Predictors of counseling expectations among students in an opportunity program.

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

There is a gap in the literature regarding factors relevant to help-seeking among students from racial and ethnic backgrounds who attend universities where they are in the minority (Heppner, Witty, & Dixon, 2004). This dissertation study attempted to address this gap by focusing on the counseling expectations of 102 first-year African American, Hispanic, and biracial students (mean age = 18.55 years; 83 females, 19 males) who participated in an Opportunity Program on their universities campus.
The purpose of this study was to investigate the extent to which counseling expectations, as measured by Tinsley's (1982) Expectations About Counseling-Brief Form (EAC-B), were predicted by three individual characteristics---self-esteem, as measured by the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (RSE; Rosenberg, 1965); attributional style, as measured by the Children's Attributional Style Questionnaire-Revised (CASQ-R; Thompson, Kaslow, Weiss, & Nolen-Hoeksema, 1998); and self-appraised problem-solving skills, as measured by the Problem Solving Inventory (PSI; Heppner & Petersen, 1982). A supplementary analysis examined whether background variables (SES, prior counseling experience, gender, cultural congruity, level of acculturation) moderated these relationships.
Ethnic society immersion, as measured by the Stephenson Multigroup Acculturation Scale (SMAS, Stephenson, 2000) emerged as an important moderator variable in the relationship between counseling expectations and individual characteristics. Lower self-esteem combined with higher degrees of ethnic society immersion contributed to lower overall counseling expectations and lower expectations for facilitative conditions and nurturance. A more depressive attributional style combined with higher degrees of ethnic society immersion contributed to lower overall counseling expectations and lower expectations for personal commitment. Regardless of ethnic society immersion, a more depressive attributional style contributed to lower expectations for facilitative conditions and nurturance. Finally, a more negative view of oneself as a problem-solver combined with higher degrees of ethnic society immersion contributed to higher expectations for counselor expertise.