Investigation of the relationships among counselor candidates' self-efficacy, cultural sensitivity, gender roles, and mindfulness

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationships among counseling self-efficacy, multicultural counseling competencies, gender roles and mindfulness of counselor candidates. Participants of this study were 431 senior students studying in the Guidance and Psychological Counseling Undergraduate Programs of 14 different Turkish universities during the academic year of 2015-2016. The data were collected using Counselor Activity Self-Efficacy Scale, Perceived Cultural Sensivity Scale, Gender Roles Attitude Scale, Mindful Attention Awareness Scale, and Personal Information Form. The relationships among the study variables were analyzed using structural equation modelling. According to the findings, counselor candidates' perceptions of counseling self-efficacy differed based on their evaluations counseling related courses that were taken prior to the practicum course and, their post practicum evaluations of the counseling performance they showed during the practicum course. Participants who had already taken the multicultural counseling course had significantly higher counseling self-efficacy than those who had not taken the course. The findings of structural equation modeling showed that multicultural counseling played a partial mediator role in the causal relationship predicting counseling self-efficacy based on counselor candidates' gender roles and mindfulness. According to the results, counselor candidates' gender roles and mindfulness significantly predicted their counseling self-efficacy through the mediation of multicultural counseling competencies.