Confirmatory factor analysis of the psychometric properties of the Multicultural Counseling Self-Efficacy-Racial Diversity Form

The American Psychological Association (2003) recommended ethical guidelines for counselors and psychotherapists to meet the needs of diverse clients effectively. To do this they are expected to develop skills in multicultural counseling. A tripartite model was proposed to help develop multicultural counseling competencies (MCCs). It is important that prospective counselors and psychotherapists be able to assess their own skills in multicultural counseling so they can identify areas for improvement, but good instruments to do this have been lacking. Several previous studies exposed limitations of instruments used to assess psychotherapists' multicultural counseling competencies. The Multicultural Counseling Self-Efficacy-Racial Diversity Form (MCSE-RD) was recently developed by Sheu and Lent in 2007 to provide an assessment of psychotherapists' MCCs. This instrument was developed to "assess counselors perceived ability to counsel racially diverse clients" (Sheu & Lent, 2007, p. 30). The scale shows promise but needs to be studied more. It is important that once an instrument has been developed that it undergo evaluation to provide further evidence of its psychometric properties. The purpose of this study was to collect new data to investigate the validity and reliability of an existing instrument, Multicultural Counseling Self-Efficacy-Racial Diversity Form (MCSE-RD). Five hundred forty participants were surveyed in this study who were from Master's level CACREP-approved counseling programs and APA-approved counseling psychology programs.;Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) was performed to determine the psychometric properties of the MCSE-RD and model fit. Results of the CFA did not confirm the model of this study to the one proposed by Sheu and Lent. However, exploratory factor analysis provided some support for the factor structure of the MCSERD. Multiple regression analyses were conducted using selected demographic variables of the current study to see how well they predict the total score of the MCSE-RD. Four predictor demographic variables were found to significantly predict scores on the MCSERD. Depending on type of program participants were enrolled was also found to be a significant predictor of the MCSE-RD. Theoretical, empirical, and practical implications of the MCSE-RD are described.