Hi Andronikos! I guess nobody answer you yet because your questions are not easy to answer nor any response can be straight..

In my opinion a mixed method design seems very useful to your research although I would suggest you to collect data about the 4 sources of SE by questionnaire. I think you can leave the qualitative part to be done after you conclude your PhD :-)

Good luck to your work!

Diana

Thank you so much Diane! You seem to be the first to answer this complicated question set....Congratulations! :) My thought was to triangulate the results both from the quantitative and the qualitative part in in order to see if there are any other sources of efficacy which have not been mentioned so far in bibliography. I know this is a quite difficult attempt but I will have at least 3 years to do it...:) From your point of view would it be a good idea to start with the interviews and after a reasonable period administer the questionnaires or vice versa? Also, most importantly would you include subsamples from several counseling specialties or only counselling psychology trainees?

Thank you for your wishes..Of course, I will definitely need a great deal of luck to complete the dissertation :))

@Diana Probably including several subgroups in the survey would I have biases?

Hi again!

Usually, the more "n" in your sample, the better. So, I would include subsamples from several counseling specialties. But, more impotantant is your research goal.

Keep focused on you main research goal. Which of your sentences describes it better?

"to explore the factors influencing counselling self-efficacy of counselling trainees from various Universities in Greece"

OR

" to see which is the role of core self-evaluations with a single instrument (Judge et al., 2003)."

OR

"to test if the four sources which form self-efficacy (mastery experiences, vicarious learning, verbal persuasion, emotional state) suggested by Bandura would apply in counselling trainees"

OR

" to see if there are any other sources of efficacy which have not been mentioned so far in bibliography."

This is not a question...is just for you to think about it and link your future decisions to that.

Good luck!

Diana

Thanks Diana! I totally agree that all is a matter of identification of a clear research purpose but it feels like there are so many issues on this topic that I could include in my survey and so many unresolved questions about it that I can hardly resist to explore them.., You helped me a lot with your views and suggestions!

Kind regards from Greece,

Andronikos

Andronikos

My view, is you need to justify the purpose for mixed mixed in answering your research question, what research problem do you wish to adress as identifying from theory gap or literature gap.

this will help you to determine how to use mixed methods, for instance, if the purpose it to explore factors influencing counceling efficacy of councelling traines; you could start with qualitative (may be interviews or focus groups to explore several factors); then these factors can be tested quantitatively among several councelling trainees; where the role of core self-evaluations (eg direct influence, mediating influence, or mediation) can be examined using statistical influences.

Best wishes

Thanks a lot Jolly, I am going to take in consideration your suggestions.

Best Regards,

Andronikos

I am starting a study of self-efficacy of counseling interns.and have a collection of literature on evernote. If you are interested, I will send you a link. Because my sample size is also around 15, I am planning a qualitative study. I will be watching this discussion with interest.

Hi Katrina!

Good luck for you study and keep us up-to-date!

Diana

Katrina thank you for your interest in my research and your reply. I am much interested in the purpose of your study, method and the characteristics of your sample. I will be waiting to send me at inbox the link for your research. Fortunately, I have advanced to next phases in my study since I asked the previous question (approximately one year before), however, I still think it would be better in my case to conduct a mixed methods research (a qualitative study after the initial quantitative part aiming to examine the factors related to counseling self-efficacy deeper. Curently in cooperation with a researcher-professor we are trying to construct a sources of career counseling self-efficacy measure.