Designing an Empowerment Model for School Counselors: A Qualitative Study

The current research was conducted with the aim of developing a model for empowering school counselors based on grounded theory and using semi-structured interview method.

For this purpose, the number of 12 teachers, 14 school counselors, 13 students (locally from Ardabil province) were selected through purposeful sampling and the number of 9 counseling experts and professors (nationally) were selected by snowball sampling and the data were collected until theoretical saturation was reached. After transcribing the text of the interviews and entering the information into the MAXQDA qualitative data analysis software, they were analyzed with open, central and selective coding.

The results of open and axial coding led to the identification of 245 concepts and 17 core categories. Also, the results of selective coding showed that the core category of school counselors' ability is influenced by causal conditions (scientific, professional and moral competence), intervening conditions (emotional maturity, self-efficacy, professional skills and coordination) and background conditions (intellectual maturity, emotional intelligence, mental health, communication skills, psychological toughness and charismatic personality) in the form of organizational and individual development strategies, which result in improving the efficiency of school counselors directly and indirectly.

According to the findings of the present research, it is recommended to use the present model in order to empower school counselors, as well as design and develop different programs to improve school guidance and counseling services.