Counseling Center Intake Checklists at Academically Selective Institutions: Practice and Measurement Implications

Abstract

Psychometric evaluation of presenting problem checklists is vital, given increasing clinical severity among college students. However, checklist research has focused on students at public universities and utilized inappropriate methodologies when doing so. It is unclear whether checklists used at academically selective universities reliably and comprehensively assess the potentially unique presenting problems of their students. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses with independent samples examined the checklist used at an academically selective university's counseling center. A six-factor model best fit the data, suggesting that this checklist reliably and comprehensively assesses presenting problems at this university. This model holds detailed assessment, outreach, and policy implications for counseling centers.

KEYWORDS:

• counseling center
• presenting problems checklist
• academically selective institutions

The authors would like to thank David Blustein, Kathy Hollingsworth, Selcuk Rogers-Sirin, and Matthew Wawrzynski for their helpful comments on an earlier version of this manuscript.