TPC-Journal-V2-Issue2

The Professional Counselor \Volume 2, Issue 2 145 to include investigations of ability perceptions across several domains. Included in this body of research are studies of counseling self-efficacy among beginning counselors. Counseling Self-Efficacy Counseling self-efficacy (CSE), according to Larson and Daniels (1998), is best described as the beliefs or judgments an individual has about his or her capability to effectively counsel a client in the near future. It is an important factor related to the level of anxiety novice counselors experience as well as the amount of effort they put forth to learn advanced counseling behaviors (Larson, 1998). As a result, some counselor educators and researchers have suggested that increasing counseling trainees’ self-efficacy is a worthwhile training goal (Larson et al., 1992) and that examinations of this construct should be included in both the research and evaluation of counselor competency and training effectiveness (Yuen, Chan, Lau, Lam, & Shek, 2004). In a review of the CSE literature, numerous training interventions such as academic coursework, assigned readings, classroom discussions, self-reflection, modeling, supervision and hands on experiences associated with practica and internships all have been found to help improve competency and perceptions of self-efficacy (Easton, Martin, & Wilson, 2008; Larson & Daniels, 1998). These activities provide learning experiences that facilitate task performance and vicarious learning which Bandura (1986) noted as critical to the development of self-efficacy. Although these activities have become commonplace in traditional FTF courses, their effectiveness in developing student competency when employed in online courses is unclear. Given that CSE has been demonstrated to play a central role in counselor trainee development (Stoltenberg, McNeill, & Delworth, 1998) it will be interesting to note how the implementation of new online instructional methods impacts the development of CSE beliefs among student trainees. With this in mind, the purpose of the current study was to compare the counseling self-efficacy beliefs of students enrolled in both traditional FTF and online counselor education programs. In particular, it was hypothesized that students who enrolled in traditional FTF courses would report greater perceptions of counseling self-efficacy than those enrolled in online courses. Method Participants To recruit participants, a random sample of 1,000 graduate student members of the American Counseling Association (ACA) obtained from ACAMember Services received an invitation to participate in this research study. Overall, 429 individuals responded to the invite, resulting in a 42.9% response rate. A total of 56 surveys were discarded from further analysis due to significant missing data or the fact that the participant was no longer a graduate student. This resulted in a final sample size of 373 individuals being used in this study. Of the 373 sample participants, 307 (82.3%) were women, 63 (16.9%) were males, and 3 participants (0.8%) did not indicate their gender. The average participant was 37.12 years of age ( SD = 10.96). When asked to report ethnicity, 45 (12.1%) participants identified as African American, 5 (1.3%) identified as Asian-Americans, 11 (2.9%) identified as Hispanic, 5 (1.3%) identified as Native American and 307 (82.3%) identified as Caucasian. Two hundred and ninety seven students reported working on their master’s degree and 77 reported enrollment in an advanced degree (specialist or doctorate) program. To establish comparison groups, participants were asked to indicate whether or not they had taken their core skill development courses (e.g., helping skills, group counseling, assessment, practicum, internship) required for their graduate counseling program of study online. For this study, an online course was defined as one in which at least 80% of the course content was delivered via the Internet (Allen & Seaman, 2010). Using this criterion, 207 students reported no prior online enrollment and 166 reported previous online enrollment in core skill development courses. Instrumentation To assess the counseling self-efficacy of counselor trainees, participants were asked to complete the Counseling Self Estimate Inventory ( COSE ) . The COSE (Larson et al., 1992) consists of 37 self-report items, most of which are worded as “I” statements, that require trainees to rate the degree to which they estimate how well they will perform as counselors in future counseling sessions. Each of the items are rated on a 6-point Likert scale with values ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 6 (strongly agree). To prevent the influence of response set bias, both positively and negatively worded items