Investigation of counselors'perceived cultural sensivity in terms of their demographics and professional variables

This study has three main goals. The first goal is to develop a valid and reliable measurement tool to evaluate their perceptions on cultural sensivity of counselors in multicultural counseling process. The elements of RESPECFUL Model and APA's definition of multiculturalism are used to write items of the scale. The second goal of this study is to investigate counselors' gender, graduation level, work experience and work experience in their current working region in determining counselor s' perceptions on cultural sensivity. The last goal of the study is to examine counselors' education lives, psychological counseling processes and clients' profiles related to multicultural counseling concept. Moreover, examining current difficulties and potantial difficulties with culturally different clients by Content Analysis -in the light of RESPECTFUL Model and APA- have been aimed. The studies and results of these studies, related to first, second and third goals, are presented under three main sections as Study I, Study II and Study III. In the content of the Study I, a quintet likert-type scale, which called Perceieved Cultural Sensivity Scale (PCSS), has been developed. The scale development process has been performed on 322 voluntary counselors from different regions of Turkey between January 2014 and December 2014. As a result of the Exploratory Factor Analysis, a scale with two factors and 26 items is manifested. The occurred factors are named as "Factor 1" (signs openness to cultural differences) and " Factor 2" (signs search for cultural similarity with the client) in the light of item contents and theoretical framework. The results of the factor analysis shows that total of items explains 67.7 % of the total variance. The Cronbach Alpha Coefficients of the scale are calculated as .98 for the first factor .79 for second factor and .95 for the total scale. The high score has obtained from PCSS, signs higher perceived cultural sensivity. The obtained statistical values shows that PCSS is valid and reliable on measuring counselors' percieved cultural sensivity in multicultural counseling process. In the Study II, counselors' perceptions on cultural sensivity are examined in terms of their gender, graduation level, work experience and work experience in their current working region. It is found that perceived cultural sensivity of counselors with graduate degree were significantly higher than counselors with undergraduate degree. Moreover, it has been found that other demografics are not significant in Study II. According the Multiple Linear Regression Analysis results, graduation level is the predictor of ounselors' percieved cultural sensivity. On the other hand, gender, graduation level, work experience and work experience in their current working region are not found to be significant predictors of counselors' percieved cultural sensivity. In the content of Study III, Personal Information Form is used to collect data from counselors. The counselors' education lives, psychological counseling processes and clients' profiles related to multicultural counseling concept are examined in this part of the study, Moreover, current difficulties and potantial difficulties with culturally different clients by content analysis are examined in this part of the study. Elements of RESPECTFUL Model and APA's definition of multiculturalism are used in Content Analysis. Counselor's current difficulties with culturally different clients are classified as family, gender, sexual identity, language, religion, ethnicity, different values, socioeconomic status and gender roles. Furthermore, family, gender, sexual identity, language, religion, ethnicity/ race, different values and gender roles are the elements of potantial difficulties with culturally different clients by Content Analysis. Keywords: Perception, Scale, Multicultural counseling, Cultural sensivity, RESPECTFUL model,