Ideology and Decision Making in School-Based Counseling

The present study built on the design and results from the pilot study in an attempt to explore the relationship between psychologists\u27 personal ideologies and the decisions they make in school-based counseling. Of particular interest was whether higher levels of self-reported ideology were related to support of relevant school policies. Participants included 166 psychologists who responded to an online survey that included questions related to personal and professional ideologies, attitudes toward school policies, training and preparedness in four areas of interest, and hypothetical scenarios. Consistency among responses in areas including theoretical orientation, political party, and training and preparedness in ethics and multicultural issues limited the analyses that could be performed to compare different populations. Correlation data indicated that there was no relationship between those who reported to be religious and those who reported that they were not religious, though slight differences were noted qualitatively. There was also no difference between responses of individuals who had not taken a class but felt prepared as compared with responses of the rest of the population. Correlation data also indicated some associations between the school policies related to liberal/conservative political views and the vignette designed toward that ideology