TPC-Journal-V2-Issue2

The Professional Counselor \Volume 2, Issue 2 153 of fewer classroom disruptions and improved peer behavior among students who participated in comprehensive school counseling programs (Brigman & Campbell, 2003; Lapan, 2001; Lapan et al., 2007; Lapan et al., 1997; Sink, 2005; Sink & Stroh, 2003). The program audit is an evaluation tool used to determine the extent to which components of a comprehensive program are implemented and helps to make decisions concerning future directions that a school counseling program will take. A program audit, or process evaluation, assists school counselors in implementing the standards and components of a comprehensive school counseling program, in addition to identifying areas for improvement or enhancement (ASCA, 2005). ASCA has suggested that a program audit be completed annually to determine the strengths and weaknesses evident within a school counseling program with regard to the four main elements of the ASCA National Model : foundation, delivery system, management system and accountability. Specific criteria under each component are used as a way to evaluate implementation of the school counseling program. This study examined the prediction of student outcomes, including achievement scores, attendance and graduation rate, using level of implementation of the ASCA National Model (2005) as a predictor variable. It was hypothesized that level of program implementation would be a significant predictor of student outcomes at each of the three school levels: elementary, middle and high school. The study also determined coefficients alpha for the ASCA Program Audit for the total sample and each academic level . Method Participants A nonrandomized cluster sampling of two public school districts located in Maryland was conducted to select participants for the study. These two public school systems housed a total of 111 elementary schools, 30 middle schools, and 23 high schools for a total of 164 schools. Each participating school had at least one professional school counselor and a school counseling program in place. In the instances where multiple school counselors were assigned to schools, the data were provided by the guidance chair or lead counselor. School counselors from two alternative schools responded, but were eliminated from the sample due to dissimilarity with the traditional high schools and small sample size. Thus, a total of 78 (70%) elementary schools, 17 (57%) middle schools, and 18 (78%) high schools participated for a total sample of 113 schools (69%) within the two participating school districts. Instrument The ASCA Program Audit (ASCA, 2005) served as an independent variable for this study. The audit takes approximately 30–45 minutes to complete the 115 prompts and uses a Likert-type scale to evaluate the components of a counseling program along the continuum of “None” (meaning not in place), “In progress” (perhaps begun, but not completed), “Completed” (but perhaps not as yet implemented), “Implemented” (fully implemented), or “Not applicable” (for situations where the component does not apply). For the purposes of this study, these response choices were coded 0, 1, 2, 3, and 0, respectively. Once a program audit is completed, the information can be used to determine implementation strengths of the program, areas of the program which need strengthening, and short-range and long-range goals for implementation improvement. This is the first published study to use the complete ASCA Program Audit as a study independent variable. One other study, a dissertation (Wong, 2008), used facets of the ASCA Program Audit as an independent variable. Wong constructed a survey which was modified from the ASCA Program Audit in a study designed to describe the relationship between comprehensive school counseling programs and school performance. Wong’s use of regression analysis yielded a positive relationship and predictive model between these two variables, but no information regarding the psychometric characteristics of the scale. Internal consistency information from the current study’s sample is provided in the results section.