Investigation of the relationship between pscychological counselors' multicultural counseling competencies and cognitive flexibility

This study aims to investigate the relationship between psychological counselors' multicultural counseling competence and cognitive flexibility. Moreover, current study investigates the psychological counselors' multicultural counseling competence in regards with gender, age, education level, professional seniority, educational institution and whether having clients from different cultures. Participants of present study consist of 177 psychological counselors working in educational intuitions under the Ministry of National Education. The research data were gathered via Demographic Form, Multicultural Counseling Competencies Scale and Cognitive Flexibility Scale. We performed independent t-test, one-way analysis of variance and Kruskall Wallis-H to test the differentiation of psychological counselors' multicultural competence score according to aforementioned demographic variables. We also conducted Pearson correlation analysis to examine the relationship between multicultural competence and cognitive flexibility. Lastly, we run hierarchical regression analysis to determine the predictive role of cognitive flexibility and other variables on multicultural competence. The result of the study showed that psychological counselors' multicultural competence was positively associated with age and cognitive flexibility. Furthermore, multicultural competence level of psychological counselors working in pre-school was higher than those working in other educational institutions. On the other hand, multicultural competence did not differ according to gender, professional seniority, education level and whether having clients from different cultures. Lastly, hierarchical regression analysis demonstrated that the sub-factors of cognitive flexibility were a significant predictor of multicultural competence. Moreover, the subscales of cognitive flexibility including alternatives and control, age and professional seniority explained 24% of variance of multicultural competence.