Differentiating between self-reports of multicultural-specific and general counseling knowledge and awareness

Multicultural issues have recently received a great amount of attention in society. Researchers in counseling psychology have taken a special interest in exploring the many diverse facets of this area. One of the greatest struggles for researchers has been identifying and assessing competence in multicultural counseling. Multicultural counseling competencies have been identified as a set of characteristics used to assess a counseling psychologist\u27s competence to work with clients of diverse ethnic backgrounds. Subsequently, several instruments were developed to measure self-estimates of competence in the area of multicultural counseling. The present study explored multicultural counseling competence as a unique construct different from general counseling competence. Utilizing a monomethod-multitrait approach, the study explored the relationship between self-reports of multicultural-specific and general counseling knowledge and awareness. Participants consisted of a nationwide sample of faculty and students from APA-accredited counseling psychology programs. Participants volunteered to complete the Multicultural Counseling Knowledge and Awareness Scale (MCKAS) and the Counseling Self-Estimate Inventory (COSE), as self-report measures of multicultural and general counseling competence, respectively. The study began by exploring the factor structures of the MCKAS and COSE, using both aggregate and nonaggregate items of the subscales. A two-factor oblique theoretical model for the MCKAS and a five-factor oblique theoretical model for the COSE provided satisfactory goodness-of-fit indexes. Subsequently, the study explored the relationship between multicultural counseling and general counseling competency. Significant relationships were found between the constructs, however, the relationships were of low to moderate magnitude. In fact, the magnitude of correlations was greater within the subscales of the MCKAS and within the subscales of the COSE. The implications of the findings for multicultural counseling competency in counseling psychology were discussed