Psychological counseling self-efficacy as a predictor of counselors' occupational commitment

This study is a descriptive study in a correlational survey method to show whether counseling self-efficacy of psychological counselors predict their occupational commitment. It also aims to conduct a study on counselors' occupational commitmen tin terms of gender, age, post-graduate education and the institutions counselors work in constitutes. Participants of this study are 246 counselors in total, 143 female and 103 male counselors, who work at public schools under the Turkish Ministry of Education in Nigde, Adana and Gaziantep city centers and working at Counseling and Research Centers. Throughout the study, data on counseling self-efficacy of the counselors were collected through 'Counseling Self-Efficacy Scale' developed by Lent, Hill and Hoffman (2003) and adapted into Turkish by Pamukcu and Demir (2013). Data on counselors' occupational commitment were collected through 'Occupational Commitment Scale' which was developed by Blau (2003) and adapted to Turkish by Utkan and Kırdök (2018). Additionally, data on counselors' demographic information were collected through 'Personal Information Form' which was prepared by the researcher himself. In the analysis of data, regression analysis was applied to describe to what extent counseling self-efficacy of counselors predict their occupational commitment. One-Way ANOVA was used to explore if there is a significant difference on occupational commitment of counselors based on their age and the institutions that they work in along with using T-test to explore any significant difference based on their gender and education level. The findings of regression analysis suggested that counseling self-efficacy has a predictive effect on occupational commitment and all four sub-dimensions in various levels significantly. The occupational commitment of counselors shows a significant difference in all sub-dimensions of the scales, but not in affective commitment sub-dimension, and in the total score of occupational commitment based on participants' graduate education level while no statistically significant difference was observed in the results based on their institution, age and gender. The study was concluded that counselors' self-efficacy has a predictive effect on their occupational commitment and there is a significant difference between counseling self-efficacy and occupational commitment and its sub-dimensions. The results were discussed in relation to the relevant literature and suggestions were provided. Keywords: Occupational commitment, psychological counseling, self-efficacy, counseling self-efficacy.