Abstract
According to the American School Counselor Association, school counseling interns’ competence should be measured by an instrument grounded in professional standards. However, no valid and reliable instrument exists to assess school counseling interns’ competencies. We created and validated a school counseling supervision instrument with four subscales: Foundational Skills and Dispositions, Multicultural Considerations and Student Services, General Education and Special Education Process, and Classroom Management and Collaboration/Consultation. We provide implications for interns, site supervisors, and university supervisors/faculty.
According to the American School Counselor Association (ASCA) ethical standards (2016a), school counseling interns’ competence should be measured by an evaluation tool grounded in state and national standards. However, no psychometrically sound, standardized instrument exists to explicitly assess school counseling interns’ competencies. Here, we describe our process in creating and validating the School Counseling Internship Competency Scale, a 37-item instrument with four subscales. For the first known psychometrically valid and reliable instrument of its kind, we provide implications for using the SCICS with school counseling interns, site supervisors, and university supervisors/faculty.
School Counseling Roles
School counselors are responsible for meeting students’ academic, career, and social/emotional needs through a comprehensive school counseling program, such as one adhering to the ASCA National Model (ASCA, 2019a). Specifically, school counselors’ complex and dynamic roles include using data to inform and evaluate their school counseling program, advocating for systemic change to decrease equity and access gaps, engaging in direct student services to meet students’ needs, and collaborating and consulting with stakeholders (ASCA, 2019a; Bryan & Henry, 2012; Cholewa et al., 2017).
Elementary, middle, and high school counselors must be equipped with the knowledge, skills, and dispositions to successfully fulfill their dynamic roles and support student success (ASCA, 2019d, 2019e, 2019f). As such, school counselors rely on a strong foundation of relationship-building skills and evidence-based techniques to provide equitable services for diverse learners (ASCA, 2019c; Betters-Bubon et al., 2022; Stickl Haugen et al., 2021). Using these skills, school counselors must demonstrate multicultural competence and advocate for equitable learning environments (ASCA, 2018b; Grothaus et al., 2020). Not only are school counselors considered educators who support students’ academic needs (ASCA, 2016b, 2018b), they also undergo unique training that allows them to identify and support mental health needs (ASCA, 2019d, 2019e, 2019f). Given the diverse needs and personal histories of students, school counselors are positioned to assess needs and implement student-centered programming, offering preventative and responsive services such as assisting with risk assessments and special education processes, engaging in small- or large-group work, and connecting students with resources (ASCA, 2019a, 2019b; Cholewa et al., 2017). School counselors typically learn about their roles and responsibilities implementing a comprehensive program in their graduate program, which culminates in internship (Council for Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs [CACREP], 2016). A key aspect of internship and the development of school counselor competencies is clinical supervision.
Clinical Supervision
Clinical supervision occurs when an experienced professional observes and advises a novice professional, to monitor content learned, enhance skills, and ensure that only qualified candidates enter the profession (Bernard & Goodyear, 2019). Counseling students are typically supervised at their site and through their university (Lambie & Ascher, 2016). Clinical supervision not only strengthens professional identity and promotes counseling competencies but also ensures the well-being of K–12 students and stakeholders school counselors serve, thus serving as a gatekeeping mechanism (Bernard & Goodyear, 2019). During clinical supervision, university and site supervisors utilize formal and informal assessments to gauge the strengths and growth areas of their supervisees, allowing for reflection and intentional feedback that supports supervisees’ development (Bernard & Goodyear, 2019).
Although clinical supervision literature has historically focused on mental health counseling, with a history of research and application (Goodyear et al., 2016; Neuer Colburn et al., 2016), school counseling supervision is less defined, infrequently researched, and may present with unique challenges related to inconsistencies and ineffectiveness (Bledsoe et al., 2019). Mental health counselors typically receive years of supervision beyond graduation while pursuing licensure; however, no expectation of continued supervision exists for school counselor licensure. Therefore, school counselors do not typically receive clinical supervision unless they intentionally seek it out. Despite the major disparity between supervision experiences of mental health and school counselors, both may ultimately serve as site supervisors themselves when working with practicum and internship students. Given that supervision is critical to professional growth, scholars recommend continued research involving elements of school counseling supervision (Bledsoe et al., 2019; Perera-Diltz & Mason, 2012).
Supervision Instruments
Existing assessments to evaluate counseling interns typically use self-efficacy or other-efficacy ratings regarding counseling competencies. Although self-efficacy, or the self-evaluation of one’s own performance, is meaningful, many graduate programs use other-efficacy ratings, defined as the perspectives and beliefs regarding the efficacy of another person’s performance (Lent & Lopez, 2002). Other-efficacy evaluations tend to be more representative of trainees’ strengths and weaknesses (Lambie & Ascher, 2016; Lent & Lopez, 2002). Often, graduate programs create their own evaluation instruments through unknown processes, which introduce a high degree of variation in instruments with undetermined reliability and validity (Kemer et al., 2017). Although these instruments may be based upon CACREP and/or Council for the Accreditation of Education Preparation (CAEP) standards, programs create these to fulfill an unmet need in the absence of a valid and reliable school counseling intern competency scale.
To examine current competency instruments created and used during supervision in graduate training programs, Kemer et al. (2017) conducted a content analysis on competency evaluation forms used in supervision from CACREP-accredited clinical mental health master’s programs. They noted common areas of evaluation (e.g., counseling and process skills, assessment and case conceptualization skills, ethical and professional behavior, self-awareness and self-reflection skills, supervision behaviors, and multicultural skills), while also describing considerable differences between evaluation forms. This study was influential in identifying inconsistencies in preservice counselor evaluation and the need for psychometric studies on competency instruments, but the results were specific only to the mental health counseling specialty and suggested the need for school counseling-specific competency evaluations for school counseling interns.
While Kemer et al.’s (2017) study focused solely on the clinical mental health counseling specialty area, other competency instruments exist for use with internship students across all counseling specialties such as college, mental health, and school (e.g., Flynn & Hays, 2015; Swank et al., 2012). For instance, Flynn and Hays (2015) created the Comprehensive Counseling Skills Rubric (CCSR) to assess trainee competency, focusing on different phases of a counseling session. This rubric concentrated heavily on phases of a traditional counseling session, and thus is not practical in school counseling settings where counseling is only one aspect of school counselors’ role implementing a comprehensive program, such as the ASCA National Model (ASCA, 2019a; Goodman-Scott et al., 2016). Other scholars have also addressed the need for a comprehensive and psychometrically sound instrument for evaluating counseling competencies by developing and validating the Counseling Competencies Scale (CCS) and the CCS–Revised (CCS-R; DePue & Lambie, 2014; Lambie & Ascher, 2016; Swank et al., 2012). Both the CCS and CCS-R resulted in two-factor structures: (a) counseling skills and therapeutic conditions and (b) counseling dispositions and behaviors, warranting its use in assessing core counseling skills and dispositions. However, once again, the nuances of specific counseling specialties (e.g., school counseling) are not addressed in the CCS or the CCS-Revised.
Recognizing the lack of school counseling-specific competency scales for use in supervision, Hamlet and Burnes (2013) developed the Professional School Counseling Internship: Developmental Assessment of Counseling Skills (CIDACS), based on two phases of participatory action research. Although these scholars aimed to create a competency instrument specific to school counseling, two substantial limitations render this instrument practically unusable: (a) the lack of psychometric testing and thus undetermined reliability and validity and (b) outdated content. First, instrument developers are obligated to engage in a rigorous process when creating and validating instruments, such as using exploratory factor analysis (EFA), to indicate whether the psychometric properties warrant its use with specific populations (American Educational Research Association et al., 2014). Ensuring that psychometrics are easily available allows potential instrument users to critically assess the strengths and weaknesses of an instrument, which assists them in making an informed decision regarding its use. Given that the psychometrics (i.e., latent structure, reliability, and validity) of the CIDACS are unknown, it is not recommended for use. Second, the CIDACS item pool was based upon previous versions of the CACREP standards, the ASCA National Model, and the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) competencies and thus are outdated.
Rationale and Research Question
As preparation programs aim to train successful future school counselors, ethical guidelines require that intern competencies be measured using instruments reflective of state and national standards (ASCA, 2016a). Kemer et al. (2017) noted that many graduate programs create their own competency scales through unascertained processes, which can lack rigor and lack standardization. Beyond that, existing instruments with known reliability and validity are limited and inapplicable. For instance, the CCSR and CCS-Revised are two valid and reliable instruments addressing basic counseling skills; however, the nuances of school counseling remain absent and therefore these measures’ applicability to school counseling is limited (DePue & Lambie, 2014; Flynn & Hays, 2015). Last, the proposed instrument for school counselors (Hamlet & Burnes, 2013) has not undergone rigorous evaluation to understand its psychometric properties. Thus, no psychometrically sound, validated instrument exists that is specific for measuring school counseling interns’ competencies.
To address this gap, the present study had the specific purpose of creating and assessing the psychometric properties of the School Counseling Internship Competency Scale (SCICS) to assist in adequately evaluating school counseling internship students’ competencies. The research questions of this study were: 1. What are the underlying factors of the SCICS? 2. What are the validity and reliability properties of the SCICS?
The SCICS may be a helpful tool for school counselor supervisors to assess interns’ strengths and areas for growth within the nuances of school counseling. We received institutional review board approval for this study and used exploratory, sequential mixed methods to first identify school counseling competencies for our instrument item pool, then utilized EFA to determine the latent structure of the instrument.
Method
Participants
Participants included 278 supervisors of interns, of whom 235 (84.5%) were female and 43 (15.5%) were male. Participants identified as African American (n = 25; 9.0%), Latinx (n = 11; 4.0%), White (n = 231; 83.0%), and from other racial/ethnic backgrounds (e.g., Asian-American, American Indian/Native American, and biracial/multiracial; n = 11; 4.0%). Of the 278 participants, 67 (24.1%) were university supervisors/faculty and 211 (75.9%) were site supervisors. Due to the SCICS being used across university and site supervision settings, we recruited both types of supervisors to participate in the present study. University supervisors/faculty reported their academic positions as assistant professor (n = 23; 34.3%), associate professor (n = 14; 20.9%), professor (n = 18; 26.9%), adjunct faculty (n = 9; 13.4%), and other (n = 3; 4.5%). Site supervisors reported employment across PK–12 settings, including 50 (23.7%) at the elementary level, 40 (18.9%) at middle school, 101 (47.9%) at high school, and 20 (9.5%) at other school settings, such as PK–12. In terms of their professional credentials, 62 (22.3%) participants were National Certified Counselors (NCCs), 51 (18.3%) were licensed professional counselors (LPCs), 17 (6.1%) held the NBCC Approved Clinical Supervisor credential, 222 (79.8%) were licensed school counselors, 34 (12.2%) were NBCC national certified school counselors, and 50 (17.9%) reported having other credentials, including certifications (e.g., registered play therapist).
Instruments
We used Qualtrics to administer the survey’s four sections: written informed consent, demographic information questionnaire, the SCICS, and the CCS-R (Lambie et al., 2018).
Demographic Information Questionnaire
For demographic information, we asked participants about gender, age, race/ethnicity, job title, credentials (e.g., education, license, and certifications), and whether they provided supervision to a school counseling intern currently or within the past 2 years. If they responded “yes” to that question, they were asked to complete the SCICS and CCS-R, responding to both instruments while thinking about one specific school counseling supervisee from the past 2 years.
Development of the School Counseling Internship Competency Scale
Exploratory, sequential mixed methods are ideal approaches in instrument development and validation (e.g., American Educational Research Association et al., 2014). In developing the SCICS, we utilized an exploratory, sequential mixed methods approach with qualitative (i.e., open-ended questions to generate item pool) and quantitative (i.e., EFA) data collection and analysis (Creswell, 2014).
First, using a protocol developed by Safrit and Wood (1995) and used in recent counseling-related instrument creation studies (e.g., Garner et al., 2016), we recruited school counseling supervisors as participants to create an item pool, engage in expert review, and pilot the instrument. To general the list for the item pool, we recruited both school counseling faculty and practicing school counselors who were supervising interns. To ensure that our participants had extensive experience and expertise, we used selection criteria. Specifically, our criteria for school counseling faculty (i.e., university supervisors/faculty) were: (a) graduated from a master’s level counselor education program with a school counseling focus, (b) earned their doctorate in counselor education and supervision or a related field, and (c) currently (or within the past 2 years) supervising school counseling interns in a university setting. Our criteria for the practicing school counselors (i.e., site supervisors) were: (a) graduated from a master’s-level counseling program with a school counseling focus, (b) working as a full-time school counselor, and (c) currently (or within the past 2 years) supervising school counseling interns. We emailed school counseling coordinators from CACREP-accredited programs, providing our written informed consent and recruitment materials for them to forward to current school counselors who were serving as site supervisors.
Upon determining the criteria for our participants, we asked a small sample of university (n = 3; 42.9%) and site supervisors (n = 4; 57.1%), with representation from primary (n = 2; 50%) and secondary school settings (n = 2; 50%), to create an exhaustive list of competencies. Participants included five female (71.4%) and two male (28.6%) supervisors, who self-identified as African American (n = 2; 28.6%), Latinx (n = 1; 14.3%), White (n = 3; 42.8%), and multiracial (n = 1; 14.3%). Participants had an average of 15 years of experience related to the school counseling profession. Specifically, we asked participants to list as many statements or phrases as possible when considering evaluation criteria for school counseling interns’ competencies, including knowledge, skills, behaviors, and dispositions essential to the role of the school counselor. We also reviewed relevant school counseling literature and professional standards to supplement the participant-created item pool: ASCA Ethical Standards for School Counselors (ASCA, 2016a), Ethical Standards for School Counselor Education Faculty (ASCA, 2018a), ASCA National Model (ASCA, 2019a), ASCA School Counselor Professional Standards & Competencies (ASCA, 2019b), and CACREP Standards (CACREP, 2016). We obtained a preliminary list of 147 items, resulting in 76 items after removing redundancies.
After generating our item pool, we pursued expert review to determine whether the items measured the entirety of the construct (i.e., internship school counseling competencies). In this step, we asked two university and two site supervisors who met our participant criteria but had not previously participated in item development to review the list, offering feedback on representativeness and potential gaps in the construct. Expertise of this panel was determined through several indicators: years of experience, publication record, and school counseling leadership ranging from district-level to national-level service positions. Supervisors reported that the item list was comprehensive, with four items that were redundant. Upon reviewing the four items, we subsequently removed them.
Finally, we piloted the item pool with a group of doctoral supervisors (n = 8) who had taken an advanced clinical supervision course and were currently supervising school counseling students under their direct observation. The doctoral supervisors completed the instrument by evaluating one of their school counselors in training and provided feedback on the clarity of items and instructions, timing, and formatting of the questions and rating scale. Utilizing their feedback, we obtained a final instrument of internship school counseling competencies with 72 items on a Likert-type scale that included six response options: (a) not meeting developmental expectations: rare and insufficient; (b) emerges to meet developmental expectations: inconsistent and limited; (c) meets minimal developmental expectations: consistent; (d) meets developmental expectations: consistently strong; (e) exceeds developmental expectations: exceedingly strong; and (f) not applicable to setting/not observable.
Counselor Competencies Scale–Revised (CCS-R; Lambie et al., 2018)
We selected the CCS-R to validate the SCICS because it is a widely used, valid, and reliable competency scale that assesses counseling trainees’ skills, dispositions, and behaviors. It contains 23 items using a 5-point Likert-type scale, with two subscales: (a) Counseling Skills and Therapeutic Condition and (b) Counseling Dispositions and Behaviors. The Cronbach’s alpha for the overall scale was .96, while alpha coefficient was .94 for both Counseling Skills and Therapeutic Condition and Counseling Dispositions and Behaviors. Researchers established content validity by developing the instrument based on relevant counseling literature (Swank et al., 2012) and assessed criterion-related validity through a moderate correlation (r = .41) between the instrument and students’ final practicum grades. From the present study, the alpha coefficients were .94 for the overall scale and .92 for both Counseling Skills and Therapeutic Condition and Counseling Dispositions and Behaviors.
Data Collection Procedures
Given that the SCICS included 72 items, a minimum subjects-to-variables (STV) ratio of between three and five established that a sample size of 216 was sufficient to conduct EFA (Beavers et al., 2013). To reach this sample size, we utilized convenience and snowball sampling, collecting public contact information from university websites with CACREP-accredited school counseling programs and requesting them to forward recruitment information to site supervisors and university supervisors/faculty. We also collected public emails from leadership boards of each state school counseling association, recruited at national school counseling conferences, and posted study information on school counseling-related social media groups. We offered 100 $15 Amazon gift cards in a randomized drawing as incentives for participants to complete the survey.
Data Analyses
Following qualitative instrument creation and testing, we completed the quantitative portion of the study by conducting EFA on the instrument. We completed multiple phases of the EFA including (a) sample size estimation, (b) administering revised instrument to a broader participant pool, (c) screening and checking for parametric assumptions, (d) creating correlation matrices and inspecting for factorability, (e) factor extraction, (f) factor retention, (g) factor rotation, (h) naming factors, and (i) validity and reliability analyses (Fabrigar & Wegener, 2012; Mvududu & Sink, 2013). We utilized the CCS-R (Lambie et al., 2018) for convergent validity and assessed concurrent validity by testing whether the instrument could distinguish differences in development over the course of two semesters of internship.
Results
As recommended by Mvududu and Sink (2013), we evaluated all assumptions to conduct EFA and analyzed the validity and reliability of the SCICS. We reviewed the initial sample of 407 participants to identify data entry errors, irregular response patterns, and missing data. We used expectation maximization to replace missing data that accounted for less than 5%. Other procedures included evaluating normality, conducting a Kolmogorov-Smirnov test, reviewing skewness and kurtosis for each item, and visual inspection of the interitem correlation matrix. Due to univariate outliers, multivariate outliers, and participants with missing data accounting for more than 5%, we removed 129 participants. Bartlett’s test was significant, χ2(946) = 8691.60, p < .000, indicating homogeneity of variance. The KMO coefficient was .97, suggesting that the matrix was ideal for conducting EFA. After meeting all assumptions for normality, interitem correlation, and factorability, we conducted an EFA with 278 participants.
We used principal axis factoring as the extraction method, using multiple methods to determine the appropriate number of factors to extract and retain. Based on Kaiser criterion, parallel analysis, visual inspection of the scree plot, evaluation of meaningful variance, and conceptual appropriateness, we retained and rotated four factors. We selected a direct oblimin rotation (delta = 0) due to the clear interpretation of the model, the least evidence of cross-loadings, and conceptual appropriateness. We used the following retention criteria: factor loadings higher than .40, commonalities higher than .50, and cross-loadings higher than .32 (Beavers et al., 2013; Tabachnick et al., 2019). We removed 25 items from the item pool due to violations in retention criteria. Despite cross-loadings of .34 and .33 respectively, we retained “Builds rapport/relationships with students” and “Demonstrates ability to make a report to Child Protective Services” due to conceptual appropriateness in practice. This revealed a 37-item instrument that accounted for 66.9% of the variance explained by the four-factor model. Commonalities ranged from .50 to .80. Factor intercorrelations were between .51 and .64, suggesting moderate correlations between factors.
We looked for themes within each factor, relying on school counseling literature to inform the naming process. The first factor, Foundational Skills and Dispositions, included 15 items involving basic school counseling skills and professional dispositions needed in the profession. The second factor, Multicultural Considerations and Student Services, comprised 11 items involving multicultural competence and student-centered services. General Education and Special Education Process, the third factor, included six items focused on student academics and accessibility. Last, Classroom Management and Collaboration/Consultation, the fourth factor, included five items explaining direct services with students and collaboration with stakeholders.
Validity and Reliability Analyses
We examined the validity and reliability for the SCICS via content, factorial, convergent, and concurrent validity, and using internal consistency procedures. First, we established content validity through qualitative inquiry that created the item pool, and through expert review and piloting of the instrument. We determined factorial validity by conducting EFA. In terms of evidence for convergent validity, we found overall SCICS scores to be moderately related to overall CCS-R scores (r = .55). To establish concurrent validity, or the notion that the SCICS can distinguish between groups that should be theoretically different, we conducted a t test, comparing total SCICS scores of first and second semester internship students. We found a significant difference between the ratings of first semester (M = 162.03, SD = 27.54) and second semester internship students (M = 170.00, SD = 25.98) in terms of overall SCICS scores, t(202) = -2.11, p = .036.
We re-ran the original intercorrelation matrix analyses to determine Cronbach’s alpha for the overall instrument and each factor. Interitem correlations ranged from .50 to .75 for Foundational Skills and Dispositions, .44 to .81 for Multicultural Considerations and Student Services, .53 to .72 for General Education and Special Education Process, and .54 to .73 for Classroom Management and Collaboration/Consultation. Cronbach’s alpha was .98 for the overall instrument; it was .96 for Foundational Skills and Dispositions, .94 for Multicultural Considerations and Student Services, .91 for General Education and Special Education Process, and .90 for Classroom Management and Collaboration/Consultation.
Discussion
Addressing the first research question, we created and validated the SCICS, an innovative and unique instrument that fills a gap in the school counseling profession as the first known psychometrically sound instrument to measure school counseling interns’ supervision competencies. We conducted EFA using a variety of techniques for factor retention and established a four-factor model revealing the subscales of Foundational Skills and Dispositions, Multicultural Considerations and Student Services, General Education and Special Education Process, and Classroom Management and Collaboration/Consultation.
Factor Loadings and Communalities of the SCICS: Subscale 1.
Factor Loadings and Communalities of the SCICS: Subscale 2.
Factor Loadings and Communalities of the SCICS: Subscale 3.
Factor Loadings and Communalities of the SCICS: Subscale 4.
To address the second research question regarding the validity of the SCICS, we utilized a rigorous approach to instrument development and validation by examining content, factorial, convergent, and concurrent validity. In comparison to the well-established CCS-R, the SCICS was moderately correlated with the CCS-R, suggesting that both instruments measure similar constructs; however, the SCICS is a novel instrument designed for the school counseling specialty. Further, the SCICS builds on the CCS-R by accounting for greater explained variance (66.9% compared to 61.5%), meaning that the spread of scores on the SCICS can be attributed to the four-factor model (Lambie et al., 2018). To establish concurrent validity, we compared total scores between first and second semester school counseling interns, with the notion that second semester interns were higher in their competencies when compared to their first semester counterparts. This result was in line with previous research and with our developmental anticipations: Second semester interns had higher competency scores, having had more time and experience that contributed to their professional growth (Smith & Koltz, 2015). Internal consistencies were ideal for the overall SCICS and all four subscales, suggesting that the instrument as a whole and each individual subscale is reliable. Thus, the overall SCICS and individual subscales were evidenced as valid and reliable measures for school counseling supervisors evaluating interns.
Limitations of the Current Study
This study was vulnerable to limitations that must be taken into consideration when interpreting the results. First, EFA is used to explore latent factor structure and does not test hypotheses or theories. Next, we did not collect supervisee data, limiting the results to supervisor evaluations. Although other-efficacy ratings tend to be more representative of strengths and weaknesses, supervisee self-evaluation was not within the scope of this study (Lambie & Ascher, 2016; Lent & Lopez, 2002). Although we achieved a minimum STV ratio with this sample, a larger and more robust sample size would yield stronger and more representative results. Similarly, the sample lacked diversity, with 84.8% of participants identifying as White and 85.2% identifying as women. Although these demographics are similar to ASCA membership data (i.e., 79% White and 85% female; ASCA, 2020a), representation from diverse groups would be beneficial. Last, we recognize that although this instrument was created using school counselor experiences, national professional standards, and relevant counseling literature, variations in item relevance may occur across states and districts. As such, we encourage graduate programs and other users of this instrument to adapt items to meet policies and best practices in their state/district.
Implications for Practice and Research
The SCICS has practical implications for school counseling interns, site supervisors, and university supervisors/faculty. First, the SCICS upholds ASCA’s ethical standard (ASCA, 2016a) that school counseling interns’ competence should be measured by an evaluation tool grounded in state and national standards. Data collected from the SCICS can be used to demonstrate how school counseling interns/students are meeting competencies and benchmarks while receiving supervision in their internship. From a gatekeeping perspective, site supervisors and university supervisors/faculty could use the SCICS to provide school counseling interns with feedback regarding their strengths and areas for growth, and to assist in the graduate program’s gatekeeping process (ASCA, 2016a, 2018a, 2019b; CACREP, 2016). Relatedly, the SCICS can be used in interns’ midterm and final evaluations, completed collaboratively to enhance conversations surrounding supervisee growth and to pinpoint areas for continued development.
Because the SCICS is the first psychometrically sound instrument that addresses the nuances of school counseling internship competencies, this instrument provides interns, site supervisors, and university supervisors/faculty with clear expectations for internship activities. The SCICS can be used by interns, site supervisors, and university supervisors/faculty to demystify internship activities, supervision, and evaluation experiences, solidifying expectations aligned with the ASCA National Model and other related documents (e.g., ASCA 2016a, 2019a, 2019b, 2019c; CACREP, 2016). Specifically, the SCICS could be used at the beginning of internship as a conversation starter or self-report pretest to engage in collaborative goal setting between the intern and the site supervisor and/or university supervisor/faculty member. Next, school counseling interns could use the SCICS as an advocacy tool at their sites, sharing their SCICS results as a roadmap for the various opportunities they should optimally be experiencing in their internship. By using the SCICS, site supervisors could better support their interns, by ensuring that they have well-rounded internship experiences. Universities and districts could also integrate the SCICS into site supervisor training, expectations, practices, and evaluation. In fact, counselor education programs may see improved communication between university and site supervisors by having the standardized instrument and thus expectations. Counselor education programs also may see enhanced supervisee development as a result of more intentional supervision guided by school counseling-specific competencies.
Although these results suggest that the SCICS is a psychometrically sound assessment to measure school counseling interns’ competencies, researchers should continue to investigate the factor structure, validity, and reliability of the SCICS to justify its use with more diverse populations of supervisors, interns, and other preservice school counselors at varying phases of development in their counseling programs. In addition to conducting confirmatory factor analysis, researchers could identify whether SCICS response patterns vary based on school level, supervisor training experiences, or other demographics. We used CACREP standards and the ASCA National Model to develop this instrument, and future studies could investigate the degree to which the final version of the SCICS aligns with these professional frameworks. Future studies also could compare school counseling interns’ self-report data with data from their site and university supervisors, which would enhance our understanding of the SCICS as a self-assessment tool. Last, we suggest the use of qualitative research to further investigate the SCICS, such as conducting interviews and focus groups to understand how supervisors and interns utilize the SCICS to impact supervision, promote intern development, and engage in gatekeeping.
Conclusion
The current study relays that, to our knowledge, the SCICS is the first and only validated instrument to measure school counseling interns’ competencies, offering the school counseling profession a novel tool with practical implications. This instrument was created using rigorous methodology by pulling from relevant school counseling literature and drawing on the expertise of practicing school counselors and supervisors to develop items. We utilized EFA to assess the psychometric properties that suggest this is a valid and reliable instrument, warranting its use in counselor education and supervision and serving as a foundation for future research. The resulting instrument incorporates four subscales: Foundational Skills and Dispositions, Multicultural Considerations and Student Services, General Education and Special Education Process, and Classroom Management and Collaboration/Consultation. These subscales address many of the varied roles and responsibilities school counselors embody in PK–12 settings. This practical and evidence-based instrument may be used to examine strengths and areas for growth of school counselors in training to ensure that they possess the knowledge, skills, and dispositions needed to be an effective school counselor.
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This work was supported by the Southern Association for Counselor Education and Supervision (SACES) and Association for Counselor Education and Supervision (ACES).
