TPC Journal V8, Issue 1 - FULL ISSUE

The Professional Counselor | Volume 8, Issue 1 69 Limitations and Suggestions for Future Research This investigation offers an initial look at CITs’ work values, occupational engagement, and professional quality of life at a pre– and post–career counseling course assessment and provides a look at a constructivist-based career counseling course. However, this study is not without limitations. First, as the sample size included one career counseling course, we are limited with N = 24 participants, which limits the power and generalizability of the findings. Even so, the course is a representation of course sample sizes within the counseling program in which this data was collected. Regarding participant demographics, this study involved primarily Caucasian, female CITs; therefore, the results may be limited when applying to diverse populations. Future research to explore and replicate these findings with a larger, more diverse sample is merited. Additionally, researchers should examine whether results on the WVI, ProQOL, and OES-S change as CITs transition into professional counselors. Perhaps as counselors progress in the profession, their work values, levels of engagement, and professional quality of life would evolve. In addition, as burnout and compassion fatigue are common within the helping professions (Lawson & Myers, 2011; Stamm, 2010), CITs might show drastic changes on their ProQOL scores as they progress into and through the counseling profession. Ultimately, future research could compare work values, occupational engagement, and professional quality of life of counselors to helpers in other fields (e.g., psychology, nursing, sociology) and assess any discrepancies or similarities present. In summary, CITs’ work values, occupational engagement, and professional quality of life at pre- and post-participation in a career counseling course were explored. Overall, participants experienced moderate levels of compassion satisfaction and experienced low levels of burnout and compassion fatigue (at both pre- and post-assessment), which is promising given the early nature of their counseling career. In addition, participants valued balance, support, helping, and honesty within their careers, while power, competition, and risk-taking were least valued. Finally, participants increased their levels of occupational engagement over the progression of the career counseling course—something for which we think the constructivist/experiential nature of the course is at least partially responsible. Conflict of Interest and Funding Disclosure The authors reported no conflict of interest or funding contributions for the development of this manuscript. References American Counseling Association (2014). 2014 ACA Code of Ethics . Alexandria, VA: Author. Ambrose, S. A., Bridges, M. W., DiPietro, M., Lovett, M. C., & Norman, M. K. (2010). How learning works: Seven research-based principles for smart teaching. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Bjornsen, A., Blount, A. J., & Moore, M. (2018). Student attitudes about career counseling coursework: Implications for counselor education. Manuscript submitted for publication. Blount, A. J., & Lambie, G. W. (2017). Development and factor structure of the Helping Professional Wellness Discrepancy Scale. Measurement and Evaluation in Counseling and Development , 50 , 1–19. doi:10.1080/07481756.2017.1358060