Abstract

For decades, researchers and counselor educators have emphasized the importance of developing counselors prepared to serve a diverse society. However, there is still much debate around which factors contribute to the development of a culturally competent counselor. The influence of curiosity in the development of competence has been researched in the field of education, however, curiosity has not yet been studied in counseling as it relates to counselors' openness and competence in working with clients perceived as different from themselves. The author conducted a quantitative research study to examine the influence of curiosity and cultural humility in master's level counselors-in-training on their perceived multicultural counseling competence. It is expected that higher rates of curiosity and cultural humility will correlate with higher rates of perceived cultural competence in counselors-in-training. Pearson correlations and OLS multiple regressions were conducted to answer the four research questions in this study. Results demonstrated positive relationships between all variables, with curiosity as the largest predictor of multicultural counseling competence. It was also discovered that cultural humility does not moderate the relationship between curiosity and MCC in CITs. Implications of this study have the potential to impact the training and education of counseling students, professional counselors, counselor educators, and other helping and educational professionals working with diverse populations. Recommendations for future research are also discussed.

Notes

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Graduation Date

2022

Semester

Spring

Advisor

Shillingford, Ann

Degree

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.)

College

College of Community Innovation and Education

Department

Counselor Education and School Psychology

Degree Program

Education; Counselor Education

Format

application/pdf

Identifier

CFE0008990; DP0026323

URL

https://purls.library.ucf.edu/go/DP0026323

Language

English

Release Date

May 2023

Length of Campus-only Access

1 year

Access Status

Doctoral Dissertation (Open Access)

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