An investigation of the relative effectiveness of two directive counseling styles for use with foreign students in new student orientation

This study compared the effectiveness of authoritative and collaborative counseling styles while taking into account within-group and between-group differences among culturally-different students. The independent variables of counseling style, a within-group difference (acculturation level) and a between group difference (subregion of origin), and time of test were varied during initial interviews in which peer counselors provided orientation information to 50 newly arriving foreign students at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. The dependent variables included recall of orientation information and rating of peer counselor effectiveness. The results of a 2 x 2 x 3 repeated measures ANOVA revealed no main or interaction effects for counseling style and acculturation level, and the results of a 2 x 3 x 3 repeated measures ANOVA revealed no main or interaction effects for counseling style and subregion of origin on foreign student recall of information. A 2 x 2 x 2 repeated measures MANOVA resulted in a main effect for acculturation level and an interaction effect for counseling style and acculturation level on the rating of peer counselor effectiveness. A 2 x 3 x 2 repeated measures MANOVA for repeated measures resulted in a main effect for subregion of origin. The belief in the efficacy of a single directive counseling style for the culturally different was not supported by the results of this experiment. An authoritative counseling style did not produce greater recall of orientation information or higher ratings in peer counselor effectiveness than a collaborative counseling style. The belief in the importance for recognizing within-group and between-group differences among the culturally different when prescribing a particular counseling style was supported. The findings suggest that high-acculturated foreign students found peer counselors regardless of counseling style more attractive and rated them higher in overall effectiveness. High acculturated foreign students appear to have found collaborative peer counselors more attractive, while the low-acculturated foreign students found the authoritative peer counselors more attractive. Foreign students from East Asia rated the peer counselors higher in overall effectiveness than foreign students from Southeast and South Central Asia