The purpose of the study was to examine the effect of STIPS case note documentation and SOAP case note documentation on counseling trainees' perceived case conceptualization abilities. By training master's level counseling students in the use of case note writing and then asking them to rate their perceived conceptualization this study looked at an area of training that has received little attention in the past. This study attempted to begin the process of understanding if case note documentation could be an area that could help counseling students develop their case conceptualization skills.Quantitative and qualitative data analysis was utilized due to the exploratory nature of this study. The quantitative portion examined how the case note documentation affected trainees' perceived case conceptualization abilities while the qualitative portion examined patterns in the responses of participants to open-ended questions about case note documentation.The quantitative results showed that there was no significant difference between the groups in terms of their perceived case conceptualization. The qualitative results indicated that there are benefits and drawbacks to both the STIPS and the SOAP case note formats. / Department of Counseling Psychology and Guidance Services

Teaching is a central role of counselor educators. However, teaching in counselor education lacks guiding standards or best practice recommendations. Existing scholarly dialogue predominantly features the perspectives of educators and addresses content knowledge, techniques, activities, and assignments for courses across the curriculum with relatively less emphasis on foundations of teaching. The purpose of this study was to develop greater understanding of counselor educator dispositions, orientations, and behaviors that students perceive as important to their learning. Q methodology was utilized to gather and distill counselor education students’ (N = 48) preferences for characteristics identified via focus groups and a comprehensive literature review. Factor analysis revealed four distinct factors, upon which 45 participants’ sorts loaded and which accounted for 41% of total variance. The findings of this study support the importance of the person of the counselor educator in the teaching and learning process in addition to behavioral characteristics. Moreover, these findings support the use of student learning style assessments and customization of course facilitation to fit students’ unique preferences and values.