Career concerns of master's-level community and school counselor trainees

Career Development Quarterly, Dec, 2006 by Louis A. Busacca, Kelly L. Wester

The authors examined the career concerns of 152 counselor trainees in 7 master's-level programs accredited by the Council for Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs. Results indicate that counselor trainees expressed considerable professional development, adjustment, and academia concerns while reporting minimal job-search concerns. Students reported concerns of significant importance for specific career tasks anticipated during training and general concerns about exploring their career futures and establishing themselves as new professionals. Results of regression analyses indicated that students with high levels of concern for establishment stage tasks reported significantly higher levels of overall career concerns. Implications for counselor education faculty, limitations of the study, and recommendations for further research are delineated.

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Graduate counseling students confront a diversity of career-related tasks as they enter and progress through graduate training. Many of these tasks relate to exploring the fit between self and the role of counselor and establishing self as a new professional. Career-related tasks include finding a mentor, balancing life roles, managing stress, narrowing an area of specialization, securing an internship, and preparing for the job search. Often a result of social expectations imposed by faculty, profession, family and peers, the stress of coping with these career-related tasks is sometimes experienced by individuals as career concerns (Luzzo, 1999; Super, Savickas, & Super, 1996). There remains, however, a void in the counselor education literature on the career concerns of master's-level counselor trainees. Because more students enter counselor education programs from diverse occupational and educational backgrounds, and because the average age of students enrolling in counselor education is increasing (Clawson, Henderson, & Schweiger, 2003), the career concerns of counselor trainees should be given more attention. This literature review begins with research that sheds light on the career concerns and issues faced by graduate students, in general, followed by a consideration of the research focusing on graduate-level counseling students, in particular.

Career Development of Graduate Students

Some graduate students have been found to adopt an exploratory posture during their educational experience. This finding has been the result of research comparing the career concerns of nontraditional with those of traditional students and the career concerns of graduate with those of undergraduate students. For example, Haviland and Mahaffy (1985) found that nontraditional students reported the perception of more barriers in reaching an occupational goal, more role conflicts, and a greater need for occupational information than did traditional students. In a study by McCaffrey, Miller, and Winston (1984), graduate students were found to be similar to college seniors in their perceived need to determine career-related skills, learn about career options, and use effective career decision-making techniques. McCaffrey et al. have suggested that a substantial proportion of students enter graduate school with unclear career goals. Career exploration can also be an important task for older students returning to higher education.

Graduate students who return to college after years of working or meeting other obligations often find themselves recycling through exploratory

stage tasks. For these nontraditional students, this recycling process emphasizes one's adaptability for transitions and coping with unexpected changes through reexamining one's interests, values, and abilities (Savickas, 2005). For example, in a study of the career decision-making differences between younger and older community college students, Healy and Reilly (1989) discovered that many career decision-making tasks "thought to pose minimal concern if repeated during the adult years were reported as major needs by 25% to 35% of the adults over 30 years of age" (p. 544). Although the literature on graduate student career issues has shown cohort differences, counselor educators have generated only conceptual articles designed to assist master's-level counseling students with their career development.

Career Issues of Counseling Students

There is minimal information about the career development of master's-level counselor trainees. Disciplines such as psychology and education produce generous information on the professional growth and career development of graduate students (e.g., Richmond & Sherman, 1991; Sternberg, 1997). The available career literature in counselor education, however, focuses primarily on professional development during doctoral studies, including seeking faculty positions (Warnke, Bethany, & Hedstrom, 1999), academic hiring policies (Rogers, Gill-Wigal, Harrigan, & Abbey-Hines, 1998), and completing a doctoral program (Boes, Ullery, Millner, & Cobia, 1999). This information appears informative for those students who seek academic positions, yet neglects the developmental tasks and concerns of those who seek entry-level counseling positions.