A Reconsideration of Dispositional Assessment in Counselor Education

Authors

Gregory Hatchett, Northern Kentucky UniversityFollow

Document Type

Article

Keywords

dispositional assessment, counselor education training, therapist effects, facilitative interpersonal skills

Subject Area

Counselor Education

Abstract

Counselor dispositions have increasingly taken an important role in the selection and subsequent training of counseling students. Yet, counselor educators continue to lack inventories or rating scales that reliably measure dispositional constructs that have been connected to counselor effectiveness. Evaluating prospective and current counseling students based on unproven dispositional measures is inconsistent with counseling organizations’ codes of ethics and may subject counselor educators to legal liability. The purpose of this article is to review the current state of dispositional assessment in counselor education, describe recent research on therapist effects in the outcome literature, and offer suggestions for improving dispositional assessment.

Recommended Citation

Hatchett, G. (2023). A Reconsideration of Dispositional Assessment in Counselor Education. Journal of Counselor Preparation and Supervision, 17(2). Retrieved from https://digitalcommons.sacredheart.edu/jcps/vol17/iss2/2