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Departmental Proficiency Examination Review


Current Counselor Education students may apply to sit for the Departmental Proficiency Examination (DPE) after completing the following courses:

 

Community or School Counseling sequences (COUN 401, 402, 403, 404, 405, 406, 408, 409, 430)


Rehabilitation Counseling sequence (COUN 433, 401, 402, 403, 404, 405, 406, 408, 409, 430, 434, 435)

 

Family Counseling program (COUN 401, 402, 403, 404, 405, 406, 408, 409, 415, 420, 421, 430, 431)

 

The DPE is a 100 item multiple-choice (120 item for family counseling students) objective examination based on the ten areas of study prescribed by CACREP.  A score of 70 for Community, School, and Rehabilitation (84 for the Family sequence) is required to pass the exam.  If a passing score is not attained, the student will be required to retake the entire exam.  The ten areas of study include the following:

 

COUN 401  The Counseling Profession COUN 402  Developmental Counseling
COUN 403  Frameworks for Counseling COUN 404  Evaluation Techniques
COUN 405  Individual Counseling Skills COUN 406  Group Counseling
COUN 408  Research Seminar COUN 409  Career Development
COUN 430  Multicultural Counseling Family Counseling (only for those in Family Counseling)
Ethics  

 COUN 401  The Counseling Profession

  1. Evolution of Counseling

  2. Significant Historical Events Affecting the Counseling Profession

  3. Frank Parsons

  4. Ethical Issues

  5. Four Moral Principles Guiding Ethics of the Counseling Profession

  6. Moral Law

    • privacy

    • privilege

  7. Professionalism

  8. Professional Roles and Functions

  9. Credentialing

    • registration

    • certification

    • licensing

  10. ACA (American Counseling Association) as a Resource for

    • ethical standards

    • standards for practice

    • credentialing requirements

    • various professional information

  11. CACREP (Council for Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs

  12. Stages of the Counseling Relationship

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Counseling 402  Developmental Counseling

  1. What is development?

  2. Why use a developmental perspective in counseling?

  3. Piaget's theories and stages of cognitive development

  4. Erikson's theories and stages of psychosocial development; early childhood attachment

  5. Freud's theories and stages of psycho-sexual development

  6. Kohlberg's and Gilligan's theories of moral development

  7. Nature vs. Nurture debate

  8. Language development in children

  9. Biopsychosocial Perspective:  3 Domains

  10. Parenting Styles:  Characteristics, Effects, Counseling Implications

  11. Childhood Disorders

    • Autistic Disorder

    • ADHD

  12. Eating Disorders

    • Anorexia Nervosa

    • Bulimia Nervosa

  13. Development of Thought Processes

    • Preoperational Thought

    • Concrete Operational Thought

    • Formal Operational Thought

    • Post-Formal Thought

    • Hypothetical Thinking

    • Egocentric Thinking

    • Dialectical Thought:  Thesis, Antithesis, Synthesis

  14. The Importance of Peer Group

  15. Intelligence Through the Life Span

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COUN 403  Frameworks for Counseling

  1. Psychoanalytic Theories

    • Freud--Psychosexual stages of development; psychic apparatus

    • Adler--Family constellation, lifestyle; life tasks

  2. Behaviorists

    • Ellis--REBT; A→B→C→D→E

    • Beck--distorted thinking

    • Bandura--social learning; COMBS

  3. Cognitive Therapy

    • Beck--cognitive-triad

  4. Humanists

    • Peris--field theory; Gestalt; existential perspective; boundaries

    • Rogers--client centered; self-actualization; 19 propositions

    • Existentialists--three forms of the human world; forces; propositions

  5. Mulimodel Therapy

    • Lazarus--BASIC ID

  6. Reality Therapy

    • Glasser--success or failure identity; BCP

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COUN 404  Evaluation Techniques

  1. Tests:  What is a test?

  2. Statistics

    • Descriptive Statistics

    • Inferential Statistics

    • Normal Distribution

    • Variability

    • Correlations

  3. Reliability

    • Definition

    • Sources of Error

    • Four Methods of Establishing Reliability

    • Reliability Coefficient

    • Spearman-Brown Formula

    • Cronbach Alpha

    • KR20

    • Pearson Product Moment

  4. Validity

    • Content Validity

    • Construct Validity

    • Convergent Validity

    • Discriminate Validity

    • Criterion Related Validity

    • Predictive Validity

    • Concurrent Validity

  5. Intelligence

    • Crystallized Intelligence

    • Fluid Intelligence

    • Intelligence Testing

    • WAIS

    • WISC-III

    • Stanford-Binet

    • Kaufman-ABC

    • General Aptitude Test Battery

  6. Career Testing

    • Career Test Inventories

    • Strong Interest Inventory

    • Holland's Self-Directed Search

  7. Personality Assessments

    • Types of Personality Inventories

    • Empirical Approach

    • Rational Theoretical Approach

    • Trait Model

    • Myers-Briggs

    • MMPI-2

    • Projective Personality Assessments: general info, i.e., utilizes pictures to draw

                inferences about personality structure

    • Thematic Aperception Test

    • Rorschach Inkblot Test

  8. Dichotomous vs Likert Type Scales

  9. Factor Analysis

  10. Ethical Issues in Testing

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COUN 405  Individual Counseling Skills

  1. Describe what happens in each stage and step of the "Skilled Helper Model"

  2. Goals of Helping

  3. Attending Skills:  SOLER

  4. Active Listening

  5. Responding Skills

  6. Basic Empathy

  7. Define and state the goals of communication skills

    • Dialogue

    • Empathic Highlights

    • Probing

    • Summarizing

    • Challenging

    • Advanced Empathic Highlights

  8. What are the essential components/parameters of a goal and a strategy?

  9. Define the following:

    • shadow side

    • experience

    • behavior

    • affect

    • reluctance

    • resistance

    • blind spot

    • mindset

    • immediacy

    • self-disclosure

    • brainstorm

  10. Ethical Issues

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COUN 406-Group Counseling

  1. Group Work

  2. Group Dynamics

  3. Therapeutic Factors in Group Work

    • Instillation of Hope

    • Universality

    • Imparting Information

    • Altruism

    • Corrective Recapitulation of Family Group

    • Development of Socializing Techniques

    • Imitative Behavior

    • Interpersonal Learning

  4. Group Cohesiveness

  5. Existential Factors

  6. Four Stages of Group Development

    • Stage 1--Group Formation/Orientation/Initial Stage

    • Stage 2--Control/Transition Stage

    • Stage 3--Action/Working Stage

    • Stage 4--Termination/Completion/Final Stage

  7. Positive Group Member Roles

  8. Negative Group member Roles

  9. Advantages/Disadvantages of Group Work

  10. Recruiting and Screening

  11. Informed Consent

  12. Group Process and Outcome Evaluation

  13. Group Atmosphere

  14. Norms

  15. Imparting Information

  16. Self-Disclosure

  17. Open-Ended Questions

  18. Close-Ended Questions

  19. Feedback

  20. Cultural Sensitivity

  21. Group Leader Functions

  22. Types of Groups--Definitions, Similarities, Differences

    • Task Groups

    • Psychoeducational Groups

    • Counseling Groups

    • Psychotherapy Groups

  23. Primary Prevention

  24. Structured Group Experience

  25. Capacity to Engage with Others

  26. "Critical Incidents"

  27. Co-Leadership

  28. Self-Defeating Behaviors

  29. Disruptive Members

  30. "Best Practices" in Group Work

    • Planning

    • Performing

    • Processing

  31. How to handle different types of difficult group dynamics, such as

        conflicts, resistance, rescuing behaviors, silence

  32. How to make sound judgment when facing various situations related to ethical issues

  33. How to use here-and-now techniques

  34. Principles of Confrontation

    All Different Kinds of Feedback

  35. Open Group vs Closed Group

  36. How different schools of thought tend to have different focus in groups

  37. Corrective Emotional Experiences

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COUN 408  Research Seminar

  1. Nature and Purpose of Scientific Method

  2. Types of Variables

  3. Five Sections of Traditional Proposal

  4. How to Select a Proposal Topic

  5. Types of Hypotheses:  Null Hypothesis

  6. Measurement in Research

    • Published Tests

    • Self-Design Tests

  7. Descriptive Statistics for Analysis

    • Measures of Central Tendency

    • Indices of Variability

  8. Inferential Statistics for Analysis

    • t-test

    • ANOVA

    • Chi-Square

  9. Differences in Univariate and Multivariate Designs

  10. Characteristics of Experimental Design

  11. Level of Significance and Hypothesis Rejection

  12. Hawthorn Effect and Placebo Effect

  13. Causal/Comparative Design

  14. Correlational Design

  15. LImitations of Correlational Findings

  16. Descriptive Research:  Survey

  17. Nature and Purpose of Qualitative Research

  18. Case Study

  19. Clinical Interview

  20. Single Subject Design

  21. Characteristics of Historical Research

  22. APA Style

    • Format

    • Bibliographic Issues

  23. How to Organize and Present Literature Reviews

  24. Search Strategies in ERIC and Pychinfo

  25. Ethical Issues in Research

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COUN 409  Career Development

  1. Career

  2. Career Counseling

  3. Career Decision Making

  4. Career Development

  5. Career Education

  6. Career Guidance

  7. Career Intervention

  8. Career Ladder

  9. Career Lattice

  10. Career Management

  11. Job

  12. Job Placement

  13. Leisure

  14. Occuption

  15. Position

  16. Work

  17. Frank Parsons

  18. Trait and Factor Theories

  19. John Holland

  20. Holland's Six Personality Factors

  21. Developmental Theory

  22. Donald Super's Life State Theory

  23. Ginzberg's Stages of Career Development

  24. Behavioral/Social Learning Theory

  25. Psychodynamic Theory

  26. Anne Roe's Personality Development Theory

  27. Work Adjustment Theory

  28. Dawis and Lofquist

  29. Decision Making Theory

  30. Myers-Briggs Type Theory

  31. Career Maturity Index

  32. Career Development Index

  33. Career Adaptability

  34. Super's Life Rainbow

  35. Krumbultz Career Information and Resources

  36. Examples of Interactive and Non-Interactive Media

  37. Career Development Program

  38. Issues and Factors in Career Development

  39. Dual Career Problems

  40. Family Relocation

  41. Placement

  42. Computer-Assisted Job Banks

  43. Talent Banks

  44. Career Assessments

  45. Different Types of Tests

    • Strong Vocational Interest Blank

    • Strong-Campbell Interest Inventory

    • Minnesota Vocational Interest Inventory

  46. Computer-Based Career Development

  47. Computer-Assisted Career Guidance

  48. Career Information Delivery Systems

  49. Screening, Orientation, Follow-Up

  50. Career Counseling Techniques

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COUN 430  Multicultural Counseling

  1. Define the following:

    • culture

    • race

    • ethnicity

    • racism:  individual, institutional, and cultural

    • prejudice

    • stereotype

    • additional cultural factors:  gender, social class/socioeconomic status, spirituality

  2. Three primary objectives for effective multicultural counseling

    • awareness

    • knowledge

    • skills

  3. Stages of racial/cultural development

    • Minority Identity Development (Atkinson, Morten, and Sue)

      • conformity

      • dissonance

      • resistance/immersion

      • introspection

      • synergetic articulation (integration)

    • White Racial Identity (Helms)

      • contact

      • disintegration

      • reintegration

      • pseudoindependence

      • immersion

      • autonomy

    • Psychological Nigresence: Racial Identity for African Americans (Cross)

      • preencounter

      • encounter

      • immersion/emersion

      • internalization

  4. Immigration Levels (Birman)

    • traditional

    • assimilated

    • marginal

    • bicultural

  5. Worldview: View of

    • human nature

    • time perspective

    • human activity

    • social relations

    • relations with nature

  6. Sociopolitical Aspects of Counseling

  7. Ethical Issues in Multicultural Counseling

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Ethics
    Familiarity with 2005 ACA Code of Ethics
    Informed Consent
    Clients' rights
    Confidentiality and limits of confidentiality
    Counselor Responsibilities
    Ethical issues in counseling children and adolescents
    Ethics and diversity
    Confidentiality and HIVAIDS
    Multiple relationships
    Boundaries
    Professional competence
    Counselor values
    Counselor impairment
    Ethical issues in supervision
    Ethical decision making process

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Family Counseling Review

Concepts
    Systems thinking
    Circular causality
    Second order change
    Non-linear epistemology
    Double bind
    Post modern
Frameworks/Approaches
    Bowenian
    Experiential

    Structural
    Strategic
    MRI
    Solution-focused
    Feminist
    Narrative/Constructivist

Authors
    Murray Bowen
    Salvador Minuchin
    Jay Haley
    Froma Walsh
    Mary Pipher
    John Gottman
    Vernon

Other
    Sex Therapy
    Ethical issues
    Family Assessment models
    Outcome Research
    Families with children

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