A Quantitative Examination of the Relationship Between Curiosity, Cultural Humility, and Multicultural Counseling Competence in Master\u27s-Level Counselors-in-Training Enrolled in CACREP-Accredited Programs

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\u27 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\u27s 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