Date of Conferral

2017

Degree

Ph.D.

School

Counselor Education and Supervision

Advisor

Melinda Haley

Abstract

Owing to advancements in technology, online counseling has become a viable option for counselors to provide counseling services to diverse populations. Despite the expansion of resources, a gap in research exists pertaining to a school counselor's intention to use online counseling. Furthermore, online counseling is an underused tool owing to a variety of unknowns, attitudes, ethical and legal concerns, and lack of training associated with online counseling. The underuse of online counseling becomes problematic because youth, who may be more receptive to support via the Internet, remain underserved if school counselors are not using this tool. The purpose for this quantitative survey study was to examine select predictor variables as explained below and their relationships to the school counselor's intent to use online counseling. This study was framed upon the constructs and extensions of the technology acceptance model, which demonstrates that there are factors that influence an individual's behavior and acceptance of technology. The results of a multiple regression analysis yielded a relationship between the independent variables of age, confidence to use online counseling, educational experience, and school's learning program and the school counselor's intent to use online counseling. Furthermore, key findings suggested a significant relationship between 2 of the 4 variables, the school counselor's confidence to use online counseling, educational experience, and school counselor's intent to use online counseling. These findings are useful for informing training programs for school counselors, thus possibly promoting increased use of the Internet to reach vulnerable youth populations who may be more receptive to counseling via the Internet.

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