TPC Journal V8, Issue 4- FULL ISSUE

The Professional Counselor | Volume 8, Issue 4 379 Discussion Implementing technology in school counseling is a call to action from past counseling researchers (Casey, Bloom, & Moan, 1994; Creamer, 2000; Dahir, 2009; Granello, 2000) to move the profession into the future (Dahir, 2009). When school counselors adopt and integrate technology into their practices, they can be effective in their role (Hu et al., 2003). The first research question, whether school counselors choose to use or not use Naviance , was answered by most of the counselors, who indicated that the ease of use and the overall usefulness influenced their decision to use the Naviance platform or not. Barriers identified that interfered with ease of use and usefulness were bandwidth issues within schools and school counselors’ ability to connect to the resource tool. The second research question, how Naviance acceptance and usage enhance school counseling practices, productivity, and efficiency, was answered by most of the school counselors in this study, who stated that the use of Naviance positively enhanced their job productivity, efficiency, and counseling practices. Particularly, the ability to introduce college-related material to help students develop individual education plans, identify courses, provide social and emotional resources, and advise on graduation status and college eligibility, was positive. In addition, more school counselors used Naviance as a vehicle to share information with teachers, administrators, and parents. Limitations There were several limitations. The results of this study indicated that school counselors had positive attitudes toward the integration and usage of Naviance; however, the findings were limited to middle and high school counselors who work in a specific public school district located in the southwestern part of the United States, which prevented the inclusion of experiences and expertise of other public and private school counselors throughout the country. The addition of other Naviance users in small public and private schools might have produced other results. Another limitation was that the first researcher has used Naviance for the past 10 years in various roles as a district administrator. To prevent bias, the first researcher did not make assumptions based on what participants chose to share or attempt to present answers. In contrast, the second researcher has never used Naviance, which allowed for an unbiased viewpoint when writing the analysis. Further, a school counselor educator, familiar with Naviance, reviewed and read over this study prior to publication to minimize researcher technology bias. Finally, Naviance generally provides district offices and schools with reports on engagement activities and staff and student usage. Although researchers used the Naviance engagement reports to speak to overall usage in subcategories such as college planning, career planning, guidance curriculum, and test preparation, multiple school engagement reports were combined to differentiate middle and high school engagement activities. In addition, Naviance provides reports on staff usage; therefore, the first researcher retrieved data at the school site level to determine counselor usage rather than usage by staff, such as teachers and administrators, during data analysis. Implications for Counselors One of the benefits of using an online platform such as Naviance is that it can bring value to the practices of school counselors when helping to introduce and prepare students for college. For instance, such a tool can support dissemination of critical student-related information, data collection, tracking and analysis, customization of 4-year graduation plans, and communication between multiple stakeholders, to name a few.