Date of Award

8-2015

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

College/School

College of Education and Human Services

Department/Program

Counseling and Educational Leadership

Thesis Sponsor/Dissertation Chair/Project Chair

Dana Heller Levitt

Committee Member

Larry Burlew

Committee Member

W. Matthew Shurts

Committee Member

Brian Carolan

Committee Member

Suzanne McCotter

Abstract

As pre-service school counselors prepare to lead groups in practice, it is important to consider their beliefs about their abilities to run groups with children and adolescents in the school setting. Site supervision is one aspect of students’ experiential training that can impact the development of confidence surrounding group facilitation. The purpose of this study was to examine specific site supervisory factors that impact the development of pre-service school counselors’ group leader self-efficacy. Data from a sample of 123 pre-service school counseling internship students from CACREP-accredited programs was collected in order to determine the impact of predictor variables (general selfefficacy, experience, observation, feedback, and anxiety) on group leader self-efficacy. The results of multiple regression analysis suggest that above and beyond the influence of general self-efficacy, receiving feedback and managing anxiety specific to group leadership are the greatest predictors of students’ group leader self-efficacy. The numbers of groups led and designed also had a small statistically significant impact, while observation of group counseling did not contribute a meaningful change in the overall regression model. Implications for these findings and suggestions for future research are discussed.

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