Assessing Outcomes: Practical Methods and Evidence

University counseling center clients’ (N = 52) perceptions of precounseling functioning were highly correlated with their actual well‐being scores at intake. The magnitude of change based on perceptions of precounseling functioning to current well‐being was approximately double of what is found from the difference of actual precounseling well‐being to current well‐being scores. Retrospective methods for assessing precounseling functioning are best suited for comparison among clients or counseling processes.     

When Herbert met Ken: understanding the 100 languages of creativity

The paper proposes a thought experiment written in the spirit of Tom Stoppard's Travesties in which some major contemporary thinkers on and actors of creativity and culture are brought together in the same imagined space through the conceit of a (faulty) memory play. ‘Actors’ are drawn from the National Advisory Committee on Creative and Cultural Education (NACCCE, 19991, the Gulbenkian Committee (1981) and the Joint Council for Education through Art (1957). The paper suggests a series of hypothetical conversations between educationalists from the 1950s to the 2000s who have been engaged with developing arts and cultural education and creativity in our schools. It aims to establish what we have learnt about the discourses of creativity ‐ and what impact this may have had in our classrooms. It concludes with a speculative trial between a Professor Ken Robinson of 1999, adjudged by a Sir Herbert Read of 1957. Nick Owen is a Liverpool‐based film maker and researcher who has recently completed a PhD scholarship at the University of Hull. The scholarship, funded by Creative Partnerships, focused on developing pedagogies for creativity in contexts in which artists and educators work together.     

Qualitative Outcomes of a Homestay Immersion With Critical Reflection

The authors explore the impact of a 3‐week homestay cultural immersion on 10 counselor trainees by analyzing their 210 structured journals using consensual qualitative research. Findings suggest that establishing meaningful relationships and engaging in critical reflection are central to increasing multicultural awareness. Implications for multicultural counseling training and research are provided.     

Responding to racism at school: Ethnic-racial socialization and the academic engagement of Black and Latinx youth

Guided by the Theory of Racial Socialization in Action (TRSA; Smith-Bynum in press), this study examined observed caregiver-provided ethnic-racial socialization in response to a school-based discriminatory dilemma. Forty-five Black and 36 Latinx caregivers (88% mothers) with low-income and their children (M_age = 11.09, SD = 0.29; 46.3% female) participated in Dallas, Texas from 2018 to 2019. Dyads responded to a hypothetical scenario in which a school counselor makes a discriminatory comment to the child. Results of a factor mixture analysis suggested that caregivers engaged in the dialogue using one of four approaches: Low-engaged, Legacy, Racial Literacy, or High-engaged. Profiles were found to differ significantly by the race/ethnicity and language of caregivers and were associated with youth’s concurrent behavioral engagement (R² = .04).     

Using interactive management to facilitate a student-centred conceptualisation of critical thinking: a case study

Critical thinking (CT) is a metacognitive process, consisting of a number of sub-skills and dispositions, that, when used appropriately, increases the chances of producing a logical solution to a problem or a valid conclusion to an argument. CT has been identified as a fundamental learning objective of third-level education; however, students often report not being given the opportunity to adequately understand and cultivate CT skills. Though most CT interventions are designed based on academic or expert definitions of CT skills, students are rarely, if ever, asked to guide their instruction by describing their perspectives on what constitutes CT. The current case study investigated students’ conceptualisations of what constitutes good CT using a collective intelligence methodology, interactive management. Interactive management (IM) is a computer-assisted process that allows a group to build a structural model describing relations between elements in a system. Though decades of research on group decision-making in educational and social psychology highlight the many limitations associated with group problem solving (e.g. as a result of an over-reliance on heuristics, cognitive biases and ‘groupthink’), a fundamental skill for making decisions and solving problems is the ability to collectively visualise the structure of a shared problem, and use this knowledge to design solutions and strategies for collective action. Results of IM group work from the current case study revealed five core CT skills (clarity of expression, conversational skill, inference, evaluation, and explanation), five CT dispositions (detachment, listening, systematicity, recognising uncertainty, and self-questioning) and fourteen structural relationships among them. The ability to detach, listen and engage in conversation with others, were seen as fundamental drivers of all other competencies in the system. Results are discussed in light of research and theory on CT and best practice for CT instruction.