Self-Efficacy of School Counselors Working with Students with Disabilities
Location
D.P. Culp Center Ballroom
Start Date
4-5-2024 9:00 AM
End Date
4-5-2024 11:30 AM
Poster Number
186
Name of Project's Faculty Sponsor
Christine Lewis
Faculty Sponsor's Department
Counseling and Human Services
Competition Type
Competitive
Type
Poster Presentation
Presentation Category
Education
Abstract or Artist's Statement
School counselors often feel unprepared to work with students with disabilities (SWDs), despite an average of 25 percent of their day consisting of working with this population. Literature indicates a notable deficiency in the training of school counselors, tasked with supporting students' academic, career, social, and emotional needs. The current phenomenological research study explores the lived experiences of secondary-level (6-12) school counselors' self-efficacy when working with SWDs. This investigation aims to illuminate the training and professional development needs of secondary school counselors to better support SWDs. Therefore, helping school counselors improve their knowledge and boost their confidence in supporting SWDs. It was hypothesized that if secondary school counselors had more training and professional development opportunities in working with SWDs, they would have greater self-efficacy in supporting the academic, career, social, and emotional well-being of all students, especially SWDs. This study will contain 6-8 participants who, after completing informed consent, will complete a demographic questionnaire that identifies their current position in schools (middle 6-8; high 9-12), experience, and required courses in their training programs prior to their licensure as a professional school counselor. Participants will then complete an approximately 60-minute semi-structured interview via Zoom. During the Zoom, the researchers will revisit the issue of consent, ask participants to choose a pseudonym for their narrative and request that they turn off their cameras, as only the audio part is necessary for transcription. Five questions will be asked that gauge their self-efficacy, training, attitudes, and experiences when working with SWDs. After the interview, the researchers will clean up the participant transcript and participants will be emailed a copy for review. Once all participants have reviewed and confirmed their transcript, a thematic analysis of the data will be analyzed to identify core themes and patterns that emerged from the narratives. As this study is currently in the data collection phase, results are pending. The expected outcomes of this study are that school counselors who have more training and professional development opportunities surrounding the work with SWDs will not only have greater self-efficacy but an improved willingness to work with this population. If themes from the narrative indicate results of low self-efficacy in secondary school counselors working with SWDs is true, this research will enhance our understanding and pave the way for advocating increased training and professional development for all school counselors working with this population of students. If the expected results are not true, further research should be conducted to determine another avenue to improve the self-efficacy of school counselors working with SWDs.
Self-Efficacy of School Counselors Working with Students with Disabilities
D.P. Culp Center Ballroom
School counselors often feel unprepared to work with students with disabilities (SWDs), despite an average of 25 percent of their day consisting of working with this population. Literature indicates a notable deficiency in the training of school counselors, tasked with supporting students' academic, career, social, and emotional needs. The current phenomenological research study explores the lived experiences of secondary-level (6-12) school counselors' self-efficacy when working with SWDs. This investigation aims to illuminate the training and professional development needs of secondary school counselors to better support SWDs. Therefore, helping school counselors improve their knowledge and boost their confidence in supporting SWDs. It was hypothesized that if secondary school counselors had more training and professional development opportunities in working with SWDs, they would have greater self-efficacy in supporting the academic, career, social, and emotional well-being of all students, especially SWDs. This study will contain 6-8 participants who, after completing informed consent, will complete a demographic questionnaire that identifies their current position in schools (middle 6-8; high 9-12), experience, and required courses in their training programs prior to their licensure as a professional school counselor. Participants will then complete an approximately 60-minute semi-structured interview via Zoom. During the Zoom, the researchers will revisit the issue of consent, ask participants to choose a pseudonym for their narrative and request that they turn off their cameras, as only the audio part is necessary for transcription. Five questions will be asked that gauge their self-efficacy, training, attitudes, and experiences when working with SWDs. After the interview, the researchers will clean up the participant transcript and participants will be emailed a copy for review. Once all participants have reviewed and confirmed their transcript, a thematic analysis of the data will be analyzed to identify core themes and patterns that emerged from the narratives. As this study is currently in the data collection phase, results are pending. The expected outcomes of this study are that school counselors who have more training and professional development opportunities surrounding the work with SWDs will not only have greater self-efficacy but an improved willingness to work with this population. If themes from the narrative indicate results of low self-efficacy in secondary school counselors working with SWDs is true, this research will enhance our understanding and pave the way for advocating increased training and professional development for all school counselors working with this population of students. If the expected results are not true, further research should be conducted to determine another avenue to improve the self-efficacy of school counselors working with SWDs.