Self-efficacy as a mediator in the relationship between non-counseling roles and wellness in school counselors

Date

2009-05

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Publisher

Texas Tech University

Abstract

Professional School counselors have increasingly adopted duties outside the domain of counseling. Research indicates that this practice can have a detrimental effect on well-being, especially if self-efficacy is lowered in response. The purpose of the present study was to evaluate counselor self-efficacy as a mediator of the relationship between the school counselor's non-counseling activities and wellness, while accounting for the influence of experience in the field. To investigate the mediating effects of self-efficacy, a structural model was developed outlining the relationships between the variables. The 980 participants responded to an invitation to complete an online survey, hosted by SurveyMonkey. The population sample was drawn from an email list of professional school counselors who were members of a national school counseling association. In addition to a demographic survey, three instruments were utilized for data collection: Non-counselor activities were measured using the School Counselor Activity Rating Scale (SCARS), school counselor self-efficacy was measured using the School Counselor Self-Efficacy Scale (SCSE), and wellness was measured using the Five Factor Wellness Inventory (5FWel). Results were analyzed utilizing the LISREL 8.72 program (Joreskog & Sorbom, 2002). Although the tested model provided adequate goodness of fit to the data, the true mediating effect of self-efficacy could not be established. Results indicated that self-efficacy and non-counseling variables do appear to play an important role in school counselors' level of wellness; however, non-counseling activities did not appear to be related to self-efficacy. In addition, the years of experience variable did have some predictive power, although slight. Therefore, the belief that the non-counseling activities variable has predictive power for school counselors' wellness was supported by this study. Further, analyses revealed evidence suggesting that self-efficacy has a mediating effect on the relationship between wellness and counseling activities that are related to professional training. Lastly, the present study supports previous research that emphasizes the strong impact self-efficacy has on school counselor wellness.

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