Multicultural competencies of doctoral interns at university counseling centers: An exploratory investigation.

Abstract

In this study the multicultural competencies of 141 doctoral interns at university counseling centers were explored. Results indicated that some educational variables were predictive of multicultural competencies. Interns who had received supervision for a multicultural counseling situation, attended more multicultural workshops, or taken more multicultural course work, reported greater multicultural knowledge and skills than did interns who had no such supervision, fewer workshop hours, or less course work. Only supervision provided to interns in a multicultural setting correlated significantly with multicultural awareness, thus accounting for only 3% of the variability in interns' multicultural awareness. No significant relationships were found between multicultural competencies and demographic variables. Implications of these findings are discussed in terms of training for doctoral interns and future research.Researchers have focused increased attention over the past decade on identifying multicultural counseling as a competency in which all psychologists are skilled rather than conceptualizing it as a specialty area (McRae & Johnson, 1991). Sue et al. (1982) identified multicultural counseling competence in terms of multicultural awareness, knowledge, and skills. Multicultural competencies have been defined as an appreciation of and sensitivity to the history, current needs, strengths, and resources of communities and individuals who historically have been underserved and underrepresented by psychologists (Lopez et al., 1989;Sue, Arrendondo, & McDavis, 1992;Sue & Sue, 1990). Specifically, these competencies entail the following: an awareness of one's own biases and cultural assumptions, content knowledge about cultures different from one's own culture, an accurate self-assessment of one's multicultural skills and comfort level, an appropriate application of cultural knowledge to the counseling process, and an awareness of the cultural assumptions underlying the counseling process.As the multicultural counseling competency literature has DONALD B. POPE-DAVIS received his PhD from Stanford University in 1989. He is an associate professor in the

Development and initial validation of the Multicultural Counseling Self-Efficacy Scale--Racial Diversity Form.

“…Findings from prior research (e.g., Bellini, 2002;Vinson & Neimeyer, 2003) and the current study have suggested that racial/ethnic minority counseling students and professionals tend to receive more multicultural counseling training and have a higher proportion of minority clients on their caseloads, which may, in turn, lead to higher perceived abilities to perform multicultural counseling Pope-Davis et al, 1994). In other words, the racial differences on multicultural counseling competency or self-efficacy may be due to how much multicultural counseling training and other relevant experience a counselor receives rather than being due to his or her race per se.…”

“…The literature on gender differences in multicultural counseling competence is not conclusive. Studying students in counseling and clinical psychology programs and doctoral interns at university counseling centers, Pope-Davis and his colleagues (PopeDavis, Reynolds, Dings, & Nielson, 1995;Pope-Davis, Reynolds, Dings, & Ottavi, 1994) found no gender differences on the MCI subscale and total scores or on the MCAS subscale scores. On the other hand, also using the MCI, Bellini (2002) found gender to be a significant predictor ( = .17) of multicultural counseling competency, with female vocational rehabilitation counselors reporting higher multicultural counseling competence than their male counterparts.…”

Factor Structure of Almutairi’s Critical Cultural Competence Scale

“…The CCCS was developed to measure healthcare providers' perceptions of their critical cultural competence in a multicultural healthcare context. A number of frameworks and instruments have been developed to measure cultural competence, including the Cultural Self-Efficacy Scale [1,2], the Cultural Attitude Survey-Modified [3], the Cultural Awareness Survey [4], the Multicultural Sensitivity Scale [5], and the Multicultural Counseling Inventory (adopted scale) [6].…”

Multicultural Competence in a Study Abroad Program: A Case Study in Fitness for Profession

“…While the terms cultural competence, cross-cultural competence, inter-cultural competence, and multicultural competence have slightly different definitions, depending on the reference (Rasmussen & Sieck, 2015), we employ a definition which distills the common components from Pope- Davis, Reynolds, Dings and Ottavi (1994). This definition asserts that multicultural competence is "the ability to work and be effective with individuals who are of a different culture from yours [and includes an] appreciation of and sensitivity to the history, current needs, strengths, and resources of communities and individuals who historically have been underserved and underrepresented.…”