Volume 19 Number 3
May 1980

Teresa LaFromboise, Paul Dauphinais and Wayne Rowe

IN THE PAST, an Indian person encountering a difficult situation may have sought a Holy Man for advice, the members of the extended family to talk with, or a close friend to share the problem. But Indian students today cannot rely upon these resources because they may not be available. Ideally, they should have access to some useful source of help and guidance as they progress through their school years, confronting the typical developmental problems and the concerns unique to the Indian person. Realistically, the source of help that school counselors represent to Indian students will have to include non-Indian counselors. However, research suggesting the specific training necessary for non-Indian counselors to work effectively with Indian students has been limited.

Pedersen (see Note 7) has provided a strong voice for the need of training and retraining counselors to combat racism. Hopefully, this would serve to diminish some of the factors that contribute to the cultural encapsulation of many counselors. Some authors have urged that training go beyond cognitive learning to include experiential contact with the Indian population (see Notes 4 and 6). Others have advocated that counselors of Indian students take an active role in bringing about environmental changes, acknowledging that the students' problems may not always be generated from within (see Notes 9 and 11). Although handbooks explaining approaches that have been tried in particular areas with certain tribes and communities have been written, few have been published or are readily accessible (see Notes 3 and 8). But much more specific information needs to be generated to enable us to improve the training of counselors to better meet the needs of American Indian students.

The authors' experience has been that many counselors or counselors in training seek answers to very basic questions such as: What are the main differences between Indian and non-Indian students? What approaches generally work in counseling with Indian students? What can I do to be helpful with Indian students? How do Indian students view a counselor? While these kinds of questions often involve complex issues, some answers need to be forthcoming. Therefore, it is important that some data be collected to enlighten these and other similar issues that bear directly on the counseling process.

The present survey was conducted to collect information from Oklahoma Indian students that would provide support for possible responses to the following questions:

A total of 150 Indian and 50 non-Indian I Ith and 12th grade students from schools in Oklahoma participated in the survey. Students were grouped according to the following four categories: Indian students attending boarding schools; Indian students attending rural high schools; Indian students attending metropolitan high schools; non-Indian students attending both rural and metropolitan high schools. Each of the groups included 50 subjects. The subjects were unequally divided by sex, females predominating, and the ages ranged from 15-19. Boarding, metropolitan and rural schools were selected for sampling since they represent the major educational alternatives available to Oklahoma Indian students. A wide variety of Indian tribes were represented within the three Indian groups. The questionnaire was usually distributed during an English or history class on a volunteer basis.

The Counseling Helping Questionnaire was designed to measure students' perceptions of their past or present counseling experiences and their attitudes toward helping persons and the helping process. Each Indian student completed Form A of the questionnaire, a 72-item, self-report scale devised to elicit opinions concerning (1) who provides help with various student problems, (2) what characteristics a helpful person should possess, (3) and what a helpful person should know about cultural aspects of Indian people. The latter two areas are the focus of this report.

Each non-Indian student completed Form B of the questionnaire, a 5 1 -item, self-report scale devised to elicit opinions concerning who provides help with student problems and what characteristics a helpful person should possess. The cultural aspects were omitted from Form B because it would have been inappropriate for the non-Indian group.

Subjects were asked to evaluate how important they thought it was that a helpful person should be like each of 13 descriptors, chosen from the existing literature and from earlier pilot work. Responses were given as (1) very important, (2) quite important, (3) a little important, and (4) not important. This was converted to a scale assumed to have interval properties, thus making 2.5 the neutral point.

Analysis of the ratings of various attributes and behaviors that a helping person should possess revealed few significant differences between views of the Indian students or between the perceptions of Indian and non-Indian students. However, several attributes or behaviors seemed to be generally regarded as either more or less important characteristics of a potential helper.

Table I presents the means and standard deviations for the responses to the individual items. As shown, three attributes received mean ratings of more than 2.5, indicating that little importance or a negative value may be associated with a helping person who does most of the talking, attends student activities, or is judgmental. In addition, three items received mean ratings of less than 2.0, indicating more importance may be associated with such attributes of a helping person as being one who can be trusted, who is capable of helping one decide what to do about their concern, and who is willing to leave their office in order to help people. The remaining seven aspects associated with a helping person were judged to be intermediate in terms of perceived importance.

The Indian subjects also were asked to evaluate how important they thought it was that a person to whom they or their friends might go to for help should know about certain culturally relevant items, chosen on the same basis as above and scaled in a similar manner. The means and standard deviations for these responses are shown in Table 2.

Analysis of these ratings revealed no clear differences between subjects in boarding schools, rural schools, or metropolitan schools. Although not statistically significant, the trend was for Indian students in general to place more importance upon a helping person knowing about practically useful information (BIA applications or college grant forms, opportunities for Indian people) than personal, culturally oriented understandings (fears learned from stories and traditions, Indian wakes and funerals). However, female Indian student seemed to consistently place a higher value on a helping person having knowledge of Indian cultural information.

1. Atkinson, D.R., Maruyama, M., and Matsui, S. "The Effects of Counselor Race and Counseling Approach on Asian Americans' Perceptions of Counselor Credibility and Utility," in Journal of Counseling Psychology, 1978, 25, 76-83.

2. Morten, G., and Sue, D.W. Counseling American Minorities. Dubuque, Iowa: Wm. C. Brown, 1979.

3. Evans, W.H. American Indian Student Counselor Handbook. Unpublished manuscript, 1977. (Available from Center of Indian Studies, Blackhills State College, Spearfish, SD).

4. Farlow, B. An Equal Chance: Handbook for Counseling Indian Students. Stevens Point, Wisconsin: Wisconsin State University, 1971.

5. Kaul, T.J., and Schmidt, L. "Dimensions of Interviewer Trustworthiness," in Journal of Counseling Psychology, 1971, 18, 542-548.

6. McMahon, R.C., Hartz, J.D., and Pulvino, C. J. "The Counselor's Charge in the American Indian's Educational Dilemma," in The School Counselor, 1973, 20, 270-274.

7. Pedersen, P. "The Field of Intercultural Counseling," in P. Pedersen, W. Lonner, and I. Draguns, (eds.), Counseling Across Cultures. Honolulu: University Press of Hawaii, 1976.

8. Poehiman, C.H. Suggested Techniques in Guidance and Counseling with Indian Youth and Adults. Carson City, Nevada: Department of Education, 1966.

9. Sillitti, D.M. Speaking of Indians: A Counseling Manual for Those Concerned About Indian Education and the Development of Indians. Unpublished manuscript, 1974.

10. Sue, D.W., and Sue, S. "Counseling Chinese-Americans," in Personnel and Guidance Journal, 1972, 50, 637-644. (a)

11. Ethnic Minorities: Resistance to Being Researched," in Professional Psychology, 1972, 3, 11-17.

Teresa LaFromboise is an Assistant Professor in the College of Education, University of Nebraska, Lincoln. She received her Ph.D. degree at the University of Oklahoma

Paul Dauphinais is a Bi-Cultural Fellow at the College of Education at the University of Oklahoma. He received his M.A. degree at Ball State University.

Wayne Rowe is an Associate Professor in the College of Education at the University of Oklahoma. He received the Ph.D. degree at Michigan State University.