The Skilled Counselor Training Model: Skills Acquisition,Self‐Assessment,and Cognitive Complexity

The authors evaluated the effectiveness of the Skilled Counselor Training Model (SCTM; M. H. Smaby, C. D. Maddux, E. Torres‐Rivera, & R. Zimmick, 1999) in teaching counseling skills and in fostering counselor cognitive complexity. Counselor trainees who completed the SCTM had better counseling skills and higher levels of cognitive complexity than did counselor trainees who did not receive the training. Before training, both experimental and control group participants overestimated their skills performance. The control group persisted in this overestimation after training, whereas students who completed the SCTM had a much more accurate self‐assessment. Results suggest that skills‐based training may improve counseling skills and cognitive complexity in counselor trainees.     

Using Markov Chain Analyses in Counselor Education Research

This study examined the efficacy of an infrequently used statistical analysis in counselor education research. A Markov chain analysis was used to examine hypothesized differences between students' use of counseling skills in an introductory course. Thirty graduate students participated in the study. Independent raters identified the microskills students used and the effectiveness of participants' counseling sessions. Significant differences were found in the counseling processes of students who were rated as effective and ineffective using a Markov chain analysis. Implications for future research using Markovian analyses in counselor education research are explored.     

Conflicts in Counselor Preparation and Professional Practice: An Analysis

The sharp contrast between counselor preparation and professional practice is one of the most perplexing problems in the counseling profession. Most counselor preparation programs attempt to help prospective counselors acquire the skills, the attitude, and the commitment necessary to be helping persons. Too often, however, when the counselor takes a job in a school, he is unable to establish and maintain his helping position. Further, his effectiveness as a helping person may in fact diminish with time on the job. Some possible reasons for this condition include: (a) lack of a systematic approach, (b) regression to attitudes and concerns held prior to entering the profession, (c) conflict between needs of students and institutional demands, and (d) the tendency to set unattainable goals. These conditions contain several implications for the profession and suggest a reexamination of traditional emphases in counselor preparation.     

Sex Role Orientation and Self-Disclosure Flexibility in Counselor Training

Several studies have suggested that counselor response effectiveness may not be merely a function of instruction in basic counseling skills. This study examined the impact of the sex role orientation and level of self-disclosure flexibility of 44 counseling students on their ability to demonstrate counseling skills and their overall counseling response effectiveness during and after counseling skills training. Using a factorial analysis, sex role orientation and level of self-disclosure flexibility accounted for approximately 30% of the variance in quality of counseling skills. These findings lend support to the importance of trainee perceptual, cognitive, and behavioral flexibility in the acquisition and use of counseling skills. Suggestions for altering counseling skills training and further research are provided.     

Using the Workshop in Consultation Training

Although graduate students should be trained in consulting as well as counseling skills, not all counselor education programs systematically teach such consultation skills. Counselor trainees need to practice and implement those skills in laboratory as well as field settings. Workshops have been used successfully to teach oral delivery consultation skills in a counselor training program. In this article, the workshop is offered as a training tool in consultation skills. The use and purposes of workshops are presented, and procedures are demonstrated regarding the use of workshops within counselor education courses. Benefits to counselor trainees are discussed.     

Considerations and Strategies for Teaching Online Counseling Skills: Establishing Relationships in Cyberspace

As technology advances and the use of online counseling becomes more routine, attention must be paid to instruction regarding online counseling skills. The authors present considerations for teaching basic online counseling skills to master's‐level counseling students. Recommendations are made for helping students to establish and maintain therapeutic relationships online. Suggestions specific to counselor preparation and future research are provided.     

Skills‐Based Training and Counseling Self‐Efficacy

The authors studied the effectiveness of the skilled counselor training model (SCTM). Counseling students who completed the SCTM demonstrated greater gains in skills acquisition and counseling self‐efficacy than counseling students who did not receive the training. At pretest, the counseling students in both groups, doing self‐appraisals, rated their performance of counseling skills significantly higher than trained raters assessed the students' performance of counseling skills. At posttest, members of the control group continued to overestimate their skills levels when compared with the ratings given by the trained raters, whereas, in comparison, students who received SCTM training underestimated their performance.     

The Relationship of Counselor Self-Disclosure to Counselor Effectiveness

Counselor self-disclosure was investigated as a dimension of counselor effectiveness with a sample of forty-one graduate students in a counseling and guidance practicum. Effectiveness was measured by ratings from clients and practicum supervisors. Clients rated the counselors in three aspects of the counseling interview and supervisors rated counselors in eight areas. Counselor self-disclosure scores were correlated significantly with all the criterion scores of counselor effectiveness (p <. 05). It was suggested that the concept of psychological disclosure may have important implications for counselor selection and training.     

Constructive Development and Counselor Competence

Developmental predictors of students' ability to learn counseling skills would help counselor educators select candidates and assist admitted students in their learning. The present research examined the relationship between adult development, as measured by the Learning Environment Preferences test (W. S. Moore, 1989) and the Defining Issues Test (J. Rest, D. Narvaez, M. J. Bebeau, & S. J. Thoma, 1999), and counseling skills performance, as rated by faculty experts using the Counseling Skills Scale (K. P. Eriksen & G. J. McAuliffe, 2003). Data indicate that adult moral development contributed to 18% of the variance in students' counseling skills performance.     

Applying Cultura in the Community College Counseling Practice

Latino students represent the fastest-growing population in the state of California, the United States, and the California Community College (CCC) system. Unfortunately, compared to other ethnic groups, Latino community college students continue to lag academically. Given the importance of counseling services and the scarce research related to community college students and community college counseling services, this study explored how 26 first-generation, low-income, Latino community college students perceived, negotiated, and developed a relationship with their community college counselor. Using a qualitative grounded theory research design, participants’ counseling experiences were captured through face-to-face semistructured in-depth interviews, and a theoretical model was developed. This study extended the literature on the importance of community college counseling services in assisting and motivating students to reach transfer and graduation and emphasized students’ positive and negative counseling experiences. The research findings suggest a need to improve community college counseling services. Thus, based on the research findings and other published research, this study proposes a set of the following: (a) guidelines for applying cultura (culture) to community college counseling that can assist relationship building between students and counselors; (b) questions that can be included in students’ evaluation of counselors; (c) counselor interview questions that may elicit behavioral response and assess cultural competence; and (d) community college students’ preferred counselor characteristics that may be used by hiring committees.     

Preservice Occupational Information and Vocational Guidance Curriculum: An Evaluation

This study was designed to identify the areas of strength and weakness in the occupational information and vocational guidance preservice counselor education curriculum. Interviews were conducted with 197 counselors and 21 counselor educators concerning the extent of coverage actually and ideally devoted to 22 content areas. Arranging the ratings for the 22 content areas from highest to lowest suggests a hierarchial emphasis for these topics in curriculum planning. In addition, within group and between group comparisons provide bases for discerning the types of curriculum that are seen as most advantageous by both counseling practitioners and counseling professors.     

Disability and Counselor Education

Mainstreaming legislation is an impetus for social change in relation to treatment of individuals with disabilities. This change requires that counselor educators include content areas related to aspects of disability to prepare counselors to serve clients with disabilities. The author makes recommendations for curricular change for experiential and didactic training to increase a counselor trainee's sensitivity, skills, and knowledge regarding disability. Also, counselor educators are urged to team trainees from school and rehabilitation counseling training programs so that these professionals can work cooperatively for the benefit of the client with a disability.     

Moral Development and Empathy in Counseling

Of interest to counselor educators are variables associated with helper empathy. The authors investigated the relationship between empathy and moral development. Students enrolled in a facilitative skills development course completed a measure of moral development before making their first counseling audiotape. After approximately 12 weeks of skills training, they were subsequently rated for their demonstration of empathic understanding to client statements on an analog videotape and on a counseling audiotape made for their course evaluation. Empathy ratings of their responses to the analog videotape correlated .61 (p < .001) with moral development scores and .35 (p < .05) with supervisory empathy ratings of their final audiotape and moral development scores. Implications for counselor education are discussed.     

Investigating the Effects of Computerized Approaches to Counselor Training

This article begins with a discussion of issues related to evaluating the acceptance and effectiveness of computerized approaches to counselor training. In view of the paucity of research on the use of computers in counselor training, the discussion focuses on the relationship between what is known about computer-assisted counseling systems and comparable uses envisioned in counselor training. After discussing the need to evaluate the extent to which both students and educators accept the use of computers in training, the article examines computerized approaches in light of what Loganbill, Hardy, and Delworth (1982) indicate are three fundamental tasks of counselor training; to help students (a) to obtain pertinent knowledge and factual information, (b) to increase their self-awareness, and (c) to develop skills. The article concludes with a discussion of several research opportunities that are made possible by computer applications to counselor training.     

Using the Multimodal Approach as a Framework for Eclectic Counselor Education

This article shows how counselor educators may use the multimodal approach of Lazarus to provide students with a conceptual framework for integrating and evaluating the various counseling theories and making systematic choices about appropriate interventions for their clients.     

The Locke paradigm of cross cultural counseling

Summary To meet the needs of culturally different populations, culturally consistent assessment, evaluation, and treatment skills, as well as theoretical content must be understood by those working with these populations. The Locke Paradigm of Cross Cultural Counseling offers a framework for such action. While the paradigm does not specifically address counseling skills, the knowledge one gains from a study of a subculture is the foundation upon which a counselor builds the relationship with a client from a culturally different population. Effective counseling can only occur when the counselor has knowledge of both counseling theory and of the particular culture of the client.     

Sex-Role Orientation Research: Review and Implications for Counselor Education

A review of sex-role orientation research reveals two areas of particular importance for counselor educators: interpersonal behaviors and cognitive processing. Persons with androgynous, masculine, and feminine sex-role orientations have been found to differ in their interpersonal competence and their cognitive processing of perceptions of self and others. In both areas, research points to persons with androgynous sex-role orientations as being more flexible, self-assured, adaptive, accepting, and competent in interpersonal interactions than persons with more masculine or feminine orientations. Because counseling is a complex interpersonal process, these conclusions suggest a preference for an androgynous counselor. Implications for the impact of sex-role orientation on the dynamics of the counseling relationship and the counseling process are explored. Studies supporting the efficacy of “training” for androgyny, and those offering some evidence for the androgynous counselor as the more competent facilitator of positive change in clients are reviewed. Research questions are proposed to specifically assess the relationship of sex-role orientation and the acquisition and performance of counseling skills.     

Preparing School Counselors to Work With Students With Disabilities

Recent literature has demonstrated increasing roles for school counselors who work with students with disabilities, but it has also suggested that school counselors are not being adequately prepared to work with these students. In this research study, the authors investigated current courses and experiences focusing on disabilities offered in school counselor education programs. Results from the 137 participants suggest that school counselor education programs are incorporating more disability content into their training programs than they were in the past. Some disability content areas are included significantly more frequently in disability courses than in counseling program courses. Conclusions and implications are discussed.     

Peer Counseling in Colleges and Universities:

Peer counseling owes its beginnings to the paraprofessional movement of the '60s. During the last fifteen years, there has been a growing acceptance of peer counseling, particularly on college campuses. It can be defined as the active use of listening and problem-solving skills together with knowledge about growth and development by students in order to help, advise, and counsel other students. The peer counselor assists other students by clarifying thoughts and feelings, be exploring options, or providing needed information. The use of nonprofessionals in counseling roles has a systematic research history in the literature. Further, there is evidence that preparation for the role and reflection on experience as a peer counselor can be a powerful and enabling factor in individual and group development; through providing service to others, students exercise altruism and learn interdependence in the process of individuation. Recommendations are made for program structure, function, and evaluation; it is suggested that peer counseling programs fit well into a matrix of interventions aimed at assisting student development in a learning environment conductive to growth and developmental needs.