TPC-Journal-V5-Issue1

The Professional Counselor /Volume 5, Issue 1 142 was reflected in the behavior of students, parents and school personnel. They also witnessed the students’ understanding of their activities, counseling concepts and topics, and expressed positive feelings regarding the interns. Supervisors stated that the effects of the counseling internship program could be seen more specifically in personal and social areas such as self-awareness, self-acceptance, behavior change, interpersonal skills, awareness and control of emotions among school students. Additionally, school students improved in the areas of career decision and coping with career indecision during career counseling; and in areas of education such as study skills, exam anxiety and academic achievement. According to the supervisors, the counseling students benefitted from gaining experience in classroom management and individual counseling, improving communication skills, expressing themselves, and enhancing efficacy feelings. At the same time, the interns helped school counselors carry out their work plans and lessened their workload, providing counseling services to many more students and presenting proactive counseling services. Professional school counselors themselves benefitted from the internship experience by learning new ideas from the counseling students and enhancing their own motivation levels. For example, a counselor summarized the counseling students’ motivating effect in the following quote: “They helped me renew myself. . . . [When counseling interns] came to my school, my enthusiasm and excitement increased. I learned new . . . warm-up activities when I observed them” (C3). The following quote demonstrates how the counseling students’ work was helpful for the supervisors, the school students and the counseling interns themselves: “They definitely made a contribution. I got positive feedback from teachers and students in terms of their contribution” (C6). Another school counselor made the following remarks: They contributed a lot. . . . My interns were very active in working with me. In particular, some of them worked . . . as a second counselor in the school. They made . . . classroom presentations. They improved themselves, as well as benefit[ted] the students. . . . Their practices lessened my workload. (C2) A third school counselor stated, “As I said before, I am trying to reach many students. . . . Interns contributed a lot. They also gained experience in classroom management, communication with students and getting feedback from students to increase their efficacy” (C4). According to the school counseling supervisors, counseling interns learned the most during group work. Interns improved their overall effectiveness, which included emotional comfortableness, readiness, eager communication, leadership, group management and counseling skills. One school counselor explained, “Counseling students’ skills of communication, group management and leadership greatly affected conducting successful activities” (C1). In the following quotes, two counselors explained how they used observation and feedback in the process of evaluating activities: I go to a classroom guidance activity with [interns], especially when they have classroom management problems. They probably feel anxious during the first one or two activities, and then become relaxed. For this reason, after each activity we make an assessment for 5–10 minutes: How was the day? What did they do? What difficulties did they come across? They shared all sorts of things they would like to talk about. Furthermore . . . if there [is] something which I do not like, if they are reluctant to do activities or do something against school rules, I talk to them and express my concerns. (C2) When they have difficulties I try to help them. Upon completion of their activities, we make a general evaluation of the day, focusing on topics like: How was the activity? What was the difficulty? What did they do to cope with it? (C5)