A taxonomy of critical incidents in multicultural counseling class

Abstract

ABSTRACT This study aimed to develop an empirical taxonomy of the specific multicultural training components perceived as helpful by counseling students in their development of multicultural competence. Participants included 19 counseling trainees from a master’s level clinical mental health counseling program at a university located in Midwestern America. All participating trainees responded to an anonymous critical incident (CI) course survey at mid-semester and semester-end. A total of 170 CIs were identified, and an empirical taxonomy of the CIs was generated using Latent Semantic Analysis and Hierarchical Cluster Analysis. The taxonomy system consisted of 3 superordinate Level-1 clusters (Class Format, Cognitive Aspect, and Experiential Process), which were further broken down into 6 intermediate-level CI clusters and 28 basic-level CI clusters. These findings helped us better understand counseling students’ learning experiences and what has been helpful for developing multicultural competence in a multicultural counseling class. Chi-Square analyses found no significant differences of occurrence for each general theme of CIs across mid-semester or semester-end, which indicated that Class Format, Cognitive Aspect, and Experiential Process appeared to be equally helpful for students in developing their multicultural competence throughout the semester.