Practice and challenges of counselling training in Ethiopian Universities

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine practice and challenges of counselling training in Ethiopian public universities. A mixed methods descriptive survey research design involv ing mainly a quantitative approach was used to examine personal and environmental fac tors that challenged counselling training and competence. The participants were all 108 master‘s degree counselling psychology trainees (1st year = 60; 2nd year = 48; Male= 82 & Female= 26) of Addis Ababa, Dilla and Jimma Universities which were purposevly includ ed in the study. Cohen-Palmer enneagram inventory, and Larson et al. counselling self estimate inventory, Lambie et al. Counselling competence scale, and environmental chal lenge scale were used to test factors affect counselling training. In the study five hypothe ses were formulated to test if (1) second year trainee counsellors demonstrated higher counselling self-efficacy than first year trainee counselors; (2) there was a significant corre lation among trainee counsellors‘ personality, self-efficacy, counselling competence, and environmental challenges affecting their training; (3) there was a significant eneagram per sonality type variation among trainee counsellors in terms of their year of study level and gender; (4) there was a significant counselling self-efficacy difference among trainee coun sellors in line with on university affiliation and gender; and (5) enneagram personality and counselling self-efficacy predicted trainee counsellors‘counselling competence. The de scriptive and interferential statistical analyses were used for the interpretation of the col lected data. The results indicated statistically significant differences regarding counselling self-efficacy and enneagram personality type among trainee counsellors based on their year of study level, university affiliation, and gender respectively. The correlation result re vealed that there was association among self-efficacy, environmental factors and counsel ing competence. The correlation findings are supported by the qualitative analysis of cur riculum and practicum documents. Regression analysis of beta coefficient also indicated that counselling self- efficacy (r 2 = .311, ß = .538, P = 0.000) had a significantly positive influence on counselling competence. Bandura © reciprocal determinism is used to make sense of the result. Based on the results, it was recommended that universities need to as sess new trainee counsellors‘enneagram personality type and counselling self-efficacy, and to exert efforts to help trainee counsellors overcome environmental challenges related to their counselling competence.