High School Students’ Perceptions of the American School Counselor Association’s
(ASCA) CAREER DEVELOPMENT Domain Model in a “School Counseling
Services” Setting in Albania
Nihat Aksu
PhD Candidate, Universiteti Europian i Tiranës, Albania
nihataksu@yahoo.com Ömer Kaleli
MSc, Shkolla e Lartë Hëna e Plotë (Bedër), Albania
omerkaleli@gmail.com
Abstract: This study analyzed students’ perceptions of school counseling service in private schools in
Alba-nia. Students’ perceptions were measured with regard to career development which is one of the three ASCA domains (academic, career, and personal/social). The school counselor does not exist in the Albanian schools. The school counseling is not directly performed. The school counseling is performed by a structure called in this study as "school counseling services". The school counseling services includes class teacher, vice principal/principal, school disciplinary committee, school psychologist and activities done under legis-lations of Albanian Ministry of Education and Sports. These elements are common in all schools of Albania as well as private schools. A 13 item questionnaire was administered to 300 students (150 male and 150 fe-male) at five private high schools.
Introduction
The school counselor does not exist in the Alba-nian schools. The school counseling is not directly performed. The school counseling is performed by a structure called in this study as “school coun-seling services”. The school counselor duties are performed by some other elements of the educa-tion system such as: class teacher, vice princi-pal/principal, school disciplinary committee, school psychologist and activities done under legislations of Albanian Ministry of Education and Sports in the high schools from class 10 to class 12.
1. Statement of the Problem
In the schools, there is no compulsory regulation on hiring a school counselor. School psychologist is the only personnel in the school according to the Albanian regulation, each school should have one for 2500 students;10 times more than ASCA standard for the school counselor. But this does not mean there is no school counseling in the Albanian school. The other main elements of the education system are performing school coun-seling service for the students in Albania. These elements are:
Class teacher
Vice principal
School disciplinary committee
School psychologist
The main purpose of school counseling service in a school is to boost the learning process. A comprehensive school counseling service assists student with the development in three domains:
Career
Personal/social
Academic
2. Aim of the Study
Students are the main beneficiaries of the school counseling services, but their perceptions of the school counseling services have not been studied in Albania. The aim of this study is to evaluate students' perceptions of school counseling service in terms of ASCA academic achievement stan-dards.
3. Research Question
How much of ASCA career development model is achieved by the school counseling services? 4. Literature Review
4.1. Definition of Counseling
The American Counseling Association (ACA) with the agreement of 31 counseling organizations describes professional counseling as follows; “a professional relationship that empowers diverse individuals, families, and groups to accomplish mental health, wellness, education, and career goals.”[1]
4.2. ASCA Model
American School Counselor Association (ASCA), a branch of ACA, was set up in 1952, helps school counselors to support the students focus on academic, social/personal and career development so that they can succeed in the school and gra-duate then become responsible member of society. ASCA offers professional progress, various re-sources, academic studies and advocacy to all its members in USA and worldwide. In 2001, The American School Counselor Association (ASCA) started The ASCA National Model: A Framework for School Counseling Programs as an outline for scheming, developing, applying and assessing standard based, data-driven school counseling program. School counselors change their attention from service-centered program to program-cen-tered to give the chance to all students. ASCA's objective in developing the model is to institu-tionalize the framework for and process of deve-loping a school counseling program [2].
Researchers are supporting the validity of the comprehensive model in desired academic achie-vement, career development, parental satisfaction, school climate, and attendance [4]. These studies show the students of schools, which have Com-prehensive Developmental Guidance (CDG) prog-rams, getting higher grades, showing better rela-tionships with teachers, and getting greater satis-faction from school. Students also told that education is relevant to later life, school is safe, and high school students expressed that career and college information was accessible [10]. Other studies point that counseling programs decrease anxiety and depression among schoolchildren and are a positive factor having better social skills [17]. School counselors have a unique position to evaluate data in schools and explain the gaps, existing in student success [1].
The framework of a comprehensive school counseling program consists of four components: foundation, management, delivery, and account-tability.
4.2.1 Foundation
School counselors should prepare complete school counseling programs that focus on student results, teach student abilities and are delivered with recognized professional proficiency. The solid ground of school counseling program is the foundation where student knowledge, attitudes
and skills are determined. Setting a strong foun-dation need a mutual effort with school members,
parents/guardians, and the community to
determine what every student will obtain as a profit of a school counseling program. The idea of this component of the ASCA National Model is to set up the focus of the complete school counseling program based according to the needs of the students on: a. career development; b. perso-nal/social development; c. academic development. Career Development
ASCA National Standards for career development give the basics school counseling programs for foundation for the acquisition of skills, attitudes and knowledge that allow students to make a successful move from school to the world of work, and from job to job across the life span. Students will acquire the skills to investigate the world of work in relation to knowledge of self and to make informed career decisions. Students will employ strategies to achieve future career goals with success and satisfaction.
Personal/Social development
ASCA National Standards for personal/social development guide school counseling programs to provide the foundation for personal and social growth as students’ progress through school and into adulthood.
Academic development
ASCA National Standards for academic develop-ment guide school counseling programs to imple-ment strategies and activities to support and maxi-mize each student’s ability to learn (see Appendix B) [2] [12].
4.2.2. Management
The management is very important to have the effective school counseling program that adder-sses the developmental requests of every student. The management component of the ASCA Natio-nal Model provides organizatioNatio-nal tests and ele-ment designed to manage a school counseling program. The tests and tools assist school coun-selors build up, apply and assess their school counseling program based on clearly defined priority reflecting student needs [13].
4.2.3. Delivery
The delivery component shows the way of app-lying the school counseling program to students. The services and strategies that school counselors offer to students and communications they have with others as they work to encourage student achievement, equity and access for all students are explained in this part. The delivery component has two parts such as direct and indirect student services. Direct services are provided to students, and indirect services are provided for students. Direct student services are in-person interactions between school counselors and students.
Indirect student services are services provided on behalf of students as a result of the school counselor’s interactions with others [13].
4.2.4. Accountability
School counselors should check their program efficiency regularly to determine its success for better results of the students. School counselors use this check to understand the difference bet-ween students who are in the school counseling program. School counselor should prove their counseling program efficiency in measurable terms.
School counselors should use data-driven comp-lete school counseling programs using account-tability strategies to monitor student achievement, to frequently assess and advance their school counseling program and to determine the impact their program is having on students [5]. Accoun-tability skills support school counselors "garner the political clout necessary to improve school counselor to student staffing ratios and redefine school counselor roles and activities…" [6]. Accountability of the school counseling program can be achieved in three sections: (a) Data Ana-lysis: school’s achievement, attendance, behavior and safety record; (b)Program Results; (c)Evalu-ation and Improvement.
4.3. School Counseling in Albania
In Albania, the school counseling is not very common. Very few schools have the professional school counselors. Their job description is not clear and not defined by the ministry of education.
The school counseling services are performing counseling activities in the Albanian high schools includes:
The class teacher is at the core of school coun-seling service. The tasks of the class teacher who is very important in Albanian education system are explained. The class teacher is a messenger between the students, parents as well as the school administration. Any progress or academic, social, personal and disciplinary problems related to the students is reported to the parents by the class teacher. The class teacher is responsible for atten-dance of the whole class as well. The class teacher takes care of register in which all the attendance, marks and personal information of students are kept [14].
Vice principal/principal have the authority in the schools to allow the school counseling services activities or block them. Perusse, Goodnough, Donegan, and Jones [11] in their study mentioned importance principal in the school counseling, even though the duties are clearly mentioned, the school principal can still have authority to block some of the duties.
School discipline committee consists of 5 or 7 school personnel, directed by the school principal or deputy directors. The school psychologist is ordinary and automatic member of school discip-line committee. School discipdiscip-line committee should have intolerant attitude violation of tea-ching and learning, school safety and health of students and employees of the school in its premises [14].
A school psychologist should deal with 2500-3500 students according to the type of school. Psycho-Social Service (SPS) deals psychosocial problems of students with learning or behavioral. Psycho-Social Service collaborates with teachers and heads of educational institutions and parents, to plan and implement services that contribute to the educational, social and personal students [15]. Activities done under legislations of Albanian Ministry of Education and Sports
Orientation of Students for Their Careers
The 9th class students who are finishing primary school should decide potential high school and vocational high school according their academic success and talents. School visit with a parent will
help students decide the best for them. The class 9 students have the exam from mathematics and Albanian literature to finish the primary school. The students are required to get 5 out of 10 in the state exam in order to graduate from the primary school. Exam performance also will determine the choice of advanced lesson between the advanced mathematics and Albanian literature in the class 10. The orientation of students for the career in Albania starts with primary school finishing exam. According that exam results, the students choose their school that opens the door further education [14].
The career education lesson and elective lessons
The career education lesson is a part of high school program in which students understand the importance of career choice and necessary con-ditions, outcomes of their choice. This lesson continues for 3 semesters starting from class 10 in the high school [14]. The students will have a chance to evaluate possible career choice by com-paring how much their abilities meet requirements of that career in the lesson, eventually decide the career. In the class 11 students have to choose elective lessons either natural sciences (applied physics, biology, and chemistry) or social science (history, physiology, sociology) related to their career of choice.
Model professional
Model professional is a lesson in the high school students must take. Professional modules are required to be completed by the student, he/she has to have earned at least 1 (one) credit from the Professional modules at the end of the year. The professional modules may be held at a gene-ral/professional school or in the work environ-ment of a business company. This company has to, in the end; supply the student with a certificate which recognizes his work. The students of a class can undertake different modules. All the docu-mentation is archived in a special Archive created by the School and is prone to subsequent inspec-tions by the appropriate authorities [14].
Community service
Community Service is an activity in which the students must participate without receiving any financial reward. This activity is designed to benefit the people in need and the community, in general; therefore the students have to participate
in activities which are unrelated to their relatives and/or family. The students exchange experience and impressions in organized lessons which are designed to take place during the school hours and in which one or more classes participate. Small groups or individual students may participate in a given activity, the only condition being the con-sent of the parent and the participation of an observing teacher. The students are not forced to participate in the Community Service during 10-th and 11-th classes, but the student must complete Community Service before the end of the class 12. At the end of the activity, a report should be submitted in which he/she presents the plan that he/she has followed, his/her opinion and expe-riences and also what he/she got from activity [14].
5. Methodology
A questionnaire consisting of 13 questions has been applied to 60 students from 5 private high schools in Albania. From each class 10 male and 10 female students are chosen randomly. In total 300 students have participated to the question-nnaire. The questionnaire has 2 main parts. The first part has 7 questions about general infor-mation of students; the second part has 6 ques-tions about career development which is one of the three domains (career development, perso-nal/social development, and academic develop-ment) of ASCA with Likert type questions. The SPSS 20 was used for data analysis. The reliability of questionnaire was measured and it was 0.796.
6. Results and Discussion
The results have been evaluated for career deve-lopment (Q8-Q13) domain of ASCA model. The correlation test in SPSS was done and no signi-ficant correlation was observed of level of in-come, education of the parent with any question-nnaire respond for each question between 8 and 13. However, there is statistically significant difference between male and female students in terms of organizing seminars and career talks (Q8) [9] and informing on financial aid and scho-larships (Q12) (Table 1).
Table 1 Gender and Q8 & Q12
Table 2 Q8 Organizes seminar to create career awareness, and career talks in schools
Table 3 Comparisons for Gender and the response percentages of Q8
Career talks in the schools are essential event to create the career awareness [8]. Table 2 show that most of students saw career talks were done in the school with a sufficient rate (18.7+37.3=56%). The negative response percentage was 21.6 %. And the neutral response was the second highest with 22.3%. Girls’ positive responses were higher compare to the boys’ (32%vs24%). Negative res-ponses of boys’ were more than that of girls’ (13.6%vs8%). The Table 3 indicates that girls get enough information from career talks whereas boys get less. Girl’s attention to the career talk was greater than the boys. The overall observation on this specific questionnaire topic also provides us with valuable results in term of negative responses indicating high percentages which should not be underestimated by school coun-seling services, more activities to create career
awareness and more career talks are demanded by students considering statistical values.
Table 4 Q9 Helps students to find out their educational interests and abilities
Table 5 Comparisons for Class and the response percentages of Q9
This topic is quite vital in understanding the functions of school counseling services as it poses a direct question for diagnosing the students' career plans for their future. As the study results indicate, 66.3% (40.3%+26.0%) of students think the school counseling services are helping on their educational interest and skills. The negative res-pond is at 18% and neutral resres-pond is at15.7%.But this ratio lowers from gradually as class increases 70 responses in class 10, 67 responses in class 11 and 62 responses in class 12 (Table 5). Educational interests and abilities are obvious implications in deciding on their uni-versity placement. However, the numeric values clearly reflect the confusion among students with high rates of negative and neutral responses of 33.7%. There is an evolving sense of dilemma from class 10 to class 12 on decision making of the career in term of their interest and abilities [7]. Table 6 Q10 helps students and their parents to understand how to apply to higher institutions (universities)
Table 7 Comparisons for Gender and the response percentages of Q10
Table 8 Comparisons for Class and the response percentages of Q10
65.6% (30.3%+35.3%) of students are confirming the school counseling services assists them to apply to higher education nationally and interna-tionally (Table 6). However, negative respond to the survey questions increases as the class incre-ases from 4.3% in class 10 to 6% class 12 (Table 8). Gender has no effect positive respond to the question but boys' negative respond 2.2% more than that of girls (Table 7). To reduce negative and neutral respond, starting from lower classes, school counseling services can start providing information to the parents and students about how to apply to higher institutions (universities) [16].
Table 9 Q11 Assists students to choose career of their interest
As it can be observed from the Table 9, 61.00% (24.3%+36.7%) of students are confirming the school counseling services assists them to choose the career of their interest. Negative respond to the survey questions increases as the class incre-ases. Gender has no effect on the question. As we can infer from negative and neutral responses, school counseling services are not sufficiently providing assistance to the students about reve-aling career of their interest. More assessments or activities will reveal their real interest and abilities so that they can choose the career of their interest more efficiently.
Table 10 Q12 gives information on financial aid, scholarships for universities.
Table 11 Comparisons for Gender and the response percentages of Q12
Table 12 Comparisons for Class and the response percentages of Q12
As the Table 10 indicate 62% (30.7%+31.3%) school counseling services help the students on providing information on financial aid and scho-larship for universities. Boys’ negative respond is 5.9% more than that of girls (Table 11). In total 16.7% of students responded negatively on this question. It was revealed that the school coun-seling services attention for this question is not only on class 12 but also class 10 and class 11 (Table 12).
Table 13 Q13 Advice students in appropriate course selection to help them benefit as much as possible from the educational program
As the Table 13 shows 58.7% (22.7%+36.0%) of the students responded positively whereas 13.6% (8.3%+5.3%) responded negatively. The second strongest respond is the neutral with a percent of 27.7%. The negative and neutral indicators imply that students have confusion over structure of elective courses and educational programs. This can be reduced with seminars on the structure of educational programs. The elective course selec-tion is first and an important step to career` choice. Students should be well informed about the selection [3].
Conclusion
The students should get the career awareness through high school from school counseling
services. As they get more mature their interest also increases to career related topics. The stu-dents have confusion about their choice of career in term of their educational interest and abilities. The career choice is not only based on their educational interest and abilities. More can be done; especially some tests to find out students abilities and skills so that school counseling services can give better suggestions on career of choice. More career talks should be done and be open to all of the students from class 10 to 12. About choosing the appropriate course selection in the school is another negatively responded question. Students should be informed in details about their elective courses. Most of the students have problems about elective courses and the may be consequences of the elective courses. The school counseling services should provide enough information about the university application and scholarship opportunities. Both parents and stu-dents benefit from school counseling services about the higher education institutions.
References
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& Development, 76(4), 412-426. Appendices Appendix A: Questionnaire ASCA STANDARDS Q1 Gender Q2 Class Q3 Age Q4 School Q5
Choose your parents
monthly income Q6 Mother`s Level of education Q7 Father`s Level of education CAREER DEVELOPMENT Q8 organizes seminar to create career
awareness, and career
talks in schools C:A1.1
Q9
helps students to find out their educational
interests and abilities C:A1.3.
Q10
helps students and their parents to understand how to apply to higher
institutions(universities) C:B1.5
Q11
assists students to choose career of their
interest C:C2.1 Q12 gives information on financial aid, scholarships for universities. C:B1.5 Q13 Advise students in appropriate course selection to help them benefit as much as possible from the
educational program C:B2.4
Appendix B: ASCA National Standards for Students
(COMPETENCIES AND INDICATORS)
Legend: A:A-1.1 = Academic Domain, Standard A, Competency 1 and Indicator 1
Career Development
ASCA National Standards for career development guide school counseling programs to provide the
foundation for the acquisition of skills, attitudes and knowledge that enable students to make a successful transition from school to the world of work, and from job to job across the life span. Standard A: Students will acquire the skills to investigate the world
of work in relation to knowledge of self and to make informed
career decisions.
C:A1 Develop Career Awareness
C:A1.1 Develop skills to locate, evaluate and interpret career information
C:A1.2 Learn about the variety of traditional and nontraditional occupations
C:A1.3. Develop an awareness of personal abilities, skills, interests and motivations
C:A1.4 Learn how to interact and work cooperatively in teams
C:A1.5 Learn to make decisions C:A1.6 Learn how to set goals
C:A1.7 Understand the importance of planning C:A1.8 Pursue and develop competency in areas of interest
C:A1.9 Develop hobbies and vocational interests C:A1.10 Balance between work and leisure time C:A2 Develop Employment Readiness
C:A2.1 Acquire employability skills such as working on a team, problem- solving and organizational skills
C:A2.2 Apply job readiness skills to seek employment opportunities
C:A2.3 Demonstrate knowledge about the changing workplace
C:A2.4 Learn about the rights and responsibilities of employers and employees
C:A2.5 Learn to respect individual uniqueness in the workplace
C:A2.6 Learn how to write a résumé
C:A2.7 Develop a positive attitude toward work and learning
C:A2.8 Understand the importance of
responsibility, dependability, punctuality,
integrity and effort in the workplace
C:A2.9 Utilize time- and task-management skills Standard B: Students will employ strategies to achieve future career goals with success and satisfaction.
C:B1 Acquire Career Information
C:B1.1 Apply decision-making skills to career planning, course selection and career transition C:B1.2 Identify personal skills, interests and abilities and relate them to current career choice C:B1.3 Demonstrate knowledge of the career-planning process
C:B1.4 Know the various ways in which occupations can be classified
C:B1.5 Use research and information resources to obtain career information
C:B1.6 Learn to use the Internet to access career-planning information
C:B1.7 Describe traditional and nontraditional career choices and how they relate to career choice
C:B1.8 Understand how changing economic and societal needs influence employment trends and future training
C:B2 Identify Career Goals
C:B2.1 Demonstrate awareness of the education and training needed to achieve career goals C:B2.2 Assess and modify their educational plan to support career
C:B2.3 Use employability and job readiness skills in internship, mentoring, shadowing and/or other work experience
C:B2.4 Select course work that is related to career interests
C:B2.5 Maintain a career-planning portfolio Standard C: Students will understand the relationship between personal qualities, edu-cation, training and the world of work.
C:C1 Acquire Knowledge to Achieve Career Goals
C:C1.1 Understand the relationship between educational achievement and career success C:C1.2 Explain how work can help to achieve personal success and satisfaction
C:C1.3 Identify personal preferences and interests influencing career choice and success
C:C1.4 Understand that the changing workplace requires lifelong learning and acquiring new skills C:C1.5 Describe the effect of work on lifestyle C:C1.6 Understand the importance of equity and access in career choice
C:C1.7 Understand that work is an important and satisfying means of personal expression
