An investigation of counselor trainees‟ perceptions of supervisor culturally competent feedback behaviors and general behaviors in supervision.

Abstract

Societies and cultures become more diverse and globalized. Changing demographics of the U.S. population draws increasing attention to issues of diversity and multicultural competence. In the mental health field, a growing body of research focuses on multicultural counseling and training. As supervision is a critical component of counselor training, including counselor development of cultural competence, culturally competent supervision has been studied in some previous studies. To date, however, little research has been conducted to comprehensively describe specific supervisor behaviors that constitute multicultural competence. In particular counselor trainees' perceptions of culturally competent supervisor behaviors, including supervisor provision of feedback, have received little research attention. Thus, three major research questions were investigated in the present study: (1) What supervisor behaviors (including feedback behaviors) do counseling trainees regard as culturally competent? (2) Do expectations of culturally competent supervisor behaviors differ between 1st year and 2nd year trainees? and (3) Do perceptions of culturally competent supervisor behaviors differ from perceptions of behaviors that comprise general supervisor competencies? Participants consisted of first and second year students enrolled either in a psychological counseling masters program or second year students enrolled in a genetic counseling masters program at the University of Minnesota (N = 51; 11 males and 40 females). A focus group design was used for this qualitative research. Participants in eight focus groups viewed a DVD containing two hypothetical supervision situations involving supervisor provision of feedback to a supervisee regarding the supervisee's apparent cultural insensitivity towards a client. One scenario portrayed a psychological counseling supervision relationship and one scenario portrayed a genetic counseling supervision relationship. Focus group participants responded to a series of questions regarding supervisor multicultural competence and general competence. They provided written responses prior to and after viewing the scenarios, and they gave verbal responses during focus group interviews. The focus group discussions were audiorecorded and transcribed by the researcher. Qualitative analysis of both written and verbal responses yielded four overarching themes reflecting supervisor culturally-relevant: Awareness, Knowledge, Skills, and Attitudes. Some supervisor behaviors identified as culturally competent in this study are congruent with findings of previous studies (Ancis & Ladany, 2001; Dressel, Consoli, Kim, & Atkinson, 2007; Falender & Shafranske, 2004). Although most responses from the first year and the second year counseling students were similar and generally consistent, there were some notable differences particularly regarding expectations about supervisor provision of direction/guidance. Provision of guidance as a culturally competent supervisor behavior was a more prevalent theme for first year students. The findings of this study also show considerable overlap between behaviors associated with general supervisor competence and cultural competence (e.g., supervisor empathy, non-judgmentalness, self-disclosure). Major findings, study strengths and limitations, and clinical and research implications are discussed.