A Pre-Experimental Pilot Study of School Counselors Completing an 8-Month Professional Development Program to Improve Self-Efficacy

Abstract

Researchers have minimally studied school counselor professional development practices and their associations with school counselor self-efficacy. To fill this gap, we examined the School Counseling Fellowship Program (SCFP), which utilized an innovative professional development model to promote better classroom lesson design among school counselors. In a pre-experimental pilot study about the program with three data collections, results indicated that school counselors in the SCFP (N = 19) reported significantly increased overall school counselor self-efficacy (p < .001, ηp 2 = 0.54), as well as significantly improved self-efficacy in personal and social development (p < .001, ηp 2 = 0.50), leadership and assessment (p < .001, ηp 2 = 0.55), career and academic development (p < .001, ηp 2 = 0.52), collaboration (p < .001, ηp 2 = 0.36), and cultural acceptance (p = .006, ηp 2 = 0.25). Results suggest tentative positive support for the SCFP model to be used in future practice.