Development and validation of the Counselor Activity Self-Efficacy Scales.

Abstract

The Counselor Activity Self-Efficacy Scales were developed to assess self-efficacy for performing helping skills, managing the counseling process, and handling challenging counseling situations. Factor analyses of data from 345 students in undergraduate and graduate counseling courses yielded 6 factors. Factor-derived scale scores produced adequate internal consistency and short-term test–retest reliability estimates. The scale scores were strongly related to scores on an existing measure of counseling self-efficacy, weakly related to social desirability, sensitive to change over the course of a 1-semester practicum, and able to differentiate among students with differing levels of counseling experience. The scale scores were also related to interests, occupational goals, outcome expectations, and affective experience related to the counselor role. Implications for future research and training applications are considered. Counseling psychology and related helping professions have long been engaged in efforts to understand and promote the process of counselor development (Russell, Crimmings, & Lent, 1984). One particularly promising approach has involved the extension of Bandura’s (1986, 1997) general social– cognitive theory to the study of counselor development. Research has been particularly aimed at the social– cognitive construct of self-efficacy or, more specifically, counselor self-efficacy, referring to counselors’ beliefs about their ability to perform counseling-related behaviors or to negotiate particular clinical situations (Larson & Daniels, 1998). Such beliefs may be important at two levels. First, coun