u06d1 Correlation Research Question

Identify a research question from your professional life, research interests, or everyday
experience that interests you and can be addressed by a correlation. Describe the variables and
the expected outcome. Indicate why a correlation would be the appropriate analysis for this
research question.
From a psychological practitioner perspective, one of the critical factors in providing clients with
valid and competent counseling and treatment services is understanding how religious or
spiritual identity positively or negatively correlates with a practitioners level of multicultural
competency. The research question for such a correlation study would be: Is there a correlating
relationship between religious identity and multicultural competency among counseling
practitioners?
The roots of prejudice, discrimination, racism and sexism are typically related to why people
group themselves and others into social categories and attach beliefs or stereotypical attitudes to
each group. Generally speaking, individuals tend to confirm stereotypical attitudes of others
when they remember and interpret information about various ingroup and outgroup scenarios
(Kassin, Fein, & Markus, 2008).
Having been involved in both Christian and non-Christian counseling and related social work for
decades, I can affirm there is a tendency to revert to a rigid ingroup and outgroup mentality in the
counseling environment. Because of strongly held moral and ethical religious beliefs, it is
challenging for a religious counselor to completely abandon the rigidity of ones ontological and
epistemological structure in the counseling setting. Understanding the presence of prejudice or
bias among practitioners based upon the construct of religious identity is crucial to providing
multicultural competency in counseling services in the clinical environment.
The variables for such a bivariate correlational study would involve the dependent/criterion
variable of multicultural competency and the independent/predictor variable of religious identity.
There are numerous psychometric inventories that can be used to determine correlating data for
this study. Religious identity might be measured using the Multi-Religion Identity Measure
(MRIM) which conceptualizes religious identity form three specific domains: 1) Religious
Affiliation and Belonging, 2) Religious Identity Achievement, and 3) Religious Faith and
Practice. Multicultural competency can be measured by use of the Multicultural Awareness,
Knowledge, and Skill Survey (MAKSS).
The purposive sample size (N) of counseling practitioners from various religious backgrounds
would need to be of sufficient in size (i.e. N=50). I would expect a one tailed test to result in a

negative r value of medium to large, indicating a negative correlation between religious

identity and multicultural competency. Moreover, I would expect a correlation significance level
to be below the established alpha level of .05 (p value < .05) (Howell, 2008).
Therefore I would expect to reject the Null (H0) and accept the Alternative (H1). A negative
correlation and regression line would indicate that as adherence to religious authoritarianism and
beliefs increased (predictor variable), multicultural competency or the criterion variable
decreased. This would indicate that as counselors adhered to more rigid religious beliefs, there
may be a tendency towards less multicultural tolerance within the clinical environment and
counseling protocol.
In summary, counselors at all levels of expertise and training should strive towards selfawareness regarding religion and how their views may indeed introduce and engender
discriminatory attitudes in the practitioner/client counseling relationship. Self-awareness as a
component of enhancing multicultural competency would appear to be an important factor for
counselors to consider in anticipation of serving culturally diverse populations.
Anthony Rhodes
General Psychology PhD

References

Howell, D.C. (2008). Fundamental statistics for the behavioral sciences (6th ed.). Belmont, CA:
Thomson Wadsworth. ISBN: 9780495099000.
Kassin, S. Fein, S. & Markus, H. (2008). Social psychology (7th ed.). Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
ISBN: 9780618989966.