Psychometric validation of the Expectations About Rehabilitation Counseling scale: A preliminary study

Identification and reconciliation of counselor expectations between consumer and counselor is believed to increase the counselor-consumer working alliance, which by extension will improve rehabilitation counseling outcomes. The purpose of this article is to describe the development of the Expectations About Rehabilitation Counseling (EARC) scale, one of the component measures used within the working alliance framework for enhancing counselor-consumer working relationship in rehabilitation. Principal components analysis results indicate a four-component solution (expectations about counselor behavior, expectations about consumer behavior, expectations about vocational services, and expectations about clinical and support services) to be optimal both in terms of parsimony and interpretability. This article provides empirical evidence for the factorial structure of the EARC scale. Consumers and counselors were found to differ significantly on two counseling expectancy factors: consumer behavior and clinical/support services. Discrepancies in counseling expectancies between counselors and consumers are inversely related to working alliance, Clinical applications of the EARC scale are discussed.