Opportunities and Challenges of Multicultural and International Online Education

Abstract

College counselors work collaboratively with professionals in a variety of disciplines in higher education to coordinate gatekeeper training to prepare university community members to recognize and refer students in mental distress to support services. This article describes the cross-validation of scores on the Mental Distress Response Scale (MDRS), a questionnaire for appraising university community members' responses to encountering a student in mental distress, with a sample of faculty members. A confirmatory factor analysis revealed the dimensions of the MDRS were estimated adequately. Results also revealed demographic differences in faculty members' responses to encountering a student in mental distress. The MDRS has implications for augmenting the outreach efforts of college counselors. For example, the MDRS has potential utility for enhancing campus-wide mental health screening efforts. The MDRS also has implications for supporting psychoeducation efforts, including gatekeeper training workshops, for professional counselors practicing in college settings.

A Metastudy of Counselor Education and Supervision: An Analysis of Publication Characteristics From 2000 to 2019

“…Garnering interest from international practitioners and scholars and encouraging them to submit manuscripts to CES will help CES stay current in the field and embrace culturally and globally diverse topics. This call echoes other recent articles (e.g., Chen et al, 2020) that argue for counseling journals to broaden their scope to encompass international authors and issues to address multicultural and global counselor education and supervision concerns. The proportion of female lead authors is substantially higher than male lead authors with 76.6% of lead authors identifying as female in 2015-2019, more than three times the number of male lead authors.…”

Global students' counselling self‐efficacy and experiences of a United States‐based counselling training programme

“…Distance education in post‐secondary institutions has become mainstream in the United States (Kentor, 2015). Different from training ICSs on U.S. soil, counsellor educators can now deliver counselling training worldwide for students who can stay in their home countries and receive their counselling degrees through the United States‐based distance learning programmes (Chen, Basma, et al., 2020). Traditionally, ICSs attend classes, accrue practicum and internship hours, and receive clinical supervision within the United States; thus, existing research has primarily focused on ICSs' learning experiences and CSE in the U.S. cultural context.…”

“…When navigating GCSs' field experience, Chen, Basma, et al. (2020) pointed out some obstacles regarding cultural worldviews and contextual differences. For instance, the philosophical understanding of the purpose of practicum and supervision guidance is different from the U.S. training model.…”

“…Increases in the number of ISs have been accompanied by an increase in the number of ISs studying in counsellor training programmes (Reid & Dixon, 2012). While institutions continue to see an increase in the number of ISs in the United States, distance counsellor education has expanded educational opportunities for global students to pursue United States‐based counselling training programmes from their home country (Chen, Basma, et al., 2020). Global students are described as students who remain in their home countries and receive their degrees through foreign‐based online programmes.…”

Autoethnographic Research to Explore Instructional Design Practices for Distance Teaching and Learning in a Cross-Cultural Context

“…However, the idea of transnational education with distance learning models is relatively new and complicated (Henderson et al, 2017 ). Students in transnational distance education programs would face more challenges and barriers than domestic distance students or international students at a home institution (Chen et al, 2020 ; Gemmell & Harrison, 2017 ; Stewart, 2019 ). Many studies have been conducted to explore the experiences and perceptions of international exchange students in U.S. higher education, such as academic adaptation, cultural identity, social integration, and mental health (Diao, 2014 ; Jackson & Chen, 2018 ; Ryu et al, 2016 ; Sato & Hodge, 2015 ).…”