Academic Criteria,Experiential Background,and Personal Interviews as Predictors of Success in a Counselor Education Program

A 4-year evaluation was conducted of a counselor education trainee selection process that places approximately equal weight on three selection criteria: academic index, experiential background, and personal interviews. Mean faculty rankings were obtained for 77 trainees on three separate evaluative areas: (a) academic success in the program, (b) overall counseling competency in the program, and (c) anticipated success in the field. Results of Pearson product-moment correlational analyses indicated that two selection criteria (Miller's Analogies Test and the Verbal portion of the Graduate Records Examination) were significantly related to faculty-ranked academic success. No single criterion, however, was significantly related with faculty rankings of either counseling competency or anticipated success in the field. The correlation between the Miller's Analogy Test and a measure of “overall success in counselor education” was in the predicted direction but failed to reach the traditional levels of statistical significance (p < .09). Implications for future research and limitations of the study are discussed.     

When Teachers Must Let Education Hurt: Rousseau and Nietzsche on Compassion and the Educational Value of Suffering

Avi Mintz (2008) has recently argued that Anglo-American educators have a tendency to alleviate student suffering in the classroom. According to Mintz, this tendency can be detrimental because certain kinds of suffering actually enhance student learning. While Mintz compellingly describes the effects of educator's desires to alleviate suffering in students, he does not examine one of the roots of the desire: the feeling of compassion or pity (used as synonyms here). Compassion leads many teachers to unreflectively alleviate student struggles. While there are certainly times when compassion is necessary to help students learn, there are other times when it must be overcome. Compassion in the classroom is a two-edged sword that must be carefully employed; and yet it is often assumed that it is an unequivocal good that ought to trump all other impulses. In this article I hope to raise awareness concerning the promises and pitfalls of compassion in education by examining the theories of two historical figures who famously emphasised compassion in their philosophical writings: Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Friedrich Nietzsche. Rousseau and Nietzsche argue that compassion is a powerful educational force but that it must be properly employed. For Rousseau and Nietzsche, compassion is necessary to develop self-mastery in human beings—the ultimate goal of education—but it is a compassion that must hurt in order to help. My hope is that Rousseau's and Nietzsche's ideas on compassion will encourage thoughtful reflection on the uses and abuses of compassion in education.     

Physical Dimensions of Counseling: Perspective for the Helping Professions

Fifteen graduate students in the helping professions registered in a course that teaches helpers to use physical fitness as a counseling medium. The enrolled graduate students were matched with controls in four relevant areas, and both groups were pretested on 7 physiological and 11 psychological variables. The experimental students were given a 10-week treatment of physical fitness training, counseling in health habits, a life-style of well-being, and instruction in how to deliver these kinds of treatments to clients. For eight weeks the students used the skills in working with real clients. The experimental and control groups were posttested on the same variables; and multivariate and univariate analyses revealed significantly positive changes made by the experimental group. This article reports implications for graduate programs in the helping professions.     

TECHNICAL GUIDELINES FOR ASSESSING COMPUTERIZED ADAPTIVE TESTS

Guidelines are proposed for evaluating a computerized adaptive test. Topics include dimensionality, measurement error, validity, estimation of item parameters, item pool characteristics and human factors. Equating CAT and conventional tests is considered and matters of equity are addressed.     

The Effects of Anxiety on Recall in Self Versus Other-Model Observation

To determine whether differential levels of anxiety and recall occur during vicarious modeling or self-observation, six counselor trainees were shown five videotaped segments of counselor-client interactions—two of a different counselor and client and three of themselves counseling (one of which was viewed in the presence of the trainees' supervising professor). Anxiety was measured by self-reports and hand temperature and recall was assessed by several questions regarding the verbal and nonverbal behaviors demonstrated in each segment. Although a significant negative correlation was found between the physiological measure of anxiety and recall (ρ = –.90), no significant differences were revealed in the amount of anxiety relative to other-model versus self-observation. Trainees recalled a significantly greater amount of verbal behaviors during other-model observation than in self-observation conditions, whereas the reverse was found for nonverbal behaviors. Additionally, the presence of the supervising professor effected a dramatic increase in anxiety and decrease in recall.