A Simple Guide to Tests and Assessments: A Resource for School Counselors and Other School Professionals
By Dr. Alisha Lawrence and Dr. Joetta Kelly
Back story: What sparked the birth of this text was an idea that we wanted to update our School Counseling 540 Tests & Assessments course. We could not find a text that would meet the objectives for the course that was more appropriate for school counselors. Instead of continuing to search for a different text, we wrote our own. We conducted research on the school counselors' role in assessment, and we wrote our article to reflect that research. Both our text and article are current reflections of how to navigate conversations about assessment with school counselors and other educators who may or may not be serving in the classroom or as the assessment coordinator for their school. Our students used our text for this course this past summer, and we plan to continue with our text for this course in upcoming terms. We are honored to have partnered on this adventure together.
We were also able to share some excerpts from our text at the 2026 Kentucky School Counselor Association Conference this past September in our session "Illuminate Assessment." We shared resources with P-12 School Counselors on meeting student needs discovered in assessment delivery and analysis, and more specifically related to college and career readiness. It was truly an honor to speak at this conference. We saw many of our former and current school counseling students, some of whom attended our session. While at the conference, we were told by one of our students that our text was a top seller on Amazon, which we absolutely loved to hear. Today, there are no more copies in stock, but future readers can purchase it through Kendall Hunt until more copies are available on Amazon.
We are also working with the Taylor County Public Library to host an upcoming book talk around our text with local educators and home-school parents.
Text Location for ordering
Order A Simple Guide to Tests & Assessments through Kendall Hunt (has ebook and print)
Book Citation
Lawrence, E.B. & Kelly, J.H. (2026). A Simple Guide to Tests & Assessments: A Resource for School Counselors & Other School Professionals. Innovative Ink.
Linked In Post on Book
Amazon has the book only in print (currently this item is sold out), but there are links to follow us, the authors, on Amazon as well
A Simple Guide to Tests AND Assessments: A Resource for School Counselors AND Other School Professionals: Elisha Belcher Lawrence, Joetta Harlow Kelly: 9798319729712: Amazon.com: Books
Below is a link to our published article on assessment in relation to school counseling:
Article Citation
Lawrence, E. & Kelly, J. H. (2026). The Counselors' Role in Assessment: A Qualitative Study of Current School Counselors and Their Responsibilities with Assessment. Journal of Advances in Education, 2(1), 63-72. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.20562471