TPC-Journal-V5-Issue2

The Professional Counselor /Volume 5, Issue 2 203 Perceived knowledge of McKinney-Vento and emotional and educational issues. Seven Likert scale items were written specifically to assess school counselors’ perceived knowledge of the McKinney-Vento Act and the emotional and educational issues of students experiencing homelessness. Participants were instructed to rate their knowledge on a scale from 1 (no knowledge) to 5 (extensive knowledge). Items were designed to measure school counselors’ perceptions of their knowledge on specific requirements under the McKinney-Vento Act, as well as their knowledge on general emotional and educational issues affecting students experiencing homelessness. Provision of services. Two items focused on the services and interventions that participants reported implementing with students experiencing homelessness. One item prompted participants to report the frequency of their engagement in these interventions on a scale from 1 (not at all) to 5 (always), where interventions signified nine specific services to students experiencing homelessness. The second item required school counselors to indicate any of 25 interventions provided to students experiencing homelessness, including the option I have not provided any services or interventions . The services and interventions were selected based on the McKinney-Vento requirements and the literature on education and homelessness. Procedures Using Survey Monkey (www.surveymonkey.com ), the survey was e-mailed to 1,000 randomly selected ASCA members selected via the ASCA member directory ( www.schoolcounselor.org ). Of the 1,000 surveys sent, 80 e-mails bounced back or were invalid, while 713 recipients did not reply and 207 responded. The total response rate was 22.5%, with 19.8% ( N = 182) completing all sections of the survey. Completing the survey in its entirety included filling out one qualitative section (for results see Havlik, Brady, & Gavin, 2014). Several participants did not complete this section. Data Analysis Descriptive analyses. To answer research questions one and two, we examined frequencies and means of school counselors’ responses to survey items. Analyses of variance (ANOVAs). To answer question 3, we conducted four one-way ANOVAS: (1) one to examine whether elementary, middle and high school counselors differed in the extent of training they received for working with students experiencing homelessness; (2) a second to examine whether urban, rural and suburban school counselors differed in the extent of training they received for working with students experiencing homelessness; (3) a third to examine whether elementary, middle and high school counselors differed in the number of students experiencing homelessness at their school; and (4) a fourth to examine whether urban, rural and suburban school counselors differed in the number of students experiencing homelessness at their school. Regression analyses. To answer the fourth research question, we conducted simultaneous multiple regression analyses to examine the relationships among the demographic variables (e.g., school setting, school level, number of students experiencing homelessness at school, years of experience as a school counselor, type of training received) and school counselors’ knowledge and provision of services related to students experiencing homelessness. Factor analysis. Prior to conducting the multiple regression analyses, we conducted a principal component analysis (PCA) of the seven items assessing counselors’ perceived knowledge of McKinney-Vento and students’ emotional and educational needs, and the nine items assessing the extent to which counselors provided nine specific services for students experiencing homelessness (see Tables 1 and 2). The PCA with varimax rotation was conducted as a data reduction method (Costello & Osborne, 2005) to determine how participants’ responses