DIGEST-V8-i1

11 TPC Digest Relative to work values, participants valued Balance, Support, and Helping at both pre- and post-assessment (with Balance being replaced by Honesty at post-assessment) and ranked Power, Competition, and Risk-Taking as their lowest work-related values. Relative to occupational engagement, participants were moderately engaged during their career course throughout the semester and showed a statistically significant increase in scores from pre- to post-analysis. Relative to professional quality of life, we found that participants at pre- and post-assessment reported moderate levels of Compassion Satisfaction and low levels of Burnout and Secondary Traumatic Stress. Overall, participants experienced moderate levels of compassion satisfaction and experienced low levels of burnout and compassion fatigue, which is promising given the early nature of their counseling careers. In addition, participants valued balance, support, helping, and honesty within their careers, while power, competition, and risk-taking were least valued. Finally, participants increased their levels of occupational engagement over the progression of the career counseling course—something for which we think the constructivist experiential nature of the course was at least partially responsible. As a result, the findings support the idea that counselor educators may do well to intentionally incorporate constructivist-based experiences into their career classrooms in order to boost student engagement. CITs also may benefit from strength-enhancing or wellness-enhancing activities to increase their overall balance, feelings of support, and desire to help others. Finally, counseling programs could incorporate assessments as a way to: (a) engage CITs; (b) increase in vivo experience with assessments (i.e., learning by doing); (c) increase competence in administering and reviewing assessments; and (d) increase basic knowledge in the career content area. Ashley J. Blount, NCC, is an assistant professor at the University of Nebraska Omaha. Abby L. Bjornsen is an assistant professor at the University of Nebraska Omaha. Madeleine M. Moore is a mental health counselor at Creighton University. Correspondence can be addressed to Ashley Blount, University of Nebraska Omaha, Roskins Hall, 6001 Dodge Street, Omaha, NE 68182, ablount@unomaha.edu. Read full article and references: Blount, A. J., Bjornsen, A. L., & Moore, M. M. (2018). Work values, occupational engagement, and professional quality of life in counselors-in-training: Assessments in a constructivist-based career counseling course. The Professional Counselor , 8 , 60–72. doi : 10.15241/ajb.8.1.60 1 |