Preferences and anticipations of career counseling: Comment on Galassi, Crace, Martin, James, and Wallace (1992).

The study on client anticipations and preferences regarding career counseling by J. P. Galassi et al (see record 1992-17938-001) is criticized with respect to theoretical grounding, assessment format, data analysis, and interpretation. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Client preferences and anticipations in career counseling: A preliminary investigation.

Client expectations have been studied infrequently in career counseling. This study provides preliminary data about precounseling expectations, which were conceptualized as preferences and anticipations. 92 university students (22 men and 70 women) who sought career counseling completed an open-ended questionnaire. Results suggested the following conclusions: (1) Clients have fairly clear ideas about what they want (preferences) from career counseling and about what the experience should be like; (2) clients are somewhat less certain about what the career counseling experience will actually be like (anticipations) and less optimistic about it; (3) a number of mismatches exist between clients' preferences and anticipations; (4) clients do not have well-developed expectations about their dislikes in career counseling; and (5) few differences are evident between clients who have had previous counseling and those who have not. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Am I the fifth horseman of the apocalypse? Comment on Galassi, Crace, Martin, James, and Wallace (1992) and comments on research concerning expectations about counseling.

The criticisms by J. P. Galassi et al (see record 1992-17938-001) of H. E. Tinsley and B. L. Benton (1978) and the Expectations About Counseling instrument are shown to be unfounded, problems with the terminology of Galassi et al are discussed, and the technical adequacy and findings of Galassi et al are analyzed. Problems that have occurred frequently in research on expectations about counseling are attributed to lack of programmatic research, failure to critically analyze existing literature, and use of instruments designed for a single study. The devotion of too much attention to "let's change a word" and "let's change a demographic variable" research is criticized. More effort is called for (1) to identify and measure theoretically relevant expectations, (2) to examine the relations between expectations and related constructs, (3) to determine how expectations can be modified, and (4) to investigate the relation of expectations to aspects of the counseling process and outcome. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Counselor gender, type of problem, and expectations about counseling.

100 male and 100 female college students were assigned to 1 of 4 experimental conditions—female counseling psychologist (CP)/career or vocational concern (CVC); male CP/CVC; female CP/person concern (PC); or male CP/PC—and responded to an expectations-about-counseling questionnaire that included sex of CP and type of problem. Results of a MANOVA revealed a significant main effect for S Gender; no other main effects were found. Females had significantly higher expectations for the client attitudes/behaviors of motivation, openness, and responsibility and for the CP attitudes of acceptance, confrontation, and genuineness. Females also expected more attractive and trustworthy CPs than did males, expected more immediacy in the counseling process, and had a more positive outcome expectancy. Males expected CPs to be more directive and self-disclosing than did females. The 2 groups did not differ in their expectations for CP empathy, expertness, and concreteness. (17 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Career self-efficacy expectations and perceived range of career options in community college students.

The first purpose of the present study was to explore the relation of socioeconomic status (SES), race, gender, career self-efficacy, career interests, and sex role orientation to career-choice range in female–male, and non-gender-dominated careers. The second purpose was to determine the relation of SES, race, sex role orientation, gender, and career interests to career self-efficacy. Results indicated that career interest and career self-efficacy expectations significantly predicted range of perceived career options above and beyond the contributions of the other dependent variables. Similarly, career interest and sex role orientation predicted self-efficacy expectations. Recommendations for future investigations of the career self-efficacy model of occupational choice as well as some possible applications of the findings to career counseling are made. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Testing practices in university and college counseling centers in the United States.

The frequency and scope of psychological test usage in a counseling psychology setting were studied by sending questionnaires to 372 college and university counseling center directors. The 284 usable responses indicated usage of a total of 158 tests; 35 were mentioned by 10% or more of the respondents. The median number of tests mentioned by a center was 14. The 3 most frequently used types of tests were career counseling, led by the Strong-Campbell Interest Inventory; personality assessment, led by the MMPI; and mental abilities and aptitude tests (e.g., the WAIS and Differential Aptitude Tests). Differences between these results and those of earlier surveys in clinical settings are discussed. The present respondents reported that counseling psychologists in their centers use career assessment instruments more frequently and projective personality instruments less frequently than do the clinicians. (18 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Mary Hawley McCaulley (1920-2003).

Presents an obituary for Mary Hawley McCaulley, who passed away on August 26, 2003. Dr. McCaulley was widely recognized for her work as the clinical psychologist who spearheaded the effort to establish empirical support for the typology theory articulated by Carl Jung and two American educators, Isabel Myers and her mother, Katharine Briggs. The assessment instrument developed to promote applications of Jung's typology theory is known as the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) and McCaulley collaborated with Myers to create the first MBTI computer scoring program. Dr. McCaulley's priorities were education, counseling, multicultural personality assessment, leadership development, career planning, and psychometrics for the MBTI. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The role of contextual supports and barriers in the choice of math/science educational options: A test of social cognitive hypotheses.

Social cognitive career theory proposes that contextual supports and barriers play key roles in the career choice process, yet little research has examined hypotheses involving these variables. Participants (111 college students) completed measures of math/science-related course self-efficacy, coping efficacy, outcome expectations, interests, goals, and perceived contextual supports and barriers. Findings indicate that self-efficacy and outcome expectations were jointly predictive of interests and choice intentions. Support and barrier percepts produced only weak direct relations to choice, though barrier percepts were found to moderate interest-choice relations. A model portraying barriers and supports as linked to choice indirectly (via their impact on self-efficacy) produced better fit to the data than did a model specifying barriers and supports as directly linked to choice. Implications for future research and counseling are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Personality differences and expectations about counseling.

We assessed the relation between conceptual system functioning and expectations about counseling and extend earlier research in 2 ways: (a) Client expectations are linked to a stable personality dimension, and (b) the conceptual system, rather than the conceptual level, model provided the theoretical rationale. Implications of these extensions are discussed. Measures of client conceptual stage and their expectations were taken immediately prior to initial meetings with counselors. A multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) and a discriminant analysis of data from 60 clients revealed theoretically consistent separation between the 4 stages of conceptual functioning on 2 dimensions of expectations about counselor characteristics, attitudes and behaviors. The need to consider the influence of conceptual functioning in counseling process research is supported. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Counseling and psychotherapy with Asian-Americans: Review of the literature.

Reviews the existing literature on counseling and psychotherapy with Asian-Americans and discusses research needs and recommendations for future research. Diagnosis and assessment issues include symptom expression, therapist bias, problems with the use of interpreters, and problems with the use of clinical and personality tests. Client variables in counseling and psychotherapy involve the personality of Asian-Americans, language problems, the acculturation process, and counseling expectations. Therapist variables involve therapist bias, training bias, lack of intercultural skills, and culture-specific knowledge. In a discussion of process and outcome, the author reviews empirical studies, clinical case studies, and articles with treatment strategies and recommendations. Research recommendations for each of the areas reviewed are identified. (3 p ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Career patterns in counseling centers: Counseling psychologists review their past, present, and future.

Surveyed 381 psychologists working in college or university counseling centers to gain insight into career patterns of counseling center psychologists. Included were reasons for seeking, staying with, or leaving a particular position; satisfaction with past and current work activities; and future career planning. An analysis of the survey responses led to identification of distinct career patterns for counseling center psychologists as well as unique drawbacks and advantages associated with counseling center work, including flexibility of job functions, the opportunity to work with students in an academic setting and the low pay scale. Results suggest that the college counseling center is a satisfying employment setting characterized by early entry and a minimal number of job changes over the span of a career. (6 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Career decision-making and career search activities: Relative effects of career search self-efficacy and human agency.

The nature of the relationship between 3 human agency indices (assertiveness, instrumentality, and interpersonal facility), career search self-efficacy, and 3 career indices (vocational identity, career decision needs, and career activities performed) is examined. Data from 426 college men and women were analyzed using hierarchical regression to assess whether career search self-efficacy was able to mediate the relationship between human agency and each career index. For all 3 career indices, the mediator hypothesis was supported. No support was found for human agency mediating the relationship between career search self-efficacy and the career indices, nor for human agency moderating the relationship between career search self-efficacy and career indices. Implications for conducting counseling intervention programs focusing on development of career search self-efficacy expectations are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Choosing a norm group for counseling: Legislation, regulation, and nontraditional careers.

In the past 30 years, the number of women employed in the U.S. economy has grown dramatically. Unfortunately, occupational segregation by gender has continued, and women's earnings are still much smaller on the average than are men's earnings. This article examines the role of vocational counseling in the career exploration process of young people. It is argued that providing information to young people about their abilities and interests via same-sex and opposite-sex norms conveys more information than the use of norms based on an overall group and facilitates exploration of nontraditional careers. The use of separate-gender norms raises legal concerns; federal law and regulations related to the choice of a norm group for career counseling are reviewed. The experiences of one organization whose use of separate-gender norms was reviewed for compliance with federal statutes are summarized. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Neglected aspects and truncated appraisals in vocational counseling: Interpreting the interest–efficacy association from a broader perspective: Comment on Armstrong and Vogel (2009).

Invited commentary on Armstrong and Vogel’s (2009) article on interpreting the interest–efficacy association stimulated an appraisal from a broader perspective. Like empirical research, scale development, and theorizing emanating from social cognitive career theory (SCCT), their conclusion about the importance of assessing both interests and self-efficacy in applied settings and speculations about the developmental sequencing of these attributes need to be evaluated in the context of what decades of longitudinal research reveal are critical determinants of educational and vocational choice, performance after choice, and persistence. For our interventions to be effective and our theory development to be meaningful, we must ensure that innovative measures possess incremental validity relative to cognitive abilities and educational–vocational interests, which are already well established as salient predictors of long-term educational–vocational outcomes. Broader historical, philosophical, and scientific perspectives are provided to enhance practice, research, and theory development. These broader perspectives reveal how well-positioned vocational counseling is for further advances if it builds on (rather than neglects) its longstanding tradition of developing a cumulative psychological science. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The relationship of trainee self-efficacy to the process and outcome of career counseling.

This investigation examined the role of counselor trainees' self-efficacy on measures of career counseling process, "small o" outcome, and outcome with actual clients. Twenty-four counselor trainees saw 55 clients in 3 to 12 individual sessions. Results indicated that (a) career counseling self-efficacy increased by a standard deviation from prepracticum to postpracticum; (b) client scores significantly improved from pretest to posttest across multiple career outcome measures; (c) clients' working alliance, goal attainment, and decidedness indicated significant growth; (d) the significant growth on the process variable and small o outcome variables did not appear to be related to career counseling self-efficacy; and (e) career counseling self-efficacy apparently related to certain career counseling outcome measures in a manner suggesting much greater complexity than the "more self-efficacy is better" philosophy would imply. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Implications of social supports for adolescents' education and career aspirations.

260 15–18 yr old students (grade 9–12) completed questionnaires designed to examine relations among social support, perception of future opportunity, and education and career aspirations and expectations. Path analyses showed that for both males and females, perception of opportunity predicts educational expectations, which, in turn, predict educational aspirations and career expectations. For females, peer, family and teacher supports predict perception of opportunity, whereas for males only family support is predictive of perception of opportunity. Data indicated that females perceive more teacher and peer support than do males, and that compared to their male peers, females have greater perceived future opportunity, educational aspirations and expectations, and career expectations. Both males and females indicate a greater gap between career aspirations and expectations than between education aspirations and expectations. The possible contributions of socioeconomic conditions and gendered socialization are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Gender and adult roles: Role commitment of women and men in a job-family trade-off context.

The dimensionality that underlies the preferences of female (n?=?87) and male (n?=?31) college students for combining work and parent roles was investigated using conjoint measurement techniques. Both groups construed the role trade-offs and intensity of involvement with these roles differently as they applied to women and men. Results for female roles confirm and extend L. C. Coombs's (1979) findings—both women and men perceived a job–child trade-off dimension and a total involvement (percentage of time devoted to job and number of children desired) dimension for women. Results differed for male roles. Students perceived these life roles to be independent, rather than contingent, choices for men. The trade-off context is important for assessment and counseling. The perceived independence of these roles for men poses a dilemma regarding counseling practice for both sexes: whether to confirm sex role perceptions or explore discrepancies in expectations and equity implications. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A practical, evidence-based approach for means-restriction counseling with suicidal patients.

Assessing a patient's access to potentially lethal means for suicide and taking steps to restrict access to means are common expectations for reasonable outpatient management of suicidal patients. Although scientific evidence supports means restriction as a suicide prevention strategy, means restriction continues to be infrequently utilized by clinicians, in large part because of the general lack of available training and guidance. The present article reviews the conceptual basis and empirical evidence for means restriction, discusses common barriers to means-restriction counseling, and provides practical procedures and tools (e.g., the means receipt, the crisis support plan) for accomplishing means-restriction counseling in routine clinical practice. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)