published_or_final_version / Education / Master / Master of Education

This study seeks as its purpose to establish an .objective evaluation of the counselor and his role as seen by various professional groups. The primary purpose of the investigation is to compare the perceptions of these various groups as to the tasks a counselor may perform. The study involves the distribution of an opinionn-aire to one hundred public high school counselors, one hundred public high school principals, sixty-three counselor-educators, and forty-two administrator-educators. A return percentage of seventy-nine has been realized.

There has been extensive criticism of schools for allowing counselors to be used for duties that lie beyond defined counselor roles. The purpose of this study was to determine if counselors are still being misused today as they have allegedly been in the past. The problem was divided into nine questions in order to ascertain differences in actual and ideal roles of secondary school counselors as perceived by counselors, principals and counselor educators. The study was limited to secondary schools in the Region X Education Service Center in Texas. The study included brief definitions of roles and an extensive review of literature. Twenty-three schools from the Region X Education Service Center in Texas were chosen using a random, stratified selection process. A counselor and the principal from each of these schools were interviewed using a Q sort. Three counselor educators were randomly selected to participate from each of three universities in the area. The Q-sort technique was used in order to determine differences in actual and ideal perceptions of the counselor's role as held by counselors, principals, and counselor educators. Cohen's equation for Q sorts was used to establish correlations between the different perceptions. A t distribution for correlation was used to determine significance. There was a significant positive correlation for these groups concerning their perceptions of secondary school counselors' roles: 1. Counselors' actual and counselors' ideal. 2. Principals' actual and principals' ideal. 3. Counselor educators' actual and counselors* ideal. 4. Counselors' and principals' actual. 5. Principals' and counselor educators' actual. 6. Counselors' and counselor educators' actual. 7. Counselors' and principals' ideal. 8. Counselors' and counselor educators' ideal. 9. Principals' and counselor educators' ideal. The Q-sort questions were also analyzed to determine which roles were ranked by these three groups to be most and least important.

The primary purpose of the study was to determine the effectiveness of an intensive, in-service training program for modifying selected personality traits among para-professional counselor aides restricted to working with emotionally disturbed youth in a residential treatment center. Additionally, an attempt was made to identify the areas in which personality traits were modified, both between experimental and control groups and between males and females.

M.Ed. / The importance of Career Counselling in secondary schools cannot be over-emphasized. In order to achieve the stated objective, our schools will require well trained and well qualified Career Counsellors who will execute this monumental task with great insight, distinction and knowledge. Differentiated education takes into account the fact that people are not the same and therefore their uniqueness will be considered and catered for by exposing them to career counselling. Learners need to be guided in order to make informed choices. This responsibility of guiding and informing learners should be shouldered by educators who are considered to be well-informed and more knowledgeable about the world of work and different courses. There are socio-economic and political changes that are taking place within the borders of our country and globally. Our learners must be multi-skilled or be exposed in order to brace themselves for this eventuality. The traditional way of doing things is rapidly giving way to modern operational techniques. Career Counselling is important in this instance in order to narrow the gap between tradition and the ever-changing world of occupation. For the Career Counselling to be meaningful and helpful to secondary school learners, educators are expected to assist them with the selection o fa major field, self-analysis, methods of career field analysis, establishment of short range career goals, analysis of employment environments, development of long-range career goals and support the learners in the job search campaign (Charles, 1976: 61). In the South African context a distinction is made between Career Counselling outside and within formal education. It seems that Career Counselling, particularly within formal education, experiences many problems, one of which is the inadequate training of Career Counselling educators and the insufficient provision for training such educators...

School counselors have potential to make significant gains in closing the achievement gap for all students as advocated for by the American School Counseling Association. School counseling is moving away from the no-model model of services delivery that places counselors at the whim of principals, parents and teachers who traditionally define counseling duties according to their needs. Instead, it is moving toward a school counseling framework advocated for by national and state organizations. A core concept of these frameworks is the use of evidence-based practices to meet the needs of all learners. Motivational Interviewing (MI) is an evidence-based counseling practice developed to assist with resolution of ambivalence and behavior change. Researched throughout the world in a variety of settings from the health professions to prisons, the results show promise in MI for assisting with behavior change in both adult and adolescent populations. MI training is currently available to school counselors at conferences, school district trainings and through self-study. There is little research on the efficacy of MI and school counseling training and implementation. The purpose of this dissertation is to produce two manuscripts related to school counseling and MI. Using a concurrent multiple baseline design, this study focused on the impact of MI feedback and coaching supervision of school counseling graduate students (N=3) with previous beginning MI training in a two day workshop. The hypothesis stated that subsequent feedback and coaching supervision improved school counseling graduate the percentage of MI adherent behavior on the Motivational Interviewing Treatment Integrity (MITI 3.1). The global rating scores increased with feedback and coaching supervision and the participants moved from levels of beginning MI competency to proficiency in their mean scores. Participants did not, however, increase the percentage of MI adherent behavior. These score began high and remained high throughout the 10 week duration of the research. Implications for this study include highlighting the importance of feedback and coaching supervision for school counseling graduate students wanting to increase beginning MI skills, and it marks the beginning of research on training and implementing MI in school counseling programs. / Graduation date: 2013

Martin Buber was an internationally known scholar, teacher, and author whose works covered education, communication, politics, theology, philosophy, counseling, and related fields. The purpose of this study was to discover the implications of Buber's philosophy of education for the student services profession. Previous attempts to relate Martin Buber's philosophy to student services were reviewed and a "Buber Primer" of useful terms for the student services professional was presented. The implications of education of character, dialogue, and educator-student relationship for four central questions for the student services profession were addressed: (1) Who are we as professionals?; (2) What are we supposed to do; (3) How?; and (4) Why? Buber proposes that education is essentially the education of character. Student services professionals should define themselves as educators; persons concerned with the development of the whole student. Buber defines dialogue as a seven step process: a turning of the being, confirmation, a sense of empathy, authenticity, common fruitfulness, silence, and commitment. Professional educators are encouraged to engage students in dialogue. Dialogue is defined as the delivery mechanism for developmentally based student services and for the education of character. Buber's concepts were related to the various activities of student services. Martin Buber's philosophy of dialogue and his 'education of character' should enhance the ability of professionals in student services to serve all students more intelligently and effectively. This study concluded that Martin Buber's philosophy belongs both in the vocabulary and the practice of student services. / Graduation date: 1990

Thesis (Ed. D.)--Illinois State University, 2002. / Title from title page screen, viewed Aug. 13, 2004. Dissertation Committee: Deborah J. Curtis, Kathleen Marie Crawford (co-chairs), Robert L. Fisher. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 117-119) and abstract. Also available in print.

Thesis PlanB (M.S.)--University of Wisconsin--Stout, 2009. / Includes bibliographical references.

No description available.