Unfortunately, researchers have not

Unfortunately, researchers have not systemadcally evaluated career counselors'
beliefs about their muldcultural competence, their use of muldcultural
counseling strategies, or the factors that may promote such competence.
Another quesdon that remains unanswered relates to the specific protocols
used in individual career counseling. There are commonly used
practices within career counseling, which include exploration and often
instrument assessment of clients' interests and values, but counselors'
practices are not well known and are likely highly variable (Whiston,
2003). Several authors have called for more process research in vocational
counseling (Heppner & Heppner, 2003; Swanson, 1995; Swanson &
Gore, 2000). In a proposed research agenda, Heppner and Heppner
(2003) specifically identified one area of much-needed research as the
examination of how counselor characteristics, including self-efficacy
and cultural lens, might contribute to variations both in the process of
career counseling and in its results.
In an attempt to shed additional light on vocational counseling pracdces
and, more specifically, on the integradon of cultural factors within those
pracdces, this study invesdgated the self-reported muldcultural competence
of a national sample of career counselors, along with the research team's
external radngs of the counselors' use ofthat competence in descripdons
of their daily work. Because of the lack of exisdng research on this topic,
we began with four primary research questions, as opposed to formal
hypotheses. We did rely, however, on previous studies from therapy in
general linking training, practice, overall counseling self-efficacy, and
muldcultural competence when formuladng these quesdons.
The first question was muldfaceted. Do career counselors believe that
they are muldculturally competent in their work with clients? If so, how
are muldcultural training and experience related both to their self-reported
competence and to external radngs of their multicultural counseling
behaviors? Second, is there a reladonship between self-reports of muldcultural
competence and external ratings of counselors' descriptions
of their actual pracdces? Third, do professionals who see themselves as
culturally competent also have higher levels of overall career counseling
self-efScacy? Finally, what are the contribudons of training, experience,
and overall career counseling self-efficacy to the prediction of self-reported
and externally evaluated multicultural competence? The answers to these
quesdons could fill an important gap in the career counseling literature,
highlight linkages between theory and pracdce, and point to the effecdveness
of training students and professionals to more fijlly appreciate
clients' contextual factors in all aspects of the career counseling process.
Method
Participants
Study participants were 230 career counselors who were also members
of a large, nationwide professional association for career counselors. Of
the participants, 51 were male (22.2%), 176 were female (76.5%), and
three (1.3%) did not report their gender. Most were Gaucasian (78.7%),
but some self-idendfied as African American (6.5%), Latino (4.8%), Asian
(2.6%), multiracial (1.7%), Middle Eastern (1.3%), Native American
(1.3%), or other (1.7%); three participants (1.3%) did not report theirrace or ethnicity. (Percentages do not equal 100% because of rounding.)
Most participants engaged in career counseling or advising while holding
either a master's (67.8%) or doctoral (23.5%) degree; a small number
(8.7%) possessed only a bachelor's degree. As a group, the pardcipants
had a significant amount of pracdce experience. Only 15.7% of the sample
had less than 5 years of experience, whereas 26.5% had worked in the
field for 5-10 years, 26.5% for 11-20 years, 23.9% for 21-30 years, and
7.4% for more than 30 years. The majority of the pardcipants (81.7%)
identified their specialty as career counseling, and most worked in a college,
university, or community college setting (61.4%). Others reported
a primary work setting of private practice (13.5%), K-12 education
(4.8%), state or federal agency (4.8%), business and industry (3.9%),
or other (9.6%); five participants (2.2%) did not respond to this item.
(Percentages do not equal 100% because of rounding.)
An e-mail invitation to participate in the study was sent to 2,977
e-mail addresses. These individuals were in a regular or professional
organizational membership category, which are used for practicing career
counselors with a bachelor's, master's, or doctoral degree. Because
these membership categories matched our desired sample populadon,
no additional exclusion criteria were applied. From our inidal e-mail
invitation, we received about 100 notices of delivery failure, and it is
impossible to know how many others were not delivered, so the maximum
possible number of individuals who received our e-mail invitation
was approximately 2,800, and the response rate was, at minimum,
8.2%. Nevertheless, a recent published industry report on spam (i.e.,
unsolicited e-mail) indicated that approximately 72% of Internet e-mail
traffic is spam (Radicati Group, 2007), which has increased from an
estimated 5% in 2001. As a result, spam-filtering software uses a variety
of highly sophisticated techniques to identify and eliminate spam. Some
spam-filtering software blocks any e-mails from addresses not currently
in the recipient's address book, whereas other software blocks e-mails
containing Internet links. Because our invitadon was sent from a university
account with a link to our survey, rather than the association source, it
is possible that many of the invitadons did not reach the recipients. As
a result, we consider the 8.2% response rate a very conservative esdmate
of the true response rate. In fact, other authors have highlighted the
generally lower response rates to electronic surveys and have pointed
out that it may be impossible to establish who actually received surveys
with many forms of this research, leading to questions about whether
true response rates can be calculated (Granello & Wheaton, 2004).
We argue, however, that we obtained a generally representative sample
of practicing career counselors because the gender, racial/ethnic, and
educational composition of the sample seemed essentially consistent
with the national organization's demographic statistics as presented in
its 2006-2007 membership report.
Procedure
We obtained permission from a large national organization of career
counselors to use its e-mail membership list to send an invitadon to
participate in the study. A cover letter from the organization president
indicating support of the research was included in the e-mail message.along with a description of the study and a link to the investigation's
Internet site. If recipients elected to access the website, they first viewed
a welcome and description of the study, along with a request for informed
consent. Upon indicating their consent, they could link to the
survey instruments. Participants were also able to enter their name
and contact information to enter a drawing for a $20 gift card. That
identifying information could not be linked electronically to survey
responses, ensuring the anonymity of research information. Counselors
who decided to participate in the study completed the demographic
sheet first, followed by the California Brief Multicultural Competence
Scale (CBMCS; Gamst et al., 2004), the Career Counseling Self-Efficacy
Scale (CCSES; O'Brien, Heppner, Flores, & Bikos, 1997), and seven
open-ended items. One e-mail reminder was sent to the entire list of
potential participants.