to know the distinctive concepts and methods of major counseling theories, including narrative therapy’s use of outsider witnesses to support client change.

In counseling assessment, informal observation refers to the counselor naturally noticing client behaviors in real situations without using a standardized procedure, rating scale, or structured task.

D is the best example: the counselor notices each time a client stutters during family visitation. This is a naturalistic, unstructured observation made during a typical interaction.

Why the others are not informal observations by the counselor:

A. Determining if a client can act out written instructions involves setting up a deliberate, structured task, closer to a formal or planned observational assessment.

B. Offering a handshake is a counselor behavior, not an observation. While the counselor could observe the client’s response, the option itself does not describe an observation.

C. Asking the client to keep a tally of nonverbal tics is self-monitoring, where the client—not the counselor—is doing the observing and recording.

The NBCC Counselor Work Behavior Areas emphasize that counselors must be skilled in both formal and informal observational methods as part of Intake, Assessment and Diagnosis, using what they notice in session to inform conceptualization and treatment.

Behavioral approaches are grounded in the assumption that most human behavior, including maladaptive behavior, is learned through principles such as conditioning, reinforcement, modeling, and environmental contingencies. From this perspective:

Problem behaviors are acquired in the same way as other behaviors (through learning).

Therefore, they can be modified or unlearned using the same learning principles.

Option B directly reflects this core assumption.

A is inaccurate because behavior therapy typically focuses directly on observable behavior, not on uncovering deep “underlying causes” in a psychodynamic sense.

C is the opposite of what behavior therapy proposes; behavior therapy is built on the idea that learning principles are effective in changing behavior.

D is incorrect because behavior therapy uses many techniques (e.g., exposure, systematic desensitization, skills training, reinforcement strategies) tailored to specific problems and clients.

Understanding major theoretical orientations, including behavior therapy and how they conceptualize the development and modification of maladaptive behaviors, is part of the Areas of Clinical Focus within the Counselor Work Behavior Areas.