Opinions of psychological counseller professional staff working in different fields on the effectiveness of internship processes and application courses in the psychological counselling and guidance undergraduate program

Psychological counseling has been recognized as one of the qualified professions in many countries around the world. The development of the profession has always been a matter of curiosity due to the wide range of areas served by the profession and the fact that it has many critical functions in society. Considering the critical function of the profession in society, the psychological counseling and guidance program taught at universities is of great importance for gaining a profession and providing a qualified workforce. For this reason, the main purpose of this study is to investigate the opinions of psychological counselors who are graduates of the psychological counseling and guidance undergraduate program and work in different fields regarding the effectiveness of internship processes and practical courses in their graduate programs. The study was carried out in a holistic single case design from qualitative research methods. The interview form created by the researcher was used to collect the study data and the data were collected using the interview technique. In the research, criterion sampling method, one of the purposeful sampling methods, was used because the study group was selected according to the predetermined conditions. The sample of the research consists of 10 professional employees who have completed their bachelor's degree in psychological counseling and guidance at different universities and work in different areas authorized. According to the research results, it has been found that professional staff have achieved a certain level of achievement from the application courses and internship processes in the undergraduate program for working in schools; but they have opinions that the application courses and internship processes for other areas of study authorized to work are generally not effective. It has been determined that the participant suggestions for an effective program are mostly collected in the direction of making the program a holistic program with practices, methods covering different fields of study and internships in areas other than school.