Given the importance of clinical judgment in rehabilitation counseling (Strohmer & Leierer, 2000), prevalence and consequences of rehabilitation counselor biases (Berven & Rosenthal, 1999), and the emerging trend to educate rehabilitation counselors in evidence-based practice (EBP) (Leahy & Arokiasamy, 2010), the explicit teaching of clinical judgment skills that can effectively bridge science and practice to improve clinical judgment accuracy appears critically needed (Spengler et al., 1995). Despite such noted importance of clinical judgment and research evidence of counselor biases, there were no clinical judgment training studies found that provide data useful for better understanding rehabilitation counselor educators' perceptions of teaching clinical judgment skills. To address this gap in the literature and add to the knowledge-base of clinical judgment training research in rehabilitation counselor education, the current exploratory study was conducted to gather data to better understand rehabilitation counselor educators' perceptions of teaching clinical judgment skills for effective rehabilitation counseling practice. A sample of 126 rehabilitation counselor educators who were employed in master's degree rehabilitation counseling programs was obtained for this study from an estimated population that represent the United States, Puerto Rico, Australia, and Canada. Results of this study indicate that rehabilitation counselor educators' perceive clinical judgment skills to be highly important for effective rehabilitation counseling practice. New knowledge of empirically-validated clinical judgment skill domains was identified that warrant consideration for future Council on Rehabilitation Education (CORE) standard revisions. In addition, significant differences were found between rehabilitation counselor educators' reported importance of clinical judgment skill domains relative to their gender, race, clinical experience (i.e., setting), and program emphasis of clinical judgment training. Significant differences were also found between rehabilitation counselor educators' reported level of student preparedness relative to their race and program emphasis of clinical judgment training, as well as between educators' teaching proficiency and program emphasis. Research findings of the present study also showed significant relationships between rehabilitation counselor educators' (a) reported importance and teaching proficiency of clinical judgment skills, (b) perceived teaching proficiency and how well they perceived students' preparedness in using clinical judgment skills, and (c) reported importance of clinical judgment skills and how well they perceived students were prepared in using such skills upon graduation. Data generated from this study can be used to inform and enhance master's and doctoral-level rehabilitation counseling clinical training curricula and to address the challenges that come with deciding how to effectively educate rehabilitation counselors in EBP. Specific implications for clinical training and future research are provided.
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