Educational career integrative counselling.

Drobot, Loredana ; Rotaru, Ileana ; Anghel, Cornelia 等

1. INTRODUCTION

Integrative counselling is a term used to describe either an integration of two or more therapies or an integration of counselling techniques (the latter may also be called technical eclecticism), or an integration of both therapies and techniques. Integrative counselling is not tied to any single therapy since its practitioners take the view that no one single approach works for every client in every situation (Evans et al., 2005).

The educational counselling represents an activity undertaken by a specialized person (psychologist, teacher, social worker) who gained a basic theoretical development and a personal development in integrative psychotherapy. Educational counsellors work with individual students and groups of students. In general, they:

--counsel students who are experiencing personal, social, educational or behavioural problems;

--provide career or vocational counselling services which may include administering tests and inventories to help students identify their interests, aptitudes and abilities;

--collect and make available a wide range of educational and occupational information (for example, information about awards, scholarships and financial assistance programs);

--establish and supervise peer counselling and peer tutoring programs;

--act as a resource for teachers and faculty members involved in helping students or graduates identify and pursue employment opportunities;

--present self-help or information sessions on subjects related to education and career planning;

--help students improve their study habits;

--assist students interested in travel and study programs;

--refer students to appropriate services and agencies when required.

To use integrative "counselling" on a person supposes: to analyze and to explain to the counselled person the ways in which he/she can be conceived by others and also to explain the acting modalities of the counselled person.

Counselling can be defined in different ways, but when we refer to integrative counselling the following facts are taken into consideration:

--existing common factors with other types of counselling;

--technical eclectism used in counselling;

--theoretical underlining determined by the integration of ideas from different theories, ideas necessary in a certain situation. The theoretical underlining may also refer to the elaborating of a new theory.

Through educational integrative counselling, besides the characteristics already mentioned, individual particularities are brought to the specialists' attention, age and learning characteristics "here and now".

In other words, educational integrative counselling is used from a methodological inter-disciplinary point of view, using instruments from psychology, sociology and management and from a theoretical point of view it demands a trans-disciplinary area.

The educational integrative counseling represents a necessity in the support methods area, given to persons in different moments of their lives. The concept of "integrative" attached to counseling reflects the way towards the technique eclectism, the theoretical integration and the common factors existent in an efficient counseling, and the concept "educational" does not refer just to the education period of the student, but to the human being who is on a continuous development, through education and autoeducation.

Thus, the individual forms, creates and practices in his development, by accessing his own resources and by the corresponding guidance, the transversal competencies and the learning competencies. For the educational integrative counselor the educational psychotherapy represents a domain of interrogations form a theoretical and practical point of view.

The career represents the professional personal trajectory characterised by an ascension moment, by stagnation, regressions etc., each person interested in his/her becoming wished to know him/herself though personal efforts. The organizational and social culture encourages or discourages the individual in demanding specialized help in diagnosing the competences in the "clogs" of his/her career. Even if, nowadays, the educational integrative counselling is hard to define, its role cannot be contested at a personal, organizational and social level, because it is based on integrating activity domains from the person's private, organizational and social life.

2. CASE STUDY

The study we wish to present in this paper was realized and applied on a sample of 35 members of the didactic staff of the art and craft schools in the Caras-Severin district. The target group selected was part of a continuous development programme organized by the "Eftimie Murgu" University in Resita, Caras-Severin district in collaboration with the district School Inspectorate.

The purpose of the study was to identify the value judgements the students have regarding their own person and the reasons used by the teacher in orther to participate in the continuous development courses.

The hypothesis of the study was that a moderate self esteem determined the motivated participation in the continuous development courses.

The distribution of the sample was made in the following way: 21 women and 14 men. The teachers were selected both from a rural area and from an urban one.

The didactic staff selected was represented by all official teachers and had they definitive degree obtained and (8), also the 2nd degree (7) and the 1st degree (20) (Drobot, 2009).

A. Instruments used

The following instruments were used:

a). The Rosenberg self-esteem scale (SS)--an evaluation instrument which is part of the licensed Clinical evaluation system (Rosenberg, 2007).

b). Associative verbal test that uses just the beginning of phrases, which are to be completed by the students. 5 phase beginnings were used:

"I chose to participate in this programme because ..."

"I intent to participate in other courses for professional development ..."

"I selected the professional development courses...."

"I found out about these professional development courses from."

"The continuous professional development is useful because...."

c). Group focus--made before the beginning of the professional development courses.

B. Data presentation and interpretation

The Rosenberg self-esteem scale is made of 10 items rated on the 4 stages of the Likert scale, where 1 represents "I completely disagree" and 4 "I totally agree". The SS results can vary among 0 and 40. The bigger the result is the higher is the self-esteem. The values for the 5 classes are presented in the use manual of the scale. The significance of these results being (Rosenberg, 2007):

--Class 1--very low level of self-esteem (smaller than 26);

--Class 2--low level of self-esteem (27-30);

--Class 3--medium level of self-esteem (31-34);

--Class 4--high level of self-esteem (35-39);

--Class 5--very high level of self-esteem (bigger than 39).

After gathering all the answers the following data were recorded:

--4 subjects--3 women and 1 man were part of the 1st class--a very low level of self-esteem;

--6 subjects--4 women and 2 men were part of the 2nd class--low level of self-esteem;

--19 subjects--8 women and 11 men were part of the 3rd class--medium level of self-esteem;

--4 subjects--1 woman and 3 men were part of the 4th class--high level of self-esteem;

--2 subjects--2 men were part of the 5th class--very high level of self-esteem.

The associative verbal test in the 3rd class subject category, medium level of self-esteem has disclosed the following answer category:

"I chose to participate in this programme because

--It seems useful;

--It is interesting;

--I feel I need to learn more:

--I find out new things."

"I intent to participate in other courses for professional development

--I believe they are good for me;

--I can develop my psycho-pedagogical orientation;

--I connect better to the social reality;

--I can do something useful in my school

--The art and craft schools have their specific and the professional development courses do help me."

"I select the professional development courses according to

--The theme proposed;

--The duration of the course;

--The location of the course;

--The disciplines taught;

--The professors;

--The benefits obtained: credits, grades, recognitions etc."

From the reading of the answers offered, it results that the motivation for participating in professional development courses is connected to: the location of the course, its thematic and its duration. The suppliers of professional development, in order to have students, must keep in mind the information obtained.

The students characterised by a high and a very high self-esteem are included in the student category with endurance, the "refractor" students that always have something to object and who often express in the following way: "I don't see the utility of these courses", "What good do they do?", "If I didn't need the credits I wouldn't participate", "I come to these courses because I am forced to by the General inspector", "I am already a 1st degree teacher so I don't have to learn anymore" etc.

3. CONCLUSIONS AND PROPOSALS

The medium level self-esteem characterises the interested students in their own professional development.

The very high self-esteem represents a change indicator for the didactic staff.

The study has numerous limits but it offers starting points for other studies and for the building of reference frames in the continuous professional development politics.

Because the case study presented has a limited number of subjects we cannot generalize for the didactic staff in other schools, because a comparative study was not yet realized.

The resistance to change, the refusal of some teachers to participate in professional development courses can be motivated by: the incertitude from the educational system, the fast changes in the social, the payment of salaries, the conditions and the techno-material frame etc.

4. REFERENCES

Drobot, L. (2007). Percepte de educatie scolara (Educational issues), EDP, Bucharest

Drobot, L. (2009). Consiliere integrativa educationala. Elemente de psihopatologie (Educational Integrative Counselling. Elements of psychopatology), V&I Puiblishing, Bucharest

Drobot, L. (2009). Consiliere si psihoterapie integrativa (Integrative counselling and psychoteraphy), Mirton, Timisoara, ISBN 978-973-52-0606-2

Evans, K, Gilbert, M. C. (2005). An introduction to integrative psychotherapy, Palgrave Macmillan, Published: July 2005, ISBN: 978-0-333-98726-1, ISBN-10: 0-333-98726-8

Rosenberg, M. (2007). Scala de stima de sine Rosenberg (Rosenberg self-esteem scale), (adapted by Mordovan, R.), in D.David, Sistem de evaluare clinica, RTS Publishing, Cluj-Napoca

Tab. 1. Distribution of the case study sample

Sex No. Medium age Rural Urban

Men 14 Vm = 45 years 8 6
Women 21 Vm = 41 years 14 7