Bahria Journal of Professional Psychology

21-30

Authors: Sonia Mukhtar

Need of school counseling has grown rapidly in various countries. This article ascertains principal dilemmas in School Counseling in Pakistan that were identified through panel discussions, focus groups, and dialogues held with academic psychologists (n=6; teaching school counseling with basic training), undergraduate students (n=2; intends to choose school counseling as majors), graduate students (n=4; major school counseling), and practicing professional school psychologist (n=3). The findings highlight the Internal Dilemma, including ideational process, personal improvement, completion purpose of professional school counseling, training requisite, pedagogical apprehensions, pragmatic action research, school counseling services to rural and urban areas, and dissemination of awareness about school counseling to society; External Dilemma, including course contents’ upgrading, creative pedagogy, specialized training in school counseling, obscure research methods (laboratory experiments, neuropsychological research), the feasibility of research in a developing country, and cross-cultural framework in the theory-practice discrepancy, and System Dilemma referring to the school counseling specialization and training programs in Pakistan. The preliminary analysis indicated the discrepancy in school counseling in terms of specialization, needs, and availability of school counseling psychologists. Currently, there is a serious need of specialization in school counseling in Pakistan. Few propositions towards addressing the issues are discussed.

55-70

Authors: Fozia Aamir Siddiqui; Nagina Parveen Soomro

Present study aimed to investigate the relationship between emotional intelligence; problem focused coping strategy, occupational stress and active avoidance coping strategy among female School teachers of District Hyderabad through a quantitative correlational research. The participants of the present study comprised of 968 female government school teachers, between 22 to 52 years of age (M=36.07, SD=19.85). Simple random sampling was used for data collection. It is being hypothesized that the emotional intelligence of female teachers will be negatively correlated with occupational stress and positively correlated with problem focused coping strategy. Moreover, occupational stress would be positively correlated with active avoidance coping strategy. To test these hypotheses four measuring tools were used that is, Occupational Stress Scale (Sohail & Khanum, 2000), Self-Report Measure of Emotional Intelligence (Khan & Kamal 2010), Brief Cope Scale (Akhtar, 2005) and Personal Information Questionnaire. Findings of the present study supported the hypotheses and have important implications for educational sector, particularly for teachers’ training and development.

95-118

Authors: Tooba Farooqi; Anila Amber Malik

The purpose of this paper is to report the initial findings (item analysis & factorial structure) of a study intended to develop an indigenous measure, the Inventory of Character Strengths (ICS) in the Urdu language. A sample of 485 adults from different towns of Karachi, Pakistan, aged from 18-62 years (M=32.71; SD=8.80) were recruited and their responses on a 62 statements item pool were subjected to statistical analysis for item refinement, and then finally, 47 retained item scale was factor analyzed, using Varimax rotation. Items demonstrated good indices of internal consistency (r=.91, p<0.01) and item-total correlations were also within satisfactory range r=.30- r=.54 (p<0.01). Exploratory Factor Analysis resulted in a five-factor solution described as Temperance and humility, Self-regulation, Social facilitation and positivism, Honesty and perseverance, and Inquisitiveness and collaboration. The analysis established culture relevant domains of Character Strengths specific to Pakistani culture.