TPC Journal V7, Issue 2 - FULL ISSUE

The Professional Counselor | Volume 7, Issue 2 157 counseling and found a clear focus on techniques and content rather than pedagogical practices and students’ learning experiences. Further, only a third of the articles were empirically based, and less than 15% had clear pedagogical foundations, indicating that the majority of the literature available on teaching in counselor education is conceptual in nature. Among these conceptual pieces, Malott, Hall, Sheely-Moore, Krell, and Cardaciotto (2014) aimed to bridge evidence-based practices of teaching in higher education with best practices in counselor education. Malott and colleagues affirmed that although counselor-based characteristics (e.g., empathy, positive regard) are essential for effectiveness in teaching counseling courses, they are not sufficient. They suggested that counselor educators should create effective learning environments characterized by creating strong rapport with students, engaging students in active learning (e.g., case studies, role plays) and providing opportunities for feedback throughout the course. Pietrzak, Duncan, and Korcuska (2008) examined factors that impacted counseling students’ perceptions of teaching effectiveness and found that students rated an entertaining delivery style and perceived knowledge of the teacher as the most influential factors. An examination of the limited literature that exists on pedagogy within counselor education programs identified three important theoretical perspectives: developmental, constructivist and contextual teaching. The developmental approach to teaching suggests that teachers should alter their teaching style and techniques to meet the changing developmental needs of students, progressing from a content-oriented and highly structured emphasis to facilitating active learning experiences (Granello & Hazler, 1998). According to the constructivist perspective, it is important for counselor educators to facilitate students’ engagement in reflective thinking and the personal construction of knowledge (McAuliffe & Eriksen, 2010; Nelson & Neufeldt, 1998). Similarly, the emphasis on contextual teaching is to help students find personal meaning in what they are learning by placing information within a context of how it is relevant to them (Granello, 2000). Although the reviewed literature adds important context to the area of teaching in counselor education, none of the research specifically examines the unique nature of teaching in clinical courses. Purpose of the Study The current study is the first to explore beginning counselors’ perceptions of helpful aspects of teachers of clinical courses in CMHC. Clinical courses were selected as a focus in this study because of their key role in student development of skills needed for professional practice and the lack of information on teaching clinical courses within the counselor education literature. We believed exploring the perspectives of beginning professional counselors, rather than students, was valuable for two important reasons: (a) beginning counselors are close enough to their master’s degree program experiences to be reflective about their teachers and (b) beginning counselors are able to consider helpful aspects of their teachers in light of their real-world experiences as professional counselors. Method We used a Q methodology to investigate aspects of counselor educators of clinical courses in CMHC that were perceived to be helpful by beginning-level counselors. Q methodology embraces both the analytic rigor of quantitative methodologies and the richness and depth of qualitative methodologies (Watts & Stenner, 2012). We selected Q methodology for this study because it was designed for systematic exploration of subjective human phenomena (i.e., people’s preferences) on topics such as teaching (Ramlo, 2016).