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A Measure of Counselor Competency
Author(s) -
Eriksen Karen,
McAuliffe Garrett
Publication year - 2003
Publication title -
counselor education and supervision
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.608
H-Index - 40
eISSN - 1556-6978
pISSN - 0011-0035
DOI - 10.1002/j.1556-6978.2003.tb01836.x
Subject(s) - cronbach's alpha , psychology , counselor education , internal consistency , medical education , scale (ratio) , test (biology) , applied psychology , psychometrics , clinical psychology , higher education , medicine , paleontology , physics , quantum mechanics , political science , law , biology
Counselor educators need to be able to demonstrate their effectiveness in training new counselors; however, currently few valid or reliable measures exist for assessing educators' impact. The authors describe the development of such an instrument, the Counseling Skills Scale. They began by revising an existing scale and then they solicited feedback from experts and a focus group. They used the instrument to compare beginning counselors‐in‐training with those who had completed a counseling skills course. Finally, they conducted an item analysis. A paired t test showed significant improvements in counseling skills ( t = 4.51, p < .000) from pretest to posttest. Cronbach's alpha showed internal consistency to be .90.