THE DESIGN OF A MAN‐MACHINE COUNSELLING SYSTEM

Abstract

The information‐processing functions of a school counsellor prior to a student interview were analysed. His decision rules, interview behaviour and reports on students were modelled in an automated interview. During this interview, the computer requests and records courses on which the student has problems, the nature of these problems, which college the student would like to attend, his choice of major, his preferences for further high‐school courses, and any other relevant goals. Advice on the student's choice of college, major and his probable high‐school grades (based on existing records) are provided by the computer. In a comparison study forty students had the automated teletype interview as well as an interview by a human counsellor. The outputs and advice of the automated interviews were comparable with those of the counsellors. Overall preference for either form of interview was not found, although some individuals had definite preferences for one or the other. Later work with a group of eighty‐seven counsellors found they favoured automation of the information‐processing functions of counselling. A systems analysis of the work of fifteen counsellors was then carried out, the counsellors attended workshops in information‐processing technology and design ideas for a counselling system were produced jointly with the researchers. These are reported and future work is outlined.