Abstract

The purpose of this study is to analyze the counselors' educational needs in terms of their experience level. In this study, educational need was defined with three factors : importance, performance lever and motivation to be trained(Educational need = Importance x Motivation x Reversed Performance level). For this purpose, We gave a questionnaire of twenty-one items to 222 counselors who received counselor education on graduate level. Their clinical experiences and educational levels range from "novice", less than one-and-half years of graduate training or clinical experience, to "advanced", more than four years of graduate training and five years of clinical experience. The results of need analysis showed that their educational needs were high in "the assessments of clients problems", "the awareness of core messages", "the process awareness", "the techniques in the making of treatment objectives, the treatment planning, and the treatment intervention" regardless of their experience level. But the counselors' educational needs were relatively low in "the listening ability of clients' linguistic message", "the ability to transfer basic intentions with verbal language", "counselors' ability to communicate with nonverbal language", "the positive view on clients", "the general attitude and faith in counseling". However, there were some differences in terms of counselors' experience levels. The advanced counselors' needs were relatively high than the lower experience, level's in "the assessment of clients' personality and characteristics", "the awareness to recognize clients' condition", and "the making of counselor-client relationship". On the other hand, the advanced counselors' needs were relatively low than the lower experience level's in "the process skills influenced by dialog context", "the ability to recognize clients' problems", and "counseling structuring".