TPC-Journal-V3-Issue3

176 The Professional Counselor \Volume 3, Issue 3 the school counselor’s role in the implementation of a school counseling core curriculum, individual student planning, and responsive services, including individual, group, and crisis counseling. A common goal of these organizational frameworks for school counseling programs was to identify appropriate roles and duties for school counselors. Models of school counseling were developed in part to strengthen and clarify the professional identity of school counselors, yet the specific roles of school counselors in educational systems have continued to be debated and refined (ASCA, 2012; Keys, Bemak, & Lockhart, 1998; Whiston, 2002, 2004). During the past decade, the Transforming School Counseling Initiative (TSCI; The Education Trust, 2009) and ASCA’s (2012) National Model have been discussed extensively in the school counseling literature. In contrast to earlier school counseling models, both the ASCA National Model and TSCI placed an increased emphasis on the academic support and advocacy roles of professional school counselors, while minimizing the role of providing direct counseling services to students (Astramovich et al., 2010; Grimmett & Paisley, 2008). For example, the ASCA (2012) National Model indicated that individual counseling in a therapeutic mode is not considered an appropriate duty for school counselors. Accordingly, it has been suggested that the roles and functions of school counselors promoted by these recent models have become less clearly focused on counseling, potentially leading to a weakened professional identity for school counselors (Bringman, Mueller, & Lee, 2010; Whiston, 2004). In addition, a broader philosophical difference—whether school counselors are considered to be educators or professional counselors or both—also has fueled the ongoing debate over school counselor roles (Paisley, Ziomek-Daigle, Getch, & Bailey, 2007). With the myriad duties suggested by different school counseling models, role research in school counseling has often attempted to clarify what duties are expected of school counselors and how these should be prioritized. Some researchers have focused on views of educational administrators about the appropriate duties of school counselors. Amatea and Clark (2005) found that elementary, middle and high school principals preferred school counselors to focus on leadership, consulting, and providing individual and small-group counseling, as well as classroom guidance to students. Similarly, Zalaquett (2005) and Zalaquett and Chatters (2012) found that principals prefer counselors to focus on providing direct counseling services to students as well as crisis intervention, coordination and consultation. Other researchers have examined the views of practicing school counselors about their roles and duties. Nelson, Robles-Pina, and Nichter (2008) found that high school counselors reported spending much of their time in non-counseling duties such as class scheduling, thus having less than preferred time to provide counseling, consultation and coordination services to students. In another study, Walsh, Barrett, and DePaul (2007) found that elementary school counselors spent only about one-third of their time in responsive counseling services, with the remainder of their time spent in guidance, individual planning, and system support activities. From another perspective, Astramovich and Loe (2006) compared pre-service teachers’ views of the roles of school counselors and school psychologists and found that school counselors were considered more likely to help students with career development while school psychologists were viewed as more likely to help students with personal-social skills. Overall, findings from role research studies suggest that, despite advances in school counseling models, many school counselors continue to experience role ambiguity and role stress in their professional practice (Astramovich et al., 2010; Culbreth et al., 2005; Lieberman, 2004; Pyne, 2011). Although role ambiguity has been identified as a significant concern of school counselors, the authors hypothesize that a preceding factor—termed as role diffusion— may be a major factor contributing to role ambiguity among professional school counselors. Role diffusion is defined by the authors as the process of assuming or being appointed to roles and duties that individuals from other fields or specialties are equally qualified to perform in the work environment. For example, role diffusion occurs when a school counselor is assigned by an administrator to be responsible for school-wide achievement testing—something that teachers,