Validation of an Agency Scale for Elementary and Secondary School Counselors Author:Pei-Shan, LeeZuway-R Hong
Research Article
Innovative assessment systems for elementary and secondary school counselors’ agency ability and agency behavior are rare. Therefore, a crucial emerging task is the development of a high-quality research tool for assessing school counselors’ agency ability and agency behavior. “Agency” refers to an individual’s capacity for rational choice in the face of external pressures such as social structures, norms, and order. It implies that an individual has a considerable degree of power and the ability to change his or her surroundings (Edwards, 2005; Lipponen & Kumpulainen, 2011). Agency is a central element of the sense of hope, and agents not only recognize that the future will be better than the present but also see themselves as a critical force for achieving it (Billett & Pavlova, 2005). Numerous studies on education and learning have explored the concept of agency as a relevant factor in promoting one’s career and lifelong learning; they have indicated that teachers’ agency not only promotes student learning but also enhances teachers’ professional development. Children and adolescents may experience various mental health problems in schools, communities, and their families, which might be linked to increased work responsibility and challenges for school counselors. School counselors must equally advocate for and access opportunities for students, help all students and their families overcome various forms of oppression and injustice, and act as change agents in the school setting.
This study aimed to develop and validate an agency scale for elementary and secondary school counselors. The theoretical basis adopted by this study was social cognitive theory (SCT). Bandura (2001) proposed reciprocal determinism for subjective consciousness, which considers individual factors (P), behavioral factors (B), and environmental factors (E) to be interactive causal relationships. This study was derived from research on professional agency in the field of education; we modeled elementary and secondary school counselors’ agency in two major components, namely agency ability (P) and agency behavior (B), which are personal and behavioral factors of SCT. With reference to the literature, this study developed 19 items for a school counselor’s agency ability (SCA-A) scale and 40 items for an SCA behavior (SCA-B) scale. This study had two stages: (1) in the pilot stage, purposive sampling selection was employed to recruit 200 participants to complete the two scales for an examination of their reliability and validity. We applied item analysis and exploratory factor analysis to determine the construct validity of the two instruments. After clarification and modification, formal research tools were formed, with 17 items in the SCA-A scale and 37 in the SCA-B scale. In the formal stage, we conducted stratified, purposively sampling selection to recruit a total of 620 school counselors to complete the formal survey. We further used confirmatory factor analysis to examine the research tools’ validity. Three factors were extracted from the SCA-A scale: general self-efficacy (eight items), promotion focus (six items), and adventurous spirit (three items). The average variance extracted (AVE) was .46– .74, Cronbach’s α was .84–.90, and Cronbach’s α for the full scale was .90. Five factors were extracted from the SCA-B scale: advocacy action (12 items), agent engagement (8 items), teamwork (6 items), creative behavior (6 items), and organizational citizenship behavior (5 items). The AVE was .41– .62, Cronbach’s α was .78– .92, and Cronbach’s α for the full scale was .94. Both scales had good composite reliability, construct validity, and discrimination validity. They provided empirical evidence for promoting the quality of assessments on elementary and secondary school counselors’ agency ability and behaviors. The following essential findings provide new insights:
First, both the SCA-A and SCA-B scales generally worked well; the response rate was high, most participants could understand the items, the scales exhibited adequate internal consistency, and evidence of convergent and discriminate validity was promising. This study provides a new lens on both Bandura’s (2011) self-efficacy theory and Alkire’s (2005) consideration of agent ability has benefit to organize a self-multiple model. In the past, the self-efficacy of school counselors in Taiwan has included self-awareness, helping skills, counseling experience, and communication effectiveness, focusing on counselors for a single educational level; by contrast, we found that the General Self-efficacy Scales can be expanded to different educational levels’ school counselors.
Second, DeJong and DeGoede (2015) found that “promotion-focused” helpers can significantly reduce people’s crises compared with “protection-focused” helpers. By contrast, we found that three items formed a new “risk-taking” factor extracted from the original “promotion-focused” factor. This indicates that counselors being active does not necessarily mean taking risks, which provides a new lens on the concept of “prudence and seriousness” proposed in indigenous psychological research in Chinese societies.
Third, agency behaviors are objective, and quantitative indicators indicate a counselor’s actions with participation by individual or collective agency. The agency behaviors of elementary and secondary school counselors encompass active actions for themselves, for the clients they serve, and for other members of the group, and these actions include advocacy actions, agent engagement, creative actions, teamwork, and spontaneous engagement. This structure of agency behavior is similar to that of Blustein et al. (2019). In addition, this study validated the concept of teamwork in our culture, the organizational citizenship behaviors explored by organizational behavior scholars, and the initiatives proposed by academic organizations related to helping others, indicating that elementary and secondary school counselors can demonstrate agency behavior in multiple ways. In sum, the SCA-B scale is more suitable than a single factor is for use in reviewing the work of elementary and secondary school counselors in terms of their agency behavior.
We suggest that future studies explore relevant factors for elementary and secondary school counselors as well as research tools for measuring both in-service and preservice educational development training to enhance their professional counseling and guidance self-efficiency. Because school counselors have multiple roles and functions, they face many pressures, struggles, and challenges from multiple sectors every day. Therefore, well-educated and competent school counselors must foster sufficient agency ability and behaviors, such as personal characteristics, values, organizational atmosphere, supervisor support, and peer collaboration.
This study suggests that a model of school counselor agency can be established along with the predictive paths and effects of various variables in the near future. Moreover, helpers have different stages of career development, such as beginner, postgraduate, novice professional, and experienced professional. Their agency abilities and behaviors as well as career development differ, and therefore, individual differences must be considered when designing a suitable agency curriculum for them. Finally, some limitations of the present study should be considered. First, the study scales were based on self-reported items, which might increase the possibility of the social desirability effect (Rowley et al., 2007). Therefore, future studies should apply methods other than a self-report questionnaire, such as peer ratings regarding counselors’ agency ability and behavior. Second, this study should provide additional evidence for the potential usefulness of applying the Chinese versions of the SCA-A and SCA-B scales to elementary and secondary school counselors in Asian countries for enrich global database.
Validation of an Agency Scale for Elementary and Secondary School Counselors
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