Impact of Selected Ethical Information Resources on Counselor Educators' Decision‐Making Regarding Boundary Crossings

Abstract

A random sample of 207 counselor educators used 4 ethical information resources in the context of 16 boundary-crossing scenarios. Burian and Slimp's (2000) social dual-role relationship model was the only resource to change counselor educators' boundary-crossing decision-making in a manner that could mitigate boundary-crossing concerns with students. Curiously, almost 60% of counselor educators stated that they would not use Burian and Slimp's model in the future when this was the only ethical decision-making resource that made a difference in boundary-crossing decision-making for counselor educators.

Counselor Education and Supervision: 2019 Annual Review

“…Additionally, Rogers et al (2019) evaluated the process of how anxiety can influence cognitive distortions, contributing to increased difficulty in providing corrective feedback in clinical supervision. Burns (2019) and Burns and Cruikshanks (2019) assessed the efficacy of student and educator use of ethical decision‐making models to address boundary crossings and the willingness of both to use provided models in future decision‐making situations outside of the intervention simulation, finding that 47% of students and 60% of counselor educators stated an intention to use the models introduced during the intervention in the future.…”

Power’s influence on boundary-crossings between counselor educators and counselor education students

“…It would be helpful for CEs to understand how power differentials influence boundary-crossing perceptions within the legitimate hierarchy of counselor education. Burns and Cruikshanks (2019) and Burns (2019) used the same 16 boundarycrossing scenarios and the same four ethical-information resources with CEs and CESs to understand how these resources influenced each group when contemplating boundary-crossings with the other group. For this study, I used the ex-post facto data from both prior studies to test differences in original reactions on the 16 boundary-crossing scenarios between CEs and CESs.…”

“…Burns (2019) stated counselor education students were individuals actively taking courses in a CACREP accredited master's graduate program. Burns and Cruikshanks (2019) and Burns (2019) performed power analyses with G*Power using a medium effect size of.25, power level of .80, and alpha of .05 (Faul et al, 2007), which recommended a minimum sample size of 136 for each study. Burns and Cruikshanks (2019) and Burns (2019) selected a medium effect size since average variance was expected and important, practical concerns for the counseling profession were desired (Healey & Hays, 2012).…”

“…Ethical information resources in both studies were defined as resources a CE or CES could use when considering the ethical implications of boundary-crossings with a CE or CES (Burns, 2019;Burns & Cruikshanks, 2019). The data analyses in this study were generated from the raw data of two separate studies ( The ACA Code of Ethics documents CEs' professional responsibilities when working with CESs.…”

“…The instrument used in both studies (Burns, 2019;Burns & Cruikshanks, 2019) was based upon higher education students' identification of five types of interactions occurring between faculty and students: sexual/dating, friendship/social, personal/counseling, business/financial, and professional/academic (Hoppe, 2013). Additionally, the instrument was shaped by four-year colleges' and universities policies' in the United States, the American Association of University Professors (2009, 2015)) policies, the 2014 ACA Code of Ethics, existing research on student reports of boundarycrossings with educators, and Burian and Slimp (2000) suggestion that relationship motives are important factors when considering boundary-crossings.…”