Date of Conferral

2022

Degree

Ph.D.

School

Psychology

Advisor

Carl Valdez

Abstract

Special training is often needed for counseling professionals to meet the unique cultural needs of their clients. Previous researchers have suggested that larger samples of professional counselors are needed to better understand the presence of these multicultural skills and noted a dearth of research regarding the effects of training in multicultural counseling following graduation and among practitioners. Following the theory of multicultural counseling and therapy (MTCT), the research questions were tested by using descriptive statistics, t-tests, and multiple linear regression to address the study of multicultural knowledge and multicultural awareness among counseling professionals who did and did not receive formal training in multicultural competencies based on various demographics, including race/ethnicity, age, gender, and education of mental health professionals. The researcher used the Multicultural Counseling Knowledge and Awareness Scale to measure the dependent variable of multi-cultural counseling skill of 47 American Counseling Association members through the Survey Monkey platform. The results of the multiple linear regression analyses showed that participants who had received multicultural training did not differ in multicultural awareness or knowledge from those who had not received multicultural training, while controlling for age, and gender. However, education of the counselor individually or in linear combination did impact multicultural knowledge. The findings indicate that a positive social change in the field of mental health and psychology can be achieved by encouraging mental health institutions to ensure that the service providers are culturally competent, and that multicultural training should be incorporated in the curricula for students pursuing the career.

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