AbstractsPsychology

This thesis pursues the question of how trainings for counseling competences have to be laid out to be effective and how evaluation procedures have to be set up to capture the competence development in this field. The construct systems competence is the starting point for these thoughts. It lists the competences, skills, abilities, and knowledge aspects that are necessary for working with complex, social systems. It is based on the theoretical considerations of Synergetics; a systems theory that describes the creation of a system’s macroscopical, coherent patterns upon the self-organization of its system elements without external influences. The construct systems competence describes counselors’ competences that are needed to provide the conditions for self-organization in individuals or teams. In order to allow for appropriate operationalization, three facets are selected: Basic Knowledge of Synergetics, Idiographic System Modeling, and Generic Principles. For each, a training program and specific evaluation instruments are developed. The findings of competence development research suggest various taxonomies of competences and models. Also, conditions are described which help to enhance competences. Based upon these suggestions a training and evaluation instruments are developed. The training puts a strong emphasis on open-learning settings, complex scenarios, a high degree of experiential learning, reflection and exercises. Since the improvement of counseling competences is the subject of this thesis two of the selected facets are operationalized and evaluated in counseling interviews (Idiographic System Modeling, Generic Principles). The basic knowledge of Synergetics is evaluated via a knowledge test. In 2007, a preliminary study among the members of the professional organization “Systemische Gesellschaft” and “Deutsche Gesellschaft für Systemische Therapie und Familientherapie” revealed that competence assessment of participants in training classes is very common. But, the procedures of these assessments vary greatly in their systematics, and formal assessments with checklists are very rare. Therefore, evaluation instruments are developed consisting of a mixture of assessment modes including different perspectives and levels of external rating. Different self-assessment and observation schemes are applied. The training follows the approach of a spiral curriculum accompanied by a pre-post evaluation and an intermediate evaluation between two evaluation rounds. University students and participants of a systemic training course make up the sample of this study. The results of the study show the participants improved their competences in all three facets. The most significant improvement is observed for the gain of knowledge whereas university students receive higher scores compared to the other participants of the training. For the two counseling procedures with which the Idiographic System Modeling and the Generic Principles are operationalized, the degree of the observed improvement strongly depends on the…