Cognitive Style in Counselor Education: A Comparison of Practicum Supervisors and Counselors in Training

The authors compared practicum supervisors and counseling students in training in terms of dominant cognitive style and related cognitive style of counselors in training to supervision process and outcome measures. A sample of 18 supervisors and 46 students completed the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. After at least six supervision sessions, supervisors rated the counseling students on the Counselor Evaluation Rating Scale and the students rated the quality of the supervision relationship using the Barrett-Lennard Relationship Inventory. Supervisors had a stronger Thinking orientation and less variability on the Sensing-Intuiting orientation than did counselors in training. In contrast to previous research, a strong relationship between the cognitive style of counselors in training and supervision process and outcome measures was not detected in this study.     

Unique Ethical Dilemmas in Counselor Training

The author proposes that when counselor candidates are allowed to participate as clients in counselor-training laboratories, an indirect dual relationship is established, which may create unique ethical conflicts.     

Essential Characteristics of Master's Level Counselors: Perceptions of Agency Administrators

The purpose of this study was to determine to what degree the Council for Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs (CACREP) standards represent skills and knowledge that mental health agency employers use to judge candidates for master's level counseling positions. A total of 84 professionals who hired master's level counselors in their agencies rated the likely effect of each CACREP knowledge and skill area on their judgment of a potential candidate. Respondents also checked specific knowledge and skills they considered important and the type(s) of master's degrees typically possessed by counselors hired by their agency. Data suggested that each knowledge and skill area may have a moderate to significant impact on the employers' judgments, although some competencies were clearly seen to be more relevant than others. Family intervention was the most highly endorsed specialization, and candidates with social work degrees were hired far more frequently than was any other single type. Implications for counselor education programs and graduates are discussed.     

Moments of Inclusion and Exclusion: pupils negotiating classroom contexts

This paper uses evidence from a small-scale study of two English primary school classrooms to examine school inclusion in its political contexts. We argue that ‘inclusion’ and ‘exclusion’ are complex processes, enacted moment-by-moment by pupils and teachers. Our focus is on the pupils' negotiation of these moments, and we examine how their negotiations are contingent on (although not determined by) a web of intersecting indices of ‘difference’, including differences of social class, ethnicity, gender/sexuality, perceived academic ability and physical appearance. We take a post-structuralist approach, well-known in feminist educational research but less often used in research and thinking about ‘inclusive’ schooling, to foreground children's active role in making sense of social conditions that are not of their own making or choice. We conclude that a politically literate understanding of the processes of inclusion and exclusion is necessary both to highlight the continuing reproduction of educational inequality, and to produce the necessary conditions for egalitarian change.     

Relationships Between Dimensions of Supervisors' Influence and Counselor Trainees' Performance

Practicum supervisors' expertness, attractiveness, and trustworthiness were related to supervision outcome measures. Trustworthiness proved to have the strongest associations.     

An Investigation of the Validity of Empathy Measures

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship among several instruments that purport to measure empathy in the counseling process. The results from a correlational and factor analysis indicated a positive and significant relationship between certain measures used in this study. One of the Cline Opinion and Attitude tests, the Dymond-Smith Model, the Accurate Empathy Scale, the Relationship Questionnaire, and the Discrimination Index appear to measure a construct called interpersonal communication. Other Cline Tests and the Discrimination Index appear to measure other constructs not related to the Rogerian definition of empathy.     

Seating arrangements that promote positive academic and behavioural outcomes: a review of empirical research

Seating arrangements are important classroom setting events because they have the potential to help prevent problem behaviours that decrease student attention and diminish available instructional time. The purpose of this synthesis of empirical literature is to determine which arrangements of desks best facilitate positive academic and behavioural outcomes for primary through secondary high school students with a range of characteristics. Eight studies that investigated at least two of three common arrangements (i.e., rows, groups or semi‐circles) were considered. Results indicate that teachers should let the nature of the task dictate seating arrangements. Evidence supports the idea that students display higher levels of appropriate behaviour during individual tasks when they are seated in rows, with disruptive students benefiting the most.