The Contribution of the Counselor–Client Working Alliance to Career Exploration

Abstract

This longitudinal study examines the effects of Israeli counselors’ and clients’ ratings of their working alliance on clients’ career exploration (CE), using a sample of 94 three-session career counseling processes. Results reveal that both clients’ and counselors’ working alliance ratings increased over time; yet, clients’ ratings remained constantly above counselors’ ratings. Results also suggest that clients’ working alliance ratings are a better predictor of clients’ CE than counselors’ ratings. Implications for career counseling are discussed.

Effect of Brief Staff‐Assisted Career Service Delivery on Drop‐In Clients

“…Participants also highly rated their encounter with a career adviser, and perceived gains in knowledge and confidence were significantly associated with the quality of the interaction with the career adviser. These results echo previous findings about the importance of the career counseling relationship (Anderson & Niles, ; Elad‐Strenger & Littman‐Ovadia, ) and suggest that a warm, therapeutic relationship can occur within a brief session format.…”

Factor Structure of the Short Version of the Working Alliance Inventory and Its Longitudinal Measurement Invariance Across Individual Career Counseling Sessions

“…This result suggests that the construct of working alliance as measured by the WAI-S has the same structure (three distinct factors that form a more general factor of alliance) across the first and the third career counseling sessions, which is necessary for making valid and reliable comparisons across time (Hukkelberg & Hogden, 2016). Indeed, given researchers' interest in comparing the effects of working alliance in career counseling at different sessions (e.g., Elad-Strenger & Littman-Ovadia, 2012), the constitutive constructs (dimensions) of working alliance need to be the same across sessions to allow valid conclusions when comparing and interpreting the results.…”

“…Indeed, longitudinal measurement invariance is a prerequisite (Horn & McArdle, 1992) to ensure that the same construct is assessed over time (Hukkelberg & Hogden, 2016). Although previous career counseling research (e.g., Elad-Strenger & Littman-Ovadia, 2012;Multon et al, 2001) investigated the evolution of the working alliance and compared its effect at different sessions, we do not know if the WAI-S assessed the same construct across sessions in the specific context of career counseling.…”

“…Indeed, previous research on the factor structure of the WAI-S focused on interventions that were several months in duration, whereas career counseling tends to be short term and centered on reaching objectives in a limited time (e.g., choose a university program before a deadline inscription; Elad-Strenger & Littman-Ovadia, 2012). This clinical context implies that career counselors and clients have to define particularly explicitly each dimension of the alliance right the first session (Elad-Strenger & Littman-Ovadia, 2012), which might lead to a better differentiation of the dimensions of the WAI-S early in the process (working alliance is typically measured at the first or the third session in studies) compared to other clinical contexts in which more time is typically allowed and invested to form the working alliance and to solve client problems. Research on the factor structure of the WAI-S in the specific context of individual career counseling is thus needed to clarify the dimensions measured by this scale in this context.…”

A Study of Clinical Change in Individual Career Counseling

“…Career counseling sessions were videotaped, and students were supervised by qualified career counselors. Therefore, we do not know whether the same effects would be observed in more natural settings where career counseling is often short term (Elad-Strenger & Littman-Ovadia, 2012). In view of these considerations, we examined the clinical significance of individual career counseling effects in natural settings in a larger sample.…”