Assessment, Evidence-Guided Practice, and Practice Evaluation 65 to a questionnaire should complement—not take the place of—information collected through interview and observation. The process of goal attainment and task achievement scaling is quite straight- forward. However, many clients’ situations are messy and complex. Therefore, it can be difficult to objectively and clearly delineate indicators of goal attainment and task achievement and their alternatives. Teaching Methods and Skills Assessment as a Process and Product In chapters 6 and 7, we introduce to students and describe in detail the skills needed to elicit needed information from clients to develop an assessment that will guide their work. When discussing the content from chapter 5, instructors should focus on this critical point and its implications: the product (what needs to be done and how to do it) is only as good as the process (the skills used to engage clients in a working relationship and elicit needed information from them). Beginning with the example provided in this chapter of LeAnne and her worker, Barb, use a brief lecture format to introduce students to inferential rea- soning and the differences between and importance of deductive and inductive reasoning. You can then move into a discussion that integrates students’ learn- ing with their practice, as follows: 1. Present students with a hypothetical scenario, as in the text, and portray differ- ent verbal and nonverbal behaviors. Ask students what their assessment (i.e., their interpretation) is of what their “client” is saying, thinking, and feeling. For example, the setting is an outpatient drug treatment program, and the client (the instructor) is seeking treatment at the urging of his partner, who believes that he has a problem with alcohol. In each portrayal, the “client” might use the same words but convey very different messages nonverbally. After each portrayal (we recommend that each be no longer than five minutes), ask the students what led them to their conclusions and whether their conclusions reflected personal values and experiences, professional judgments, or both. This may lead to an impromptu but very important discussion of the ways in which workers’ personal and cultural values influence judgments and assessments. 2. Ask one or more students to share a case with the class that provides stu- dents with the opportunity to consider “what’s going on.” As in the LeAnne example, ask students what knowledge would help them develop an accu- rate assessment of the client’s case. One of our students brought up a client (a 15-year-old high school student) recently assigned to him whose mother died of a drug overdose. The client had begun acting out in and missing