Social‐Cognitive Development, Ethical and Legal Knowledge, and Ethical Decision Making of Counselor Education Students

Abstract

Counselors are required to have high levels of social-cognitive development, significant knowledge regarding ethical and legal practice, and sound ethical decision-making processes to provide effective and ethical services to their clients. This study investigated the effect of two counseling ethics courses on 64 master's-level counselor education students' levels of social-cognitive development, ethical and legal knowledge, and ethical decision making. Students' ethical and legal knowledge scores increased significantly, and precourse social-cognitive maturity predicted postcourse ethical and legal knowledge scores. Implications for counselor education and development are discussed.Many dynamic processes are inherent to the field of counseling. To effectively negotiate the fluid interactional processes that occur in counseling, professionals are required to navigate a complex knowledge base of ethical and legal tenets that underlie their practice, as well as engage in informed ethical decision making. Theoretically, counselors' ethical and legal knowledge and ethical decision making should be influenced by their level of social-cognitive development. A primary component of counselors' preparation, therefore, is the purposeful promotion of counseling students' social-cognitive development, which is associated with greater empathy, flexibility, perspective-taking, self-care, and wellness

Ego Development, Ethical Decision-Making, and Legal and Ethical Knowledge in School Counselors

“…(Lambie et al 2010). Additionally, reliability of the ELICQ with these data was acceptable with an overall alpha coefficient score of .701 (Cohen 1988).…”

“…Lambie et al (2010) investigated the effects of a counseling ethics course on counseling students ethical and legal knowledge (as measured by the Ethical and Legal Issues in Counseling Questionnaire [ELICQ]; Lambie et al 2010). They found that the counseling students' ethical and legal knowledge increased significantly upon completion of a 13-week counseling ethics course.…”

“…The ELICQ (Lambie et al 2010) is a 50-item multiple choice assessment designed to measure counselors' ethical and legal knowledge. (Lambie et al 2010).…”

The emotional wellbeing of lay HIV counselling and testing counsellors

“…Core counselling competencies include how a person relates to him/herself, others and the social environment (Moss et al, 2014). Lambie et al (2010) identified empathy, flexibility, taking alternative perspectives, self-care and emotional wellbeing as key components of effective counselling. The expectation is that counsellors should function on a higher level of emotional wellbeing than their clients to model a way of being for their clients (Corey, 2009).…”

The Journal of Counselor Preparation and Supervision Volume 4, Number 1

“…Keywords: Student-Counselor Development, First-Year Experience, Grounded Theory Counselor educators and researchers alike have agreed that gaining insight into one's own progression as a counselor, during the training years and throughout one's own career, is a vital component of healthy counselor development (Donati & Watts, 2005;Lambie, Hagedorn, & Ieva, 2010;Skovholt & Ronnestad, 1992;Woodside, Oberman, Cole, & Carruth, 2007). It is important to identify and examine factors that influence student development because "overlooking these needs and issues can have significant implications for both counselors and the clients they serve" (Furr & Carroll, 2003, p. 39).…”