COUN 500
RESEARCH PAPER INSTRUCTIONS
Accessing the Liberty University’s Online Library, retrieve, download, and read at least 3
sources on one of the following topics. Keep in mind that at least 1 source needs to be from a
professional journal and 1 source needs to be from a professional publication such as a textbook.
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The differences between professional counseling and other mental health professions
Professional counseling and social justice
Characteristics of the effective counselor
Counselor wellness and impairment
Professional counselor credentialing
Once the sources and topic are obtained, write a 5–6-page paper, (excluding tile page, abstract,
and reference page) that is in current APA format and includes the following:
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Title Page
Abstract
Introduction
Body
Conclusion
References
Save your paper as a Microsoft Word document, under your name and assignment title
(Example: Doe_J_assignment_1).
By 11:59 p.m. (ET) on Thursday of Module/Week 4, submit your essay through the
SafeAssign link in the Assignments folder. The SafeAssign link is marked by a green
check mark to its left and is titled “Research Paper DRAFT.” The green check mark
indicates that your paper is being submitted to the SafeAssign program in order to check
for plagiarism.
Wait until the link indicates that SafeAssign has analyzed your paper and prepared a
report. If you are uncertain about this step, see the presentation on SafeAssign in the
Reading & Study folder of Module/Week 4.
Open the SafeAssign report and examine it. Again, if you are uncertain, see the directions
on using SafeAssign referenced above. The goal is to reach a similarity index of less than
25%. If you receive an index greater than 25%, you have unintentionally plagiarized.
Rework your paper until you get a similarity index less than 25%. Submit the final essay
using the second assignment link, titled the same as the above link but with a different
symbol to its left.
Submit this assignment by 11:59 p.m. (ET) on Sunday of Module/Week 4.
Journal of Counseling Psychology
1971. Vol. 18, No. 3, 249-254
Effective Counselor:
Characteristics and Attitudes!
MOZELLE JACKSON
Northern Illinois University
AND
CHARLES L. THOMPSON*
University of Tennessee
Seventy-three National Defense Education Act trained school counselors, differentiated according to sex and counselor effectiveness, were studied for differences
on cognitive flexibility, tolerance of ambiguity, and attitudes toward self, most
people, most clients, and counseling. All of the counselors were similar in
cognitive flexibility and tolerance of ambiguity, but the most effective counselors
were more positive in their counseling-related attitudes than the least effective
counselors. Both effective and least effective female counselors were more
positive than male counselors toward counseling-related attitudes. Attitudes
toward most people, most clients, and counseling differentiated the two counselor effectiveness groups and male and female counselors.
During the past decade, hundreds of
trainees have been selected for National Defense Education Act (NDEA) and Education Professions Development Act (EPDA)
Counselor Training Programs. Yet, criteria
for selection to these programs have gained
little in validity and consensus. Research measuring counselor effectiveness is, at best,
equivocal. McDaniel (1967), Rogers (1963),
and Whiteley, Sprinthal, Mosher, and
Donaghy (1967) have pointed out the critical
problem of counselor selection that results
from a lack of consensus on what constitutes
the effective counselor.
Humanistic therapists equate counselor effectiveness with accurate empathy, genuineness, and unconditional positive regard
(Blocher, 1966; Patterson, 1968; Rogers,
1963; Truax, 1963). On the other hand,
behavior therapists, while not denying the
importance of the counseling relationship,
emphasize specific reinforcement techniques
as being associated with effective counseling
(Krasner & Ullman, 196S; Krumboltz, 196S;
Sapolsky, 1960; Wolpe, 1958). A third point
of view advocates cognitive flexibility (Whiteley et al., 1967) and tolerance of ambiguity
(Brams, 1961; Gruberg, 1967; and McDaniel,
1
Requests for reprints should be sent to Charles
L. Thompson, Department of Educational Psychology and Guidance, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Tennessee 37916.
249
1967) as important characteristics of effective
counselors. Therefore, the present study was
directed toward the resolution of some of the
conflicts surrounding the data on counselor
effectiveness.
More specifically, the study was an assessment of differences between rated effective and
ineffective counselors on cognitive flexibility,
tolerance of ambiguity, and attitudes toward
self, most people, most clients, and counseling.
It was predicted that (a) counselors rated
high on effectiveness would be more cognitively flexible, tolerant of ambiguity, and have
more positive attitudes toward self, most
people, most clients, and counseling, than
those counselors rated low by their practicum
supervisors; and (b) sex of the counselor
would not be a significant factor when these
variables were considered.
METHOD
Most studies on counselor effectiveness have observed students rather than trained, on-the-job counselors (Patterson, 1968); therefore, the present study
was conducted with counselors from five former
NDEA guidance institutes at the University of
Tennessee. During four summer sessions (1964-1967),
counselors spent 35-50 hours in counseling practicum,
and those in the (1964) year-long institute between
50-60. Videotapes and audiotapes of the counseling
sessions were analyzed by supervisors on the counselor education staff. Supervisors knew the work of
each counselor quite well, since the supervisory load
250
Mozelle Jackson and Charles L. Thompson
consisted of only six counselor trainees. Overall
ratings of "excellent," "average," and "poor" based
on performance in face-to-face counseling situations
were designated for each counselor at the end of
institute training periods. The criteria for judging a
counselor was evidence of client movement toward
self-understanding, self-acceptance, skills in satisfying
needs, decision-making skills, and specific goal
attainment. In particular, the counselor was rated
on behaviors such as the following: (a) establishment
of a relationship in which the client felt safe to
explore a wide range of concerns, (6) demonstration
of sensitivity to inner experiences of the client,
(c) confrontations of whatever was important to
the ch'ent without being threatened by it, and
(d) focus of the interview on matters of real concern to the client. The counselors receiving ratings
of "excellent" were denned as the most effective group
and those receiving "poor" ratings the least effective
group.
Similarity of criteria used by counseling supervisors in rating counseling effectiveness for the five
institute training periods was maintatined in an
ongoing research program by McClain (1968).
Validity of the counseling effectiveness ratings was
substantiated by scores made by the counselors on
the Sixteen Personality Factor Questionnaire (16 PF;
Tatsuoka, 1968). Counselors in the "excellent" group
scored two standard deviations higher than their
counterparts in the "poor" groups on traits identified
with effective counselors: warm, serious, venturesome, realistic, trusting, analytical, and relaxed.
Tatsuoka (1968) reported results from multipleregression equations for predicting counselor effectiveness from 16 PF scores. Computations were based
on the point-biserial coefficients of correlation between 16 PF scores and membership in groups rated
excellent and poor. The average group's mean
efficiency score on the 16 PF fell midway between
those of the excellent and poor groups. The projected
scores of the average group constituted a partial
cross-validation of the regression equations, since data
from the average group played no role in the construction of the regression equations. Tatsuoka
(1968), therefore, concluded that ". . . the supervisors who rated counselors for McClain's study did
a very creditable job [p. 1]."
The range in time since training varied from 1 to
5 years for the counselors. Research indicates that
change during training is minimal, and changes
that do occur among trainees are not persistent;
also, students tend to revert to their former attitudes
(Hunger, Brown, & Needham 1964; Patterson,
1968; Rochester, 1967). It was, therefore, assumed
that the counselors' behavior and attitudes remained
somewhat constant in the time elapsing between
their ratings of effectiveness (1963-67) and the testing period (fall 1968). Seventy-three counselors (45
males and 28 females participated in the study by
completing and returning the materials via the mail.
The most effective group contained 39 counselors
(23 men and 16 women), and the least effective
group contained 34 counselors (22 men and 12
women).
Two case episodes utilized by Whiteley et al.
(1967), were used to measure cognitive flexibility.
Cognitive flexibility, as defined by Whiteley et al.
(1967), referred to open-mindedness, adaptability,
and a resistance to premature closure in perception
and cognition. More specifically as related to the
counselor, cognitive flexibility is the ability of the
counselor to respond easily to the content of what the
client says and to his feeling. The counselor can
answer questions that are necessary and yet keep the
counseling dialogue open for additional exploration
by the client. Flexibility implies setting a balance between excessive structuring in the counseling situation
and the complete ambiguity of nondirection. Four
counselors on the staff of the Student Counseling
Center at the University of Tennessee were trained
to rate responses to the case episodes according to
the scoring system developed by Whiteley et al.
(1967). Cognitive flexibility scores were based on
the ratings on a 7-point scale that ranged from a
score of 1 for flexible to 7 for rigid.
Hanson's (1964) modified version of Budner's
Intolerance-Tolerance for Ambiguity Scale was used
to measure the counselors' tolerance for ambiguity.
Tolerance of ambiguity was defined as a tendency
to perceive ambiguous situations as desirable. Ambiguous situations are characterized by novelty, complexity, or insolubility and cannot be adequately
structured or categorized by the individual because
of the lack of sufficient cues (Budner, 1962). Scores
for the 7-point, intolerance-tolerance of ambiguity
scale (a Likert-type scale) ranged from 16 to 112.
Budner's eight positively worded and eight negatively worded statements were utilized in the study.
Positive items received scores ranging from seven for
strong agreement to one for strong disagreement
with negative items scored in the reverse.
The semantic differential (Osgood et al,, 1957)
was used to measure counseling-related attitudes and
contained 12, 7-point, bi-polar adjectives alternated
in order and polarity. The counselors rated their
own attitudes on seven concepts: myself as I am
now, myself in most situations, myself as a counselor,
most people, most clients, counseling, and my purposes as a counselor. The concepts utilized in the
semantic differential were adapted from a report
on counselor effectiveness by Combs and Soper
(1963).
RESULTS
Interrater reliability calculated for the two
case episodes for cognitive flexibility showed
18 of 28 Spearman rank-order coefficients of
correlation to be significant at or beyond the
.OS level of confidence. When the Spearman
coefficients were averaged in order to obtain
Kendall's coefficient of concordance for inter-
Effective
rater reliability on each case, the results
were: .45 for the case of John; .56 for the
case of David; .40 between cases; and .50
for both cases. All of the coefficients were
significant at the .001 level of confidence,
which was determined by a formula for large
samples (Siegel, 1956).
Results of a 2 X 2 X 2 analysis of variance of the cognitive flexibility scores indicated no significant differences between the
counselor groups on the cases, but the two
case episodes were significantly different from
each other (p < .01). All of the counselors
were similar on cognitive flexibility; however, they were more cognitively flexible on
the case of David than on the case of John
(see Table 1).
Neither counselor effectiveness nor the sex
of the counselor accounted for the variance
in a two-way analysis of the tolerance of
ambiguity scores. The most and least effective
counselors and the men and women counselors tended to score similarly on tolerance
of ambiguity (see Table 2). However, the
mean scores showed that the men scored
slightly higher than the women.
In a 2 X 2 X 7 analysis of variance of the
attitude scores, significant F ratios obtained
for counselor effectiveness, counselor sex, and
concepts indicated the three major sources of
variances between groups (/>
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