Summary: | To effectively conduct counselling sessions, professional counsellors in Malaysia need to
possess multicultural competence, especially considering the discrepancies between the ideal
and the actual understanding of polygamous marriages. Thisstudy examinesthe relationship
between multicultural academic experience, multicultural counselling competency, and the
competency of counsellorsin addressing polygamousfamily structures among 370 registered
counsellorsin Malaysia.The collected data was analysed using PearsonCorrelations, One-Way
ANOVA and Multiple Regressions. The findings indicate that the respondents demonstrated
high multicultural academic experience and multicultural counselling competency. There was
a significant positive correlation betweenmulticultural academic experience andmulticultural
counselling competency, as well as the competency of counsellors in handling polygamous
families. Moreover, there were noteworthy variationsin competency levels based on ethnicity.
This study highlights the crucial role of multicultural academic experience and multicultural
counselling competency in predicting the competency of counsellors when dealing with polygamous families. Futher validation of the Counselor' Multicultural. Competency
on the Polygamous Family Structure Scale is
recommended in future studies encompassing
larger and more diverse populations.
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