Abstract
Purpose. The purpose of this study is to determine (1) whether there is a difference in the frequency with which public secondary school students seek and receive counseling services from counselors who do holistic counseling as compared with students whose counselors do traditional counseling and (2) whether counselor responsibility for discipline makes a difference in counselor effectiveness as perceived by students. Methodology. This study compared a group of sophomores whose counselors handle their discipline (holistic counseling) with a group of sophomores whose counselors do not handle their discipline (traditional counseling). These sophomores attended public secondary schools in California with socioeconomic status (SES) scores at or above the fiftieth percentile and with whites constituting at least 50 percent of the student body. The independent variable for this study is counselor job responsibilities; that is, some counselors performed discipline functions and some counselors did not perform such functions. All counselors provided career counseling, educational counseling, and personal counseling. The dependent variables were the frequency with which counselees sought out and met with their counselors for career counseling, educational counseling, personal counseling, and in general; and the counselors' perceived effectiveness of such encounters in career counseling, educational counseling, personal counseling, and in general. A two-way analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) was used to test differences between holistic and traditional counseling groups with respect to these eight dependent variables. Sex and ethnicity were used as covariates, and class level as a blocking factor. Findings and conclusions. The study found no significant differences on any of the eight frequency and effectiveness variables between students whose counselors handle discipline and students whose counselors do not handle discipline. In other words, counselees who had counselors who handled their discipline sought out and received career counseling, educational counseling and personal counseling with the same degree of frequency as counselees whose counselors did not handle their discipline. Furthermore, counselees felt the same about the effectiveness of their services, whether or not the counselors handled discipline. Related data indicated some differences based on sex and class level, but no differences among ethnic groups.