Structural changes in counselor trainee intention use and clients’ session evaluation

Profile analysis and Pathfinder Network Analysis (Schvaneveldt, 1990) were used to examine changes in procedural knowledge and procedural structural knowledge, respectively, of 32 counselor trainees and to examine convergence in their procedural knowledge and procedural structural knowledge with the procedural knowledge structure of 42 experienced counselors. Procedural knowledge was derived from the pattern and level of intention use (Hill & O'Grady, 1985) in a pre- and posttraining counseling session. Procedural structural knowledge was derived from the co-occurrence of the intentions used in these two counseling sessions. Only counselor trainees' structure of intention use changed from pre- to posttraining, becoming more similar to the structure of intention use of the experienced counselors. At both pre- and posttraining, when trainees' structure of intention use was more similar to that of experienced counselors, their clients rated counseling sessions as smoother (pre- and posttraining) and deeper (posttraining only). The use of knowledge structures as a criterion for assessing the effectiveness of counseling skills training is discussed.