Transcription of Evaluating counseling process and client outcomes.
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3 No part of Vistas may be reproduced without express permission of the American counseling Association. All rights ACA at: VISTAS Online229 Article22 EvaluatingCounselingProcessandClientOutc omesMarloweH. Smaby,Cleborne D. Maddux,IreonLeBeauf, and Jill PackmanRec entl y, th ere has bee n inc rea se d em pha sis on obje ctivemea suresof the quali ty of coun sel ing , part icu lar ly fo r use in thetr ainingof com mon topic,no t only in counselingeducation,but alsoin the educ at ion of teachers,ph ysi cia ns, engi nee rs, an d othe rs(Ho wle y, 2004;Smabyet al.)
4 , 20 05; Urbani et al. , 20 02; Vaug h &Ev erhart, 2004).In any fi eld , bes t pra ct ic es in asse ssm ent ma ke use of mu lti plemea surement s of bothproc ess an d out com es. In the fiel d ofcounseling, mea surementssh oul d be ob tai ned from coun sel ors , client s and ssm en t in str umen ts shou ld mee t soun d psyc hom etr an d va lidit y data shou ld ensurethat measurementsare consi ste nt and measurewhat th ey are int end ed to mea sur (1995)suggestedthat whileself assessmentsby counselorsas wel l as cl ient ratingscalesare of ten us ed and can provideusefulinf orm at ion, many are no t of val ue beca use they are no most commonassessmentapp roachused by researchersin volv es the use of tra ined rate rs who rate a counseloron variouscounseling pro ces ses.
5 Vide o reco rdi ngs of the cou nse lor areCompelling CounselingInterventions230ben efici al to pr eser ve the perf ormancefor trainingpurposesand tofaci lit ate the est ab lishmentof inte rra ter reli abi lit y (Sm aby et al. ,20 05) . Counselin g outcomeassess men t shou ld also mak e us e oftr ai ned rater t an d Fa ust (2003) con clu de d tha t mor e res ear chshouldbe conductedto deter mineho w best to evaluatethe efficacyof graduate counselingeducationwith var ious counselingprocessesand clientoutcomesas y #1 Scha efle, Sm aby, Packman,and Maddux(2007)investigatedwhethercounselor s who had been tr ainedin the SkilledCounselorTraining Model (SCTM)
6 Co uld tran sfe r cou nse lin g ski lls tocou nselingsessions with real clientsand whethercounselingskillsare rela ted to cou nselingoutcomes. Th e mea sur e of cou nse lin gproce ss was scores on the Sk ill ed Co uns el ing Scale(SCS),a reli ablean d val id inst rume nt for measuring coun selin g pr oce ss. Th e SC Smeas ures 18 spec ifi c coun sel ing skil ls and em plo ys a rank ing sy ste mused by exper t raters and other me asure of coun seli ng out com e wa s al so incl ude d.
7 TheGoal Attai nmentScale(GAS;Kir esuk,Smith,& Cardillo,1994)isa rel iableand validinstrumentthat is completedby counselorsandis a met hod for constructingtai lor -ma de co uns eli ng go als anddet erm iningwhe ther or not they hav e been e Co unsel or ResponseFor m - Sh ort (CRS-F;Tracy,Gli dden,& Koko to vic, 19 88) wa s us ed and wa s comp let ed by theclient s. Th is rel ia ble and vali d inst rum ent assessesclients per ceptionsof co unse lo rs soci al inf luence(at tr activeness,expertness,andtr ust wor th in es s).
8 Pa rticipants in thi s stud y wer e cou nse lin g maste r s stude nts ata large, LandGr ant Uni versityin the who were enrolledin a gr ad uat e in ter ns hip. The pr og ram is acc reditedby the CouncilforAc cr edi tat ion of Counselingand Rela ted Edu cat ion al Prog ram sEval uati ng Counseli ng Pr ocessand Cli ent Out comes231(CA CREP). Sk il led counseling Sca le (SCS ) ra tin gs, goa l at tai nme ntsc ores (GAS),and soc ial influ en ce scor es (CRF-S) wer e all ve ry hi to thr ee goa ls were id ent ifi ed by th e cou nse lor s for the GA Sins trument.
9 The percen tage who reportedthat they thoughttheyac hie ve d thes e goa ls were 91% , 91%, and 87 %, respectively. Almostal l the pa rtic ipa ti ng coun sel ors re ported tha t they belie ved that almostall th e clien ts they ha d wo rked wit h had achieved alm ost all th eir goal F- S scores were als o very high . Th e med ian scor e wa s 78,wi th 84 bein g th e hig hest possi ble sc ore. An analysisof individualit ems sh ow ed tha t the mediansc ore was on all it ems (the high estpos si bl e sco re wa s ).
10 Thesefi nd ings showtha t th e cl ien ts of th esecou nsel ors belie ved theyhad hi gh levelsof socialinfluence(at tr act iven es s, exp ertness,an d trustworthi nes s).Th e res earc hers co nclu ded th at the co uns elo rs in thi s stud ywereabl e to transfer the counseling skillsthey learnedto actualsessionswi th ,counselors reportedhigh levelsof goalat tai nmen t and cl ien ts perc eivedhig h le vel s of soc ial influe nce in the irco uns elo rs .Study#2 Mall inckr odt and Nelson(1991)focusedtheir researchon acounseling var iablecalledthe wor king alliancebetweencounselorand cli ent.
