Master's Theses

Department

Social Work

Degree Name

Master of Science (MS)

Abstract

The purpose of the researcher was to investigate the effects of six f actors: gender, age, race, English proficiency, cultural commitment, and family pattern on secondary school students' preferences for counselors' traits (gender, age, and race) and counseling services (educational, vocational, personal, and social). The study also compared the differences in these preferences for counselors and counseling services among four different groups of Asian, Hispanic, Anglo, and Black students. The subjects of this study consisted of 116 junior high students and 240 senior high students who were enrolled at the Unified School District 457 in Garden City, Kansas, during the Spring semester, 1988. The total sample from Kenneth Henderson Junior High School and Garden City Senior High School consisted of 356 students. The researcher excluded 39 students who did not state their preferences for counselors' traits and one Native American student. The final sample size of 316 students remained. The assessment instrument used in the stud y was a questionnaire constructed by the researcher. The design employed was a quasi-experimental status survey with six independent variables and four dependent variables. A total of seven null hypotheses were tested at the .05 level of significance. Six null hypotheses were tested employing chi square tests of independence. One null hypothesis was tested using t tests of correlation coefficients. The results of this study appeared to support the following generalizations. 1. Anglo and Black students preferred counselors of the same race. Asian and Hispanic students preferred counselors of dissimilar race. 2. Asian and Hispanic students preferred older counselors of above 45 years of age. 3. Both male and female secondary school students preferred male counselors. 4. Limited-English-proficiency students preferred vocational and social counseling. Fluent-English-proficiency students preferred educational and personal counseling. 5. Young students preferred young counselors of under 45 years of age. Older students preferred older counselors of above 45 years of age. 6. Students who lived with their relatives or friends strongly preferred older counselors. 7. There is no evidence for a relationship between students' age and preference for counselors' gender or race, between students' race and preference for counselors' gender or counseling services, between students' gender and preference for counselors' race or counseling services, between students' family pattern and preference for counselors' gender or race or counseling services, between students' cultural commitment and preference for counselors' gender, between students' English proficiency and preference for counselors' gender or race or age.

Keywords

Counseling

Advisor

Dr. Bill C. Daley

Date of Award

Summer 1988

Document Type

Thesis - campus only access

Rights

© The Author(s)

Comments

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