Date of Award

Spring 2013

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Counseling & Human Services

Program/Concentration

Counselor Education and Supervision

Committee Director

Nina Brown

Committee Member

Corrin Richels

Committee Member

Kaprea Johnson

Abstract

The purpose of this research study was to examine the attitudes held by school-based administrators, teachers, and professional school counselors regarding ideal and actual roles of the professional school counselor. The survey instrument utilized in this research study, the PSCRFA, is grounded in the ASCA model and reflective of current school counseling ideology. This investigation determined if attitudes within and among the groups differed significantly along specific independent variables, such as age, gender, years of experience, school setting, student caseload, and educational level for school-based administrators, teachers, and professional school counselors working in an urban public school district in Hampton Roads, Virginia, as measured by the Professional School Counselor Role and Function Appraisal (PSCRFA). In addition, this study assisted in ascertaining the preferred level of engagement for professional school counselors within the school-wide counseling program. Quantitative statistical analyses were performed using SPSS ® Data Analysis System (IBM, 2012) to test for differences between and among groups of school-based administrators, teachers, and professional school counselors.

Analysis of variance between ratings on degree of significance and degree of frequency revealed no statistically significant differences between administrators, teachers, and counselors along the three scales—except for significance ratings for Performance Standards. It was concluded that no significant association existed between the positions held by school personnel, their ratings on the importance of school counselor tasks, and ratings on how often tasks were performed. Overall, there was evidence of minimal agreement between participants' beliefs of more significant performance standards being performed more frequently, as well as more significant counselor roles being performed more frequently. Within group differences were statistically significant for administrators and counselors with respect to degree of significance for work performed by professional school counselors. The results indicated that, overall, counselors most frequently reported higher ratings on the importance of program standards, performance standards, and counselor role. Overall scores for all three groups were lower for frequency than for importance, indicating that the school counselor's level of functioning did not match the ideal performance levels preferred by school personnel.

Rights

In Copyright. URI: http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/ This Item is protected by copyright and/or related rights. You are free to use this Item in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s).

DOI

10.25777/tyn4-x714

ISBN

9781303219535

Download

Share

COinS