TPC-Journal-V5-Issue1

The Professional Counselor /Volume 5, Issue 1 149 Study Implications From the results of the study, it is apparent that school counseling internship programs not only contribute to the professional development of counseling students, but also help professional school counselors and school students in several aspects. As a result, school counseling coordinators and school principals should organize school counseling internship programs, so as to benefit from counseling interns’ assistance in providing counseling services to as many students as possible. Since feedback and advice given by university supervisors were considered useful and effective in planning and carrying out successful activities, university supervisors should provide feedback by either observing counseling students or monitoring their activity records from the internship program. This feedback is vital for counseling interns, especially when they need to see and correct their mistakes and assess their professional skills with the guidance of an external authority. Although there were only a few complaints about school counseling supervisors’ reluctance to assist counseling students during internship, their disinclination is still an obstacle to the professional development of counseling students. Therefore, the university counseling educators should consider this issue when deciding to which school and school counselors they will send their counseling interns, and they should discuss this potential problem with the school counselors and express their expectations and concerns. In light of school counselors’ recommendations for enhancing activities to better prepare counseling students for the duties and roles of future school counselors and to contribute to professional identity development, revising school counseling internship programs should be considered. Limitations and Future Research Directions Interviews with professional counselors and document data from counseling internship students, classroom guidance teachers and school students who attended group activities were used in this study. Although the triangulation method was used, collection of data from multiple participants was limited since this study was conducted by only one researcher. In the future, if more than one researcher were involved in a study, it would be possible to collect data from a greater number of school counselors, counseling interns, school students participating in group or classroom guidance activities, and teachers at schools. There also was the limitation of not involving a university supervisor in the study. If this level of university supervisor could be involved in a similar study, it would be possible to explore the issue from the different perspectives of relevant parties. Similar studies might be conducted by including counselor education programs from several different universities. Conclusion This study showed that school counseling internship programs provide opportunities for counseling students to experience many school counselor activities and to become competent in carrying out these activities. It is clear that school counseling internship programs and activities give counseling students a chance to apply counseling skills, make contributions to students attending counseling activities, lessen the workloads of school counselors, provide proactive counseling services to many more students and contribute to their own professional development. Furthermore, once again it evident that positive and constructive feedback and advice, along with help from university supervisors and site supervisors, were fundamental for counseling interns in conducting activities, feeling positive emotions and establishing confidence.