How Group Leaders Rate the Frequency of Practice and Level of Importance of the Asgw Principles for Diversity-Competent Group Workers

The establishment of multicultural counseling competencies evolved over a decade. In 1992, Sue, Arredondo, and McDavis published the influential Multicultural Counseling Competencies and Standards. The Association for Specialists in Group Work (ASGW) is one of the counseling professional organizations that incorporated these standards into their own professional guidelines, as well as Association of Multicultural Counseling and Development, AMCD; Accreditation of Counseling & Related Educational Programs, CACREP. However, the Principles for Diversity-Competent Group Workers have never been empirically studied to determine whether these multicultural group standards in fact offer helpful information for group workers. Such studies can provide evidence of the utilization and value of these Principles by practicing group leaders in their group leading experiences. The purpose of this study was first to quantify how group leaders rate the Frequency of Practice and Level of Importance of the ASGW Principles for Diversity-Competent Group Workers based on their group leading experiences. Second was to identify the correlations between the descriptive variables of age, length of group leading experience, gender, ethnicity, and types of groups to the three main composites of the Principles (i.e., Awareness of Self, Awareness of Members' Worldview, and Awareness of the Intervention Strategy). Of the 62 participants, 34 participants (54.8%) indicated that they were aware of the Principles and 28 participants (45.2%) indicated that they were not aware of the Principles. Results indicated that group workers practiced the items in the Awareness of Self composite in their group leading experiences more frequently (p < .001) and perceived these items more important (p <.001) than the other two composites (Awareness of Members' Worldview and Awareness of Intervention Strategy). A significant difference was found between Gender demographic factor and the composites in the rated Level of Importance for Awareness of Intervention Strategies. Another significant difference was found between the Multi-ethnic group and Awareness of Self at the frequency of practice. Finally a significant difference was found between K-12 group and Awareness of Members' Worldview at the frequency of practice.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D. in Psychology

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Year dc:date.available

2011

Author dc:creator

• Ingene, Daphne Ha

Contributors dc:contributor

• David Spruill
• Marc Showalter
• Laura R. Johnson

• Asgw Principles For Diversity-Competent Group Workers
• Diverse Groups
• Group Counseling
• Group Practice
• Multiculturalism
• Survey
• Counseling Psychology

Repository record dc:identifier

https://egrove.olemiss.edu/etd/145

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:egrove.olemiss.edu:etd-1144