A Prepracticum Laboratory Training Experience

This article reviews the literature pertinent to prepracticum laboratory experiences in counselor education and describes the elements and the evaluation of one such program.     

A REJOINDER TO ALBANESE, "THE CORRECTION FOR GUESSING: A FURTHER ANALYSIS OF ANGOFF AND SCHRADER"

Albanese is critical of the Angoff-Schrader (1984) study for several reasons, mainly, the fact that it draws some of its data from volunteer student-subjects. If this criticism is valid, and if we therefore decide to exclude all studies based on volunteer subjects, we necessarily discontinue virtually all experimentation. Albanese recognizes this, but offers no workable substitute for experimental studies. We find, on the other hand, no evidence that the use of volunteer subjects impaired the soundness of our conclusions.
Albanese offers an index of his own construction for use in evaluating the Angoff-Schrader data, and in applying it, comes to a different interpretation from that given by the authors. However, we find serious statistical flaws in his index when applied to our data. For example, we observe that when it is applied to small samples it yields uninterpretable results. After careful consideration of Albanese's reanalyses and interpretations, we stand firm in our original conclusion that formula scores are essentially invariant under different testing directions.     

Effects of Verbal and Vocal Cues of Counselor Self-Confidence on Clients' Perceptions

The authors found that vocal—but not verbal—cues of counselor self-confidence were related to client perceptions of expertness, attractiveness, trustworthiness, and associated satisfaction.     

A NOTE ON "ACCURACY" AND "PRECISION"

The terms accuracy and precision are consistently differentiated in the literature of engineering and the "hard" sciences. Precision shares a common core of meaning with reliability as used by behavioral scientists. Accuracy and validity have a similar semantic overlap. A review of the literature in educational and psychological measurement reveals an interchangeable usage of accuracy and precision in defining reliability, To help beginning students distinguish between validity and reliability, this paper advocates the use of precision, rather than accuracy, in describing reliability.     

Toward Performance-Based Counselor Certification

For the past four years the Georgia Department of Education has been involved in a statewide effort to establish standards and procedures for certification of educational personnel based on competency demonstration. As part of this effort, a project was commissioned to develop a performance-based system for the certification of school counselors. This article presents the premises, procedures, and products of the model which was developed.     

Counselor Candidate Personal Change and the Communication of Facilitative Dimensions

This study related counselor candidates' propensity for personal change prior to training and personal change assessed during training with the level of facilitative dimensions communicated by the candidates after training. As hypothesized, the results showed that candidates who provided higher levels of facilitative dimensions subsequent to training had been more open to personal change prior to training and had experienced more personal change during training than did students who communicated low levels of facilitative dimensions. Explanations of the findings and implications for counselor education are discussed.