An Investigation of Multicultural Counseling Competence and Multicultural Counseling Self-Efficacy for Counselors-in-Training

Abstract

Counseling necessitates clinicians to be culturally competent and self-efficacious in order to ethically and effectively work with diverse client populations. This study investigated the relationship between counselor education students’ (N = 118) levels of self-reported multicultural counseling competence (MCC), multicultural counseling self-efficacy (MCSE), and demographic data (gender, ethnicity, level of education). Contrary to prior research, results indicated that student gender and ethnicity did not affect MCSE or self-reported MCC. However, students who had been in graduate education longer had higher self-reported MCC and higher levels of multicultural knowledge. Discussion and implications of findings are provided.