Performance Assessment of Counseling Skills Based on Specific Theories: Acquisition, Retention and Transfer to Actual Counseling Sessions

The purposes of the present study were to determine if (a) students trained to demonstrate specific skills learn these skills and transfer them to actual counseling sessions; (b) mastery of counseling skills differs by students' adherence to one of four general counseling theories; (c) mastery of counseling skills is related to counseling goal attainment; and (d) mastery of counseling skills is related to counselors' social influence. Counselors conducted hour-long counseling sessions and were rated on the Skilled Counseling Scale (SCS) by three trained raters. These ratings were higher several years after training than prior to training and there was no difference in SCS ratings with regard to theoretical preferences of counselors. Neither client-perceived social influence or goal attainment ratings by counselors were related to average counseling skill scores by trained raters. However, high rating levels on the CRF-S and GAS may not have produced significant correlations due to lack of variation of the ratings, which were uniformly high.