What Skills and Abilities Are Essential for Counseling on Learning Difficulties and Learning Strategies?

Abstract

Counseling parents in supporting their children’s learning processes is increasingly emphasized in research on parental involvement and teacher professionalization as a central task of teachers. However, to date there have been few approaches of developing theoretical or psychometric models that describe the internal structure of teachers’ counseling competence in terms of specific skills and abilities as well as of explaining inter-individual differences. The purpose of the current study was to establish a model of teachers’ counseling competence in parent–teacher talks concerning students’ learning difficulties and learning strategies. In all, 357 teachers participated in the study, which was conducted by means of a scenario test. Structural equation modeling revealed the appropriateness of a second-order, four-dimensional model. Results provide numerous implications for teacher education and future research on teacher professionalization.

Using Simulated Parent-Teacher Talks to Assess and Improve Prospective Teachers’ Counseling Competence

“…It is expected that intervention effects on teachers' counseling competence measured by means of the counseling talk simulations are consistent with measurements determined by means of the scenario test (Bruder, 2011;Gerich et al, 2015).…”

“…In the studies by Bruder (2011) and Gerich et al (2015), the scenario test has been shown to be an objective and economic strategy for the itemized measurement of teachers' counseling competence. Nevertheless, behavior-based instruments for the assessment of teachers' counseling competence, for example, direct performance observation in concrete and realistic application situations (Kane, 1992), have yet to be developed.…”

“…Therefore, the superior aim of the current study was to develop and validate a behavior-based instrument based on the four-dimensional model of teachers' counseling competence (Gerich et al, 2015) involving counseling talk simulations with standardized parents in the same style of the SIM approach by Dotger et al (2008Dotger et al ( , 2010 as well as the assessment approach by Wiesbeck et al (2013). Here, in order to particularly utilize the instrument for the evaluation of specific teacher training programs on counseling, we strove for an instrument for the longitudinal assessment of changes in teachers' counseling competence due to specific interventions.…”

“…Here, in order to particularly utilize the instrument for the evaluation of specific teacher training programs on counseling, we strove for an instrument for the longitudinal assessment of changes in teachers' counseling competence due to specific interventions. For validation purposes, we aspired to compare longitudinal data acquired by means of the counseling talk simulations with longitudinal data gathered by means of the already established scenario test by Bruder (2011) andGerich et al (2015) described above.…”

“…for the variable search for possible causes). In the evaluation of participants' responses, the qualitative statements are converted into quantitative scores by means of a detailed rating system (for a comprehensive description of the scenario test, its development and validation, see Bruder (2011) and Gerich et al (2015)). (Gerich et al, 2015) …”