FACTORES CLAVE PARA ELEGIR OPERADOR MPLS

To assure the accuracy of data, the researcher used triangulation. This procedure included: member checking, peer review, and keeping a journal during the entire research process to document the role of the researcher with personal feelings and thoughts.

4.5.1 Member Checking

The researcher took notes during the interview process and reviewed the

responses with the interviewers before ending each interviews. The transcripts were also e-mailed to each participants requesting they read the content of the interview and check if it accurately reflected their experience. Each participant affirmed that answers

accurately reflected their responses immediately after the interview, however only four participants replied to the e-mailed transcript saying that it accurately represented their positions. Two students never replied to the researcher’s email.

4.5.2 Peer Review

The researcher used multiple peer reviewers to assure the validity of the coding. The fresh and detached perspective that peers brought enabled the researcher to develop a greater explanation of the findings.

One reviewer was a fellow doctoral candidate in the counselor education program, another fellow doctoral candidate was enrolled in the educational foundation and enquiry program with specialization in educational research and measurements, and the last one was enrolled in the educational psychology program.

The researcher e-mailed to the peer reviewers the excel spread sheet with the categories, themes and the selected statements which were considered essential to describe participants’ experiences. One peer reviewer agreed with all the analyses made by the researcher. Another peer reviewer suggested to clearly define the categories that the researcher found. The third peer reviewer found two new themes, which were “spirit of collaboration” and “theories and techniques”. The researcher agreed with these two new themes and included them in the findings.

To the peer reviewers it was also asked to see any differences among participants’ answers due to participants’ gender and age. After an analytical analysis based on a comparison between males’ responses and females’ responses, and between professional of age under 30 and professional of age up 30, both the researcher and the peer reviewers agreed on the fact that gender and age did not affect participants’ answers.

4.5.3 Researcher’s Journal and Role

In addition to the outside scrutiny discussed above, the researcher evaluated the process of the research as it developed. The researcher’s reflective commentary was

devoted to the effectiveness of the techniques that had been employed as well as to record the researcher’s initial impressions of each data collection session, patterns appearing to emerge in the data collected and theories generated. After each interview, the researcher recorded in a journal the first impressions, feelings, thoughts, and experiences related to the process of the research. This was very helpful for keeping track of eventual bias and personal interests as it was presented in chapter three. The researcher had the impression that the “dual role” researcher/instructor did not help to create a comfortable relationship with the participants at the beginning of the study during the interviews. However, face to face interviews helped to stress the important implications of the study for the

participants’ development as counselors as well as for future students. For this reason, in some occasions, participants provided more information than they were requested by the questions of the interviews.

4.6SUMMARY

The findings of this study reveal that the development of the therapeutic alliance with clients is relevant for being an effective counselor. According to the participants, the success of clients’ treatment is strongly related to the therapeutic alliance and the factors related to it. Beginning counselors had positive experiences when a good relational bond, and tasks and goal agreement were established. They also expressed a positivity when they felt that they were collaboratively working with clients on their needs, as well as when they consider themselves able to apply the right theoretical and technical approach with clients.

When there is a lack of emotional bond or an absence of agreement on tasks and goals, students feel frustrated and the quality of counseling is deeply affected by this

negativity. Students also expressed the negative impact on counseling sessions when they experienced a lack of a sense collaboration from some clients. There also is a negative impact on counseling sessions when the beginning counselor feel not adequately prepared on the use of theories and techniques in counseling.

Students appreciate the collection of clients’ feedback to improve their work with clients in terms of emotional bond, and agreement and collaboration on tasks and goals. Also, the review of the Client Feedback Form note in supervision sessions seems increasing counselors’ capability to choose and apply the right theory and techniques with clients.

The factors age, gender, level of experience and type of clients seem to strongly affect the development of the therapeutic alliance with clients.

Counselor education programs must be intentional when supporting the development of the therapeutic alliance between counselors-in-training and their first clients.

In chapter five, findings will be discussed in depth in relation to the literature. In addition, researcher reflections, implications for counselor education programs, limits of this research, and suggestions for future researches will be proposed.

CHAPTER 5

I

The findings of this study show that the therapeutic alliance and the factors related to it are essential for the effectiveness of the counseling intervention. Participants shared both their positive and negative experiences related to the development of the therapeutic alliance with their first clients. According to counselors-in-training, a positive therapeutic alliance is qualified by a strong emotional bond, an agreement on both the goals and the tasks necessary to achieve the goals, a good spirit of collaboration over the therapeutic treatment, a solid knowledge of counseling theories, and the ability to use the techniques related to theories. On the contrary, a negative therapeutic alliance is

characterized by difficulties in building and maintaining an emotional bond with clients, a disagreement on the therapeutic plan and the tasks associated, and a non-cooperative attitude and a lack of knowledge of counseling theories and techniques. Also, students shared that the collection of clients’ feedback during the counseling sessions and the discussion of this feedback in supervision sessions was a way to help them grow in their efficacy as counselors.

The purpose of this chapter is to discuss the findings and how they relate to the professional literature presented in chapter two, in particular the Common Factors Psychotherapy, the Working Alliance Theory and the Client Feedback Informed

professional supervision and professional practice will be examined. Researcher’s thoughts of the current research process and suggestions for future researches will be presented.