TPC Journal V7, Issue 2 - FULL ISSUE

118 The Professional Counselor | Volume 7, Issue 2 Method Procedure The author used the same data set reported in Farmer et al. (2013) using different research questions and examining five new variables. The sample ( N = 1,480) consisted of members of a state- level professional counseling association located in the Southeastern United States, including licensed professional counselors, professional school counselors, counselors-in-residence (post-master’s counselors working toward licensure), counseling graduate students and counselor educators. The researcher secured approval from the Institutional Review Board, obtained participant information from the state organization’s membership directory, and sent a recruitment e-mail inviting participation in the anonymous online survey using SurveyMonkey. Two reminder e-mails were sent at five and 10 days after initial contact. There were 556 respondents, yielding a response rate of 37.5%. The final sample included 453 participants following data-cleaning procedures and eliminating those respondents whose practice setting could not be verified. Participants Of the 453 participants, 212 (46.8%) described their primary practice setting as school, 110 (24.3%) described their practice setting as community, 93 (20.5%) were described as counseling graduate students, and 38 (8.4%) were counselor educators. Participants’ ages ranged from 22 to 75 years, with an average age of 41.5 years ( SD = 13.5). Seventy-three participants (16.1%) identified as men and 379 (83.7%) identified as women (one participant omitted this item). With regard to race, 376 participants (83.0%) identified as Caucasian, 55 (12.1%) as African American, eight (1.8%) as Hispanic, eight (1.8%) as multiracial or other, three (0.7%) as American Indian, one (0.2%) as Asian, and one (0.2%) as Hawaiian or Pacific Islander (one participant omitted this item). Regarding sexual orientation, 425 participants (93.8%) identified as heterosexual, seven (1.5%) as lesbian, five (1.1%) as gay, five (1.1%) as bisexual, one (0.2%) as questioning, and four (0.9%) as other (six participants omitted this item). Participants were also asked to identify their religious affiliation (e.g., Protestant Christian, Catholic, Other Religious Affiliation, No Religious Affiliation). Table 1 displays descriptive data on religious affiliation and SOCCS scores. Instruments Two instruments and an information questionnaire were used to collect data. The SOCCS (Bidell, 2005) was used to assess LGB-affirmative counselor competence. The Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale—Short Form C (MC-C; Reynolds, 1982) assessed the authenticity of participant responses. An information questionnaire gathered demographic and personal background information, including items for counselors to indicate self-identified religiosity and spirituality. Sexual Orientation Counselor Competency Scale . This instrument measures participants’ self- perceptions of LGB-affirmative counseling competence including attitudes, knowledge and skills (Bidell, 2005). The SOCCS contains 29 items that are rated on a 1–7 scale (1 = not at all true , 7 = totally true ). Ten items measure attitudes (e.g., “The lifestyle of an LGB client is unnatural or immoral”), eight items measure knowledge (e.g., “There are different psychological/social issues impacting gay men versus lesbian women”), and 11 items measure skill (e.g., “I feel competent to assess the mental health needs of a person who is LGB in a therapeutic setting”). Convergent validity was established for each of the three subscales (attitudinal awareness, knowledge and skill) using existing measures of LGB bias, multicultural knowledge and basic counseling skills, respectively. Bidell (2005) reported strong internal consistency for the SOCCS: .90 for the overall score, .76 for Knowledge, .88 for Attitudes, and .91 for Skill. In this sample ( N = 453), the coefficient alphas are reasonably comparable: .87 for the overall score, .72 for Knowledge, .87 for Attitudes, and .87 for Skill.