Journal of Counseling Psychology 1984, Vol. 31, No. 1,104-107 Copyright 1984 by the American Psychological Association, Inc. Microskills Practice Versus Mental Practice Training for Competence in Decision-Making Counseling Stanley B. Baker, Michael E. Scofield, Lawrence T. Clayton, and Wayne W. Munson Pennsylvania State University Students enrolled in an introductory counseling course who lacked training and experience as counselors were randomly assigned to one of two decision- making counseling training groups or to a wait-control (WC) group. Micro- skills practice (MS) and mental practice (MP) were each separately combined with instructions, modeling, feedback, and review in the two treatment groups. All trainees conducted posttraining simulated counseling interviews, and their videotapes provided data for analysis of the quality of their counsel- ing competence and their proficiency with the decision-making counseling paradigm. Multivariate analysis of variance and follow-up analyses of data from independent ratings of the videotapes indicated that MS and MP were superior to WC on three of five qualitative dimensions and a proficiency mea- sure. Implications for teaching higher-order counseling skills are discussed, and further research hypotheses are suggested. The purpose of this study was to compare the effects of microskills practice (MS) and mental practice (MP) on acquisition of decision-making counseling competence. Counseling psychology knows more about teaching lower-order skills such as attending and responding than about teaching higher-order skills such as decision- making and test-interpretation counseling (Kasdorf & Gustafson, 1978). Research in this area is important so that we may learn whether practice methods that work with lower-order skills are also effective in teaching higher-order skills (Fuqua & Gade, 1982) and so that we can assess the cost effectiveness of comparative methods, especially where training group size increases and length of training time decreases. Earlier research validates the effect of mi- croskills practice on acquisition of lower-order skills (cf. Kasdorf & Gustafson, 1978). In addi- tion, Baker, Scofield, Munson, and Clayton (1983) found mental practice equal to microskills prac- tice on a qualitative counseling measure and su- perior in teaching basic responding skills after a brief (150 min) training program. One effort to teach decision-making counseling skills led to the conclusion that a comprehensive format of lecture, instructions, modeling, practice, and feedback was superior to subsets of the same components (Wallace, Horan, Baker, & Hudson, 1975). Knowledge about the importance of in- Requests for reprints should be sent to Stanley B. Baker, Division of Counseling and Educational Psy- chology, 313 Cedar Building, Pennsylvania State Uni- versity, University Park, Pennsylvania 16802. structions, modeling, practice, and feedback was incorporated into the training programs for this study with practice being manipulated while the others were held constant. Additionally, basic attending and responding skills were components of both training programs. It was hypothesized that if groups of trainees were given MP and MS programs, then their counseling competence on both quantitative and qualitative measures would be similar in a standardized, simulated interview and that they would all be superior to a wait- control (WC) condition. Method Trainees The trainees were 44 students enrolled in an introductory counselor education course at a large land-grant university. Thirteen trainees were graduate students in the first term of their mas- ter's degree program, and 31 trainees were junior and senior undergraduates in majors where entry-level jobs require counseling and inter- viewing competencies. Thirty-three trainees were female, and 11 were male. Random as- signment after stratification by sex led to the following distribution: MP—10 female, 3 male; 5 graduate, 8 undergraduate; MS—11 female, 3 male; 4 graduate, 10 undergraduate; WC—12 fe- male, 5 male; 4 graduate, 13 undergraduate. Trainers Two male PhD candidates with extensive counseling and similar experience with MC and 104