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To effectively conduct counselling sessions, professional counsellors in Malaysia need to possess multicultural competence, especially considering the discrepancies between the ideal and the actual understanding of polygamous marriages. This study examines the relationship between multicultural academic experience, multicultural counselling competency, and the competency of counsellors in addressing polygamous family structures among 370 registered counsellors in Malaysia. The collected data was analysed using Pearson Correlations, One-Way ANOVA and Multiple Regressions. The findings indicate that the respondents demonstrated high multicultural academic experience and multicultural counselling competency. There was a significant positive correlation between multicultural academic experience and multicultural counselling competency, as well as the competency of counsellors in handling polygamous families. Moreover, there were noteworthy variations in competency levels based on ethnicity. This study highlights the crucial role of multicultural academic experience and multicultural counselling competency in predicting the competency of counsellors when dealing with polygamous families. Further validation of the Counselors’ Multicultural Competency on the Polygamous Family Structure Scale is recommended in future studies encompassing larger and more diverse populations.
Kee et al. (Mon,) studied this question.