The examination of the factors that affect the school counselors' occupational satisfaction

In this study, the relationships between the professional satisfaction and self-efficacy perceptions of the school counselors and the counseling program development and evaluation tasks are investigated. In addition, the relationship between these variables non-counseling related tasks were examined and how these unwanted tasks affected the professional satisfaction of psychological counselors. Vocational Satisfaction Scale (VSS), School Counselors Self Efficacy Scale (SC-SEC), School Counseling Program Development and Evaluation Tasks I & II and Personal Information Form (PIF) were used as data collection tools. Two different questionnaires were prepared according to the number of items and the similarity of the contents in order to provide practicality in practice depending on the length of the application period of the measurement tools. 300 different school counselors working in schools in İzmir participated in the study. In the first sample there were, 90 females and 60 males and 100 females and in the second sample there were 50 male school counselors. Descriptive statistics were calculated in the analysis of the data according to the questions of the two questionnaires, independent samples t-test and one-way ANOVA was performed between the mean scores of VSS and the mean of the subscales of SC-SEC. Correlation coefficients between the responses obtained from the questions of "the percentage of time spent at school in direct interaction with students" and "the percentage of time spent in school with non-counseling duties" were calculated and correlation coefficients between VSS total scores and SC-SEC subscales were calculated. Similarly, the relationship between work done by direct interaction methods in both questionnaires and vocational satisfaction and school counseling self-efficacy was examined. Pearson correlation was calculated when the quantitative values of the items were suitable for the interval measurement type and Spearman rho correlation analyzes were calculated when the quantitative values of the items were suitable for the ordinal measurement type. When the findings of the research examined, it was seen that school counselors interacted with students directly, did not carry out non-counseling duties, but they did not find both program development and program evaluation satisfactory and they benefited from teachers' opinions rather than students. In conducting the annual guidance program, it was determined that school counselors frequently held individual counseling sessions with the students, these sessions were short and they met with the same student once or twice. It was found that the school conference, individual guidance, small or large group guidance, individual and group counseling and classroom guidance methods are carried out without preparing a weekly program. School counselors' support from teachers, conducting preventive programs, interacting with students face-to-face, successful implementation of the annual school counseling program and not fulfilling all the wishes of school administrators at any time were related to vocational satisfaction. In addition, it was determined that conducting regular individual counseling and classroom guidance is associated with vocational satisfaction while conducting the school counseling program. It was found that school counselors who develop and evaluate the school counseling program, who successfully complete this program, who interact face-to-face with students and perform as little as possible non-counseling service tasks have higher self-efficacy levels. Self-efficacy perceptions of school counselors were found to be correlated with conducting individual psychological counseling, small group guidance, large group guidance and classroom guidance on a regular basis. According to findings, positive correlations were obtained between counselors' vocational satisfactions and their school counseling self-efficacy expectations, and time spent conducting school counseling tasks with students / consultants in face-to-face interaction and negative correlations were found with conducting non-counseling duties. The findings also showed that there may be a positive relationship between vocational satisfactions and self-efficacy expectations and the number of clients participating in individual counseling sessions, the number of individual counseling sessions, the number of large group counseling sessions, the number of periodical individual planning interviewing and a negative relationship the number of small group guidance sessions and the number of conferences the counselors gave to the students. Key Words: School counselor, vocational satisfaction, self-efficacy, school counselling programme development and evaluation.