A Comparison of Factor Dimensions in Revised Scales for Student Client Evaluation of Counselors in a University Counseling and Testing Center

Abstract

For a sample of 146 student clients who judged the effectiveness of their counselors in a university counseling and testing center on a modified form of the Evaluation of Counselors Scale (EOC), a factor analysis of the intercorrelations of student responses to 19 items provided four orthogonal dimensions portraying perceptions of satisfaction (or dissatisfaction) with the counseling experience: (a) Personal Growth, (b) Atmosphere or Environment of the Counseling Center, (c) Trust or Confidence in the Counselor, and (d) Competence in Test Interpretation and Academic-Career Counseling Skills. A formerly identified factor of Counselor Effectiveness appeared to merge with Personal Growth—a circumstance that might have been associated with the rewording of one item and omission of another that had been considered somewhat ambiguous. It would appear that in general the modified form of the EOC reflects essentially the same constructs as those found in earlier versions.

Counselor Effectiveness: An Instructional Approach

“…In the field of counseling, research support is only marginally helpful. Much of the research on counselor effectiveness focuses on counselor characteristics that are perceived positively by clients (Atkinson, 1982;Barak, Patkin, & Dell, 1982;Shaffer, Murillo, & Michael, 1981). Such an investigation might be interesting but is of little help to counselors in the field who are trying to build a case that their services are worthwhile.…”