MOBILE PARENTING SOCIO-LITERACY LEARNING APPS (M-PASL)
E- COUNSELING PRACTICUM SYSTEM – COUNSELATOR
Sim Chia Wei1, Josephine Lo Jing Wen2, Roy Anak Dilang3, Noorazura binti Hassan4, Nor Mazlina Ghazali5, Mohd Razali Othman6, Azzahrah Anuar7, Edris Aden8
1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8Universiti Malaysia Sarawak, Kota Samarahan, Sarawak
1[email protected], 2[email protected], 3[email protected], 4[email protected],
5[email protected], 6[email protected], 7[email protected], 8[email protected] Keywords: Counseling, Documentation System, Counselator
Introduction
When it comes to counselling practices in Malaysia, out of 9 elements of practical, 6 of them are related to documentations. In the mean times, in the study of Rahimi Che Aman and Shafrin Ahmad (2010), they found that 9 out of 10 respondents recorded more hours spent on administration (outreach information, write record and case note) compared to contact hours (met clients face to face). In a nutshell, trainee counsellor accounted more times on documentation when coming to counselling. However, when it comes to current documentation system in Malaysia, we are still depending on traditional methods whereby we are using hardcopy documentation system. Therefore, researchers see that the significance of systematic online documentation system in helping counsellor better organise their documentation.
On the other hand, online supervision has been found to affect counsellor attitude, self- efficacy and counselling competence. Synchronous or on-the-spot supervision enables supervisees to receive faster response. Thus increase supervisee’s self-confidence and competence (Russel et al., 2011). To conclude, online supervision allows on the spot supervision and enabling immediate response from supervisor on their growth.
Looking back at the issue in Malaysia, our current documentation system still needs a lot of improvement in terms of written documentation as well as supervision. Therefore, to further prove the needs of new systematic online documentation system, researchers conducted a survey among counselling students and found that currently 71.4%
of counselling students met with the supervisor less than one or none in a month, in other words, in 10 counselling students, 7 of them did not met with their supervisor at all or only met once in a month. This is a red light indicator, as counselling process requires a constant and on- going supervision to ensure student’s growth. Besides that, researchers also found that how aware are counselling students on their own practicum hours, from the results, there are a total of 17.9% of students are totally not aware of their individual and group practicum hours and a total of 35.7 % of students are not aware on their guidance hours. From here, it shows that there are that chances counselling students unable to finish their program on time as in collecting practicum hours, it requires a total of 252 hours. Being unaware of their own hours progress will cause a delay in collecting process. Therefore, by using these as the guide, researchers come up with an idea on developing a new online systematic documentation system to help counselling students.
Description of innovation
In the development of product, there are 4 stages involved, referred to as to Gate Process. For the first stage, Idea Generation, where researchers targeted the product users as counselling students and highlighted the basic main concept which are practicum system. In generation of ideas, researchers browse through all the information collected on current practicum system. From all the information collected such as Thera nest, note counsellor web, counsellor app and many more, researchers get a closer look into ideas products.
In the next stage, idea screening, researchers main tasks was to remove ideas that do not fit to our concept through discussion. A set of criteria was also discussed in order to measure our products. For example, How target audience benefit from our product? How our product resolves current practicum issues?
Moving into next stage, concept development, researchers focusedon discussing which features to be added into concept. In this stage, a survey was conducted via Google Forms and semi-structured interview sessions with counselling students, counselling lecturers and practicum coordinator. The main purpose was to determine the needs from potential customers and their expectations.
From the information and discussion gathered, the researchers finally came out with a list of criteria and functions that need to be in the new product. After that, researchers started working on producing a prototype layout of the new design of online documentation system through Balsamiq Mockup. With the prototype layout, researchers hired a programmer on coding and setting up the prototype into a usable online system, Counselator.
Lastly, to prove the usability of the new online documentation system, Counselator, researchers conducted a quick usability testing with counselling students. A summary of results are shown in Table 1.
DeTAR Putra, Universiti Malaysia Sarawak
92 Table 1
Summary of Mean Time on Tasks, Errors, Task Completion Rate and Mean Satisfaction
Mean Time On
Task (s) Errors
Task Completion
Rate (%) Mean Satisfaction*
Tasks
Login as student into home page 25 0 100 4.20
Edit and change profile picture 48 0 100 4.30
Edit personel profile information 63.5 2 100 4.30
Find out when is the due date for
submission of reports and borang 12 24 1 100 3.75
State what is the overall hours
collected in semester 2 11.3 0 100 4.37
Download “panduan & laporan sesi kaunseling” file
35.5 0 100 4.03
Download individual session case note of A2
25.8 0 100 4.03
Upload individual report for semester 4 and claim 10 hours
90.8 2 100 3.70
From the usability testing results and overall rating results, researchers came to a conclusion that the website is good with functions that are helpful to the users, and it also showed from the results of overall rating that all participants agreed the site content will get them to come back to the site and they will use the website frequently. Although it is not really user- friendly at first attempt, all participants agreed that it could be learnt quickly after few attempt.
However, there is a need for improvement from the website design and layout based on the results.
In summary, Counselator possess multiple features as below in the current phase:
• Documentation (upload, download & review)
• My Hours (calculation of total collected and remaining hours)
• Information Corner (Supervisors give standardized information and document)
• Coordinator Monitoring
• Features to be in the next phase:
• Calendar (set up the session and guidance program schedule online and this will be synchronized with their supervisor calendar so that the supervisor can go for
• supervision)
• Reminder (constantly remind to do report)
• Ranking (based on the total number of collected hours)
DeTAR Putra, Universiti Malaysia Sarawak
93 Advantages
Counselator benefits three major target users. The advantages benefit trainee counsellors, supervisors and coordinator in three major task consists of documentation, supervision and calculation of counselling practicum hours.
Counselator benefits the trainee counsellors by offering a virtual platform for systematic organization of counselling practicum documents such as counselling session reports and memorandum according to semesters. This reduce the tendency of misplaced and missing documents. Counselator also functions as a medium for cyber- supervision. The consultation with supervisor is done virtually despite the time and place. This allow supervisee to get instant feedback and response without having to wait for face-to-face appointment which acquire mutual availability from both supervisor and supervisee. Hence, supervisee will be more aware of self-progress as counselator allow continuous monitoring from supervisor and documentations are more organized.
Counselator benefits supervisors as it is enables supervisor to keep track on supervisees’ progress, making supervisor more aware of necessary action to be taken. Report checking and endorsement will also be more convenient as supervisor can view the documents anywhere and anytime. The calculation of practicum hours is more accurate as it allows instant update of practicum hours tally with the hours proposed in reports.
Counselator benefits coordinator as it offers a virtual and holistic monitoring platform through the database available online, without having to flip through hardcopy pages as in current method. The management also will be more standardized as Counselator offers the announcement and knowledge centre enabling coordinator to deliver information first-hand, thus avoid miscommunication.
Comercial Value
Counselator has the potential to go nationwide based on its benefits and the features it offers. The suggestion of plan for product commercialization will go through few phases hierarchically by considering initial features and future stakeholders.
The beginning of commercialization of Counselator will be implemented at the faculty level. Faculty of Cognitive Science and Human Development (FCSHD) have several major courses such as Counselling, Human Resources and Development, Cognitive Science and Psychology. During InCoun 2018, Mr Sophian, an evaluator from Cognitive Science programme suggested the developer to collaborate with Cognitive Science students and lecturers in term of programming and information technology (IT) management of Counselator. Counselator will require continuous monitoring and maintenance in system especially for its security to protect and adhere with confidentiality.
Counselator will be implemented in UNIMAS for pilot test to identify any necessary improvement for the final product. The calculation of 252 counselling practicum hours had been standardized by the Lembaga Kaunselor Malaysia as a compulsory requirement for future counsellors. The total of 252 counselling practicum hours are divided into individual counselling session, group counselling session and guidance counselling, each has its specific minimal counts of hours. Counselator will be proposed to Lembaga Kaunselor Malaysia to ensure its features abide the requirements.
As Counselator passes through Lembaga Kaunselor Malaysia, Counselator will be proposed to Ministry of Higher Education (MoHE) to propose the implementation of Counselator to all tertiary educational institution that offers counselling program either for undergraduate or postgraduate.
Considering the potential and features of Counselator, it is undeniable that Counselator has huge potential, chances and opportunities to go nationwide, fulfilling the needs of counselling education in Malaysia in this technology era.
References
Aman, R. C., & Ahmad, N. S. (2010). Counseling practicum in producing excellent counselor. Procedia Social and Behavioral Sciences, 5(1028-1032).
Chapman, R. A., Baker, S. B., Nassar‐McMillan, S. C. & Gerler, E. R., (2011). Cybersupervision: Further Examination of Synchronous and Asynchronous Modalities in Counseling Practicum Supervision. Counselor Education and Supervision, 50: 298-313.
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