Importance of the CACREP school counseling standards: school counselors' perceptions - Council for the Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs

Professional School Counseling, Dec, 2002 by Cheryl Holcomb-McCoy, Julia Bryan, Stephanie Rahill

Instrument

The 38-item survey instrument for this study was developed based on the 2001 CACREP standards for school counseling programs. Each CACREP curricular experience was stated as an item on the survey. Validity of the survey items was addressed by soliciting feedback from eight school counselor educators from CACREP-accredited school counseling programs, all of whom teach school counseling courses and are contributors to the school counseling literature. As a result of their recommendations, several format and wording changes were made to the initial survey to better reflect the 2001 CACREP standards.

The survey consisted of a 5-point, Likert-type scale which was used to assess the perceived importance of the standard described in relation to the participant's role and responsibilities as a professional school counselor. Importance was rated using the following scale: 0 = "not important," 1 = "of little importance," 2 = "of moderate importance," 3 = "highly important," 4 = "very highly important." The scale demonstrated an internal consistency reliability (i.e., Cronbach's alpha) of .89. The appendix includes a list of the survey items.

Procedure

The survey was mailed to 600 prospective participants along with a cover letter explaining the purpose of the study and instructions for completion of the instrument. A self-addressed, stamped envelope was included to encourage return of the surveys. No follow-up letters or surveys were mailed.

RESULTS

Research Question 1: What Are the Underlying Factors of the CACREP School Counseling Standards?

Results were analyzed using the SPSS statistical package. A principle components factor analysis was performed to investigate the underlying factors of the items on the survey. The factor analysis yielded four factors with eigenvalues greater than 1.00, a solution that accounted for 51% of the variance in the 38 items on the survey. An examination of the scree plot suggested that a four factor solution should be considered (Zwick & Velicer, 1986). With the pattern matrix of factor loadings under the four-factor solution, two items (i.e., 1 and 29) that had loadings less than .40 on all of the four factors were eliminated.

Table 1 shows the factor loadings of the four factors as well as their eigenvalues, percent of variance explained by each factor, and alpha coefficients. The factor loadings for Factor 1 ranged from .46 to .70. Based on the 13 items that loaded on Factor 1, this factor may be interpreted as an underlying construct representing Program Development, Implementation, and Evaluation. Sample items for factor 1 included Ability to integrate the guidance curriculum in the total school curriculum; Ability to plan and present guidance related educational programs for school personnel; and Ability to use surveys, interviews, and needs assessments.

Factor 2 consisted of 11 items with loadings ranging from .40 to .70. Again, considering the items that load on this factor, the factor can be interpreted as representing the underlying construct of Counseling and Guidance Knowledge and Skills. Sample items for Factor 2 included Knowledge of prevention and crisis intervention strategies; Ability to identify student academic, career, and personal/social competencies and to implement activities to assist students in achieving these competencies; and Ability to implement individual and group counseling for children and adolescents.