Examining Counselor's Executive Function Skills Across Career Phase: Comparing Preservice, Novice and Experienced in Healthcare Performance

Abstract

Executive function became an internal counselor skill that plays a role in navigating complex client problems, making informed decisions, and maintaining professional effectiveness. Counselor executive function skills were not primarily developed during preservice education. This study aims to examine executive function skills by comparing the performance of preservice, novice, and experienced counselors. This research method uses a non-experimental quantitative design involving 99 counselors (36 experienced, 28 novice, and 35 preservice). Measurements used the Counselor's Executive Function Questionnaire (CEFQ), and the data results were analyzed using descriptive and comparative analysis (ANOVA). The results showed there were no significant differences between preservice, novice, and experienced counselors. However, experienced counselors still show the most important differences among others. These results predict that education and experience factors are unstable and may trigger executive dysfunction. This research suggests exploring executive function skill factors related to counselor performance, as well as programming counseling evaluation and supervision to optimize counselor professional growth.