School Personnel Perceptions of Professional School Counselor Role and Function

The purpose of this research study was to examine the attitudes held by school-based administrators, teachers, and professional school counselors regarding ideal and actual roles of the professional school counselor. The survey instrument utilized in this research study, the PSCRFA, is grounded in the ASCA model and reflective of current school counseling ideology. This investigation determined if attitudes within and among the groups differed significantly along specific independent variables, such as age, gender, years of experience, school setting, student caseload, and educational level for school-based administrators, teachers, and professional school counselors working in an urban public school district in Hampton Roads, Virginia, as measured by the Professional School Counselor Role and Function Appraisal (PSCRFA). In addition, this study assisted in ascertaining the preferred level of engagement for professional school counselors within the school-wide counseling program. Quantitative statistical analyses were performed using SPSS ® Data Analysis System (IBM, 2012) to test for differences between and among groups of school-based administrators, teachers, and professional school counselors. Analysis of variance between ratings on degree of significance and degree of frequency revealed no statistically significant differences between administrators, teachers, and counselors along the three scales—except for significance ratings for Performance Standards. It was concluded that no significant association existed between the positions held by school personnel, their ratings on the importance of school counselor tasks, and ratings on how often tasks were performed. Overall, there was evidence of minimal agreement between participants' beliefs of more significant performance standards being performed more frequently, as well as more significant counselor roles being performed more frequently. Within group differences were statistically significant for administrators and counselors with respect to degree of ...