An Empirical Study on the Core Competencies of College Counselors in China

From the perspective of empirical research, this paper conducts a specific study on the core competencies of college counselors. 450 participants from 4 universities participated the research. A questionnaire of college counselors’ core competencies from the aspects of the design of open questionnaire was designed and implemented, a predictive questionnaire was tested and analyzed, and a formal questionnaire was implemented. The results of the formal questionnaire show that component one mainly concerns ideological awareness and values, component two mainly concerns professional ethics, moral accomplishment, quality, character and attitude, while component three refers to various abilities at work, and component four involves professional and cultural knowledge. Through analysis and discussion, it is concluded that the key elements of college counselors’ core competencies include values, moral quality, vocational ability and cultural knowledge, and a structural model of their core competencies is constructed.

Union has gradually developed the concept of "core competencies," which include eight aspects: foreign language, mother tongue, scientific and technological and mathematical literacy, information literacy, civil and social literacy, artistic literacy, learning ability and entrepreneurship.
In China, the Opinions on Fully Deepening the Curriculum Reform and Implementing the Fundamental Task of moral education issued by the Ministry of Education of China in 2014 clearly emphasized the core competencies system of students' development, and scholars began to study and put forward the core competencies system of students' development in each area. The seventh issue of People's Education in 2015 holds that "core competency" is not a general literacy. The core competency emphasizes students' self-cultivation, family and country feelings, and social care. It highlights students' independent development, cooperative participation and creative practice. It is the key ability and necessity of students' lifelong development requirements and social development needs. Professor Cheng Shangrong (2015) claims that core competency is a basic characteristic and ability. According to Lin Chongde (2017a), core competency mainly refers to the essential characteristic and key ability that students should possess to meet the needs of lifelong development and social development. Through comparative analysis and empirical investigation, Lin Chongde (2017b) points out that the general framework of Chinese students' core competency system includes six indicators in three major areas. In his book "Research on Core Competencies of Student Development in the 21st Century", Lin Chongde (2016) explores the core competency from the connotations associated with core competency, international comparison, excavation of traditional culture, and realistic needs.

Research on the quality of college counselors
In developed countries such as the United Kingdom and the United States, there are no "college counselors" as personnel positions. Instead, certain teaching staff are involved in students' wellbeing, and are referred to as, for example, "college student affairs managers". David Warner and David Palfreyman (1996) believe that the basic task of college student affairs staff in Britain is to determine the scope of university student services, integrate the contents of university student services in various departments, and establish a unified university student service system. After a great deal of data analysis and literature research , Olga Rybalkina (2004) concluded that the most important tasks of British student affairs managers fall under four areas: leadership, human resources management, diversity and communication. At the same time, they also need to have the ability to apply professional theory, to guide, and to train. The most effective way to improve the self-development of student affairs managers is curriculum learning.
In China, scholars have different opinions on the quality of college counselors.
According to the Ideological and Political Education of College Students compiled by Shanghai Higher Education Bureau, for a political counselor in Colleges and universities, Long Shibang, Yang Shaogang, Chen Huiyi there are four key qualities: political, ideological, knowledge and ability. According to Zhang Wenqiang (2007), the qualities that college counselors should possess are moral accomplishment, ability, knowledge and psychological quality . Peng Qinghong (2006) believes that the quality of college counselors includes three dimensions: management ability, professional knowledge and personal ideological and political education . Yu Lei (2016) believes that the quality of college counselors should be the sum of political, ideological, moral, legal, psychological and physical qualities, as well as other basic conditions and abilities. Zhang Rongrong believes that college counselors should have a strong sense of career and social responsibility (Rongrong 2005). Mo Yuan believes that the political quality of college counselors is a major issue related to personnel training (Mo Yuan 2017). Liu Dige (2016 believes that the moral accomplishment of college counselors should include four aspects: personal morality, family virtue, professional morality and social morality . Wang Miaozhi (2016) believes that in the ideological and moral quality system of College counselors, political determination is the premise and moral character is the core. Wang Wu (2014) believes that college counselors should have a multi-knowledge structure. Liu Qian (2014) believes that communicative ability is the key to the smooth development of ideological and political education and the daily management of college counselors. Zhang Yaocan (2014) also put forward the concept of quality structure. He thought that the quality structure of college counselors can be classified into political, moral, ideological, legal, physical, aesthetic and psychological qualities, along with knowledge and labor skills.

Research on the core competencies of college counselors
From the perspective of college counselors' work responsibilities, Zhang Xiuai considers that their core competencies include ideological and political education, management ability and professional knowledge, and points out that the cultivation of college counselors' core competencies needs to optimize internal and external factors (Zhang Xiuai 2016). Wang Xiaolan (2017) analyzed the core competencies of college counselors from the following four aspects: ideological and moral, ideological and political, professional knowledge, and professional ability; and put forward opinions and suggestions on the cultivation of this group's core qualities.
From the point of view of the existing research, scholars are more concerned with the core competencies of students and the quality of college counselors, while the research on the core competencies of college counselors is still in its infancy, and there is not a great deal of related research, and there is a lack of systematic and in-depth exploration and research, especially in terms of empirical research. Then, can we really explore the core competencies of college counselors through empirical research? Can we construct the structure model for the core competencies of college counselors? This has aroused the authors' interest and deep thinking.

A Survey of the Core Competencies of College Counselors
The authors took 450 students and student management personnel from The key words of the college counselors' core competencies were obtained through an open questionnaire, and the occurrence frequency of key words was more than 10 times (see Table 1), and the characteristic items were preliminarily determined. questionnaires were recovered, of which 59 were valid, and the effective rate was 93.7%.

(ii) Reliability and validity test
The reliability of the test questionnaire is tested to examine whether each item of the test questionnaire is a direct topic and has a consistent orientation. The aim was to eliminate invalid questionnaires and basic information items, and to analyze the reliability of the remaining items. In the small sample test, the internal reliability Cronbach's Alpha is 0.987. Generally, scholars believe that the Cronbach's Alpha coefficient >0.8 suggests very good reliability. The reliability coefficient of this study is 0.987. Therefore, there is consistency within the questionnaire.
The content validity of the questionnaire is tested to examine whether each item of the questionnaire can reflect one aspect of the content of the questionnaire. After eliminating invalid questionnaires, basic information items and lie detection items, we made a factor analysis of the remaining items. In the small sample test, KMO and Bartlett's Spherical Test showed that the KMO of the sample was 0.816, greater than 0.6. Through Bartlett's Spherical Test with significant p value less than 0.05, the data were suitable for factor analysis. The factor analysis method uses the principal component analysis method. The standard of factor extraction is that the feature root be greater than 1. The rotation method chooses the maximum variance method, and the number of the factor extraction is not limited. The cumulative variance contribution rate is 79.427% and the total explanatory power is more than 70% when nine factor components are formed by factor rotation. It is generally believed that the cumulative variance contribution rate, the total explanatory power of more than 70%, can explain most of the information of the indicators. Combined with the results of the rotation matrix, the factor load of each item is more than 0.4, which shows that the items of the questionnaire have a good discrimination, so the test questionnaire is valid.
(iii) preliminary analysis of exploratory factors Long Shibang, Yang Shaogang, Chen Huiyi After eliminating basic information items and lie detection items, the sample questionnaire is suitable for exploratory factor analysis. According to the principal component factor analysis, the extraction criteria are based on eigenvalue greater than 1. The rotation method uses the maximum variance method to carry out repeated exploratory analysis of samples. According to the results of the principal component analysis, the following deletions are made: delete common items whose factor load is greater than 0.4, delete only one factor in a component. For items with sub-loads greater than 0.4, the factor with sub-loads less than 0.4 is deleted. So many operations, a total of 12 items, were deleted. After factor analysis dimensionality reduction, the cumulative variance contribution rate is 73.572%, the total explanatory power is more than 70%, and tends to be stable when four factor components are formed. According to the result of factor analysis, the load values of 54 project factors are more than 0.4. Therefore, all 54 projects can be involved in the exploratory factor analysis.
(iv) Revision of the predictive questionnaire According to the test and analysis of the predictive questionnaire, the remaining 54 items that can enter the exploratory factor analysis model are modified in a small part of the sentence content while maintaining four dimensions. Also lessons were drawn from the lie scale, two lie detection items were compiled, the items were randomly arranged, the Likert 7-point scoring method was adopted, and finally a formal questionnaire containing 56 items of "College Counselor' Core Competencies Survey and Research" was formed. The reliability of the Formal Questionnaire was tested by SPSS22.0 software, and the reliability of the whole questionnaire and each common factor (dimension) was analyzed. The results are shown in Table 2. Its internal reliability, Cronbach's Alpha, is more than 0.9, which indicates that the reliability of this study is very good. Therefore, the Formal Questionnaire has internal consistency. The authors believe that the Formal Questionnaire of college counselors has good reliability and can be used in its entirety. .901 The content validity of the Formal Questionnaire was tested. By means of eliminating basic information items and lie detection items, a multifactorial analysis was made for the remaining items. KMO and Bartlett's Spherical Test were carried out on all the questionnaires (see Table 3 for details). From the test results, the KMO of the sample was 0.935, greater than 0.6. Through Bartlett's Spherical Test with significant p value less than 0.05, it was established that the data were suitable for factor analysis. Principal component analysis is used to extract factor analysis. The standard of extracting factors is that the eigenvalue is greater than 1. The maximum variance method is selected by the rotation method, and the number of factor extractions is not limited. The cumulative variance contribution rate is 74.487% and the total explanatory power is more than 70% when four factors (see Table 4) are formed by factor rotation, which can explain most of the information of the indicators. Combined with the results of rotation matrix, the factor load of each item is more than 0.4. The Formal Questionnaire item has a good discrimination, so it is valid. Sig.

The implementation of the Formal Questionnaire
.000   The results of the factor frequency distribution of each dimension (see Table 5, Table 6,   From the above statistics, in the dimension of "Moral quality", "Insist on peoplecentered education, and "Care for students' real needs and love them sincerely" are the most recognized, accounting for 72.2%. Next came "Fairness and justice, be upright and fair", that could account for 71%. "Unity of knowledge and action, match word to deed", "Positive and optimistic attitude", "Honesty and trustworthiness, sincerity in dealing with others", "Being a model for teachers, having a decent style, and setting an example for students in the field of personality learning", "Has a rigorous and serious work style", "Love and devote oneself to one's work, love the ideological and political education of College students" are six key factors. Some samples are "very agreeable", accounting for more than 60%. Has the ability to carry out employment guidance and service, and provides students with efficient and high-quality employment guidance and information services.

An Empirical Study on the Core Competencies of College Counselors in China
From the above statistics, in the dimension of "vocational ability", the proportion of "very agreeable" is the highest in "Caring for students, paying attention to the cultivation of students' self-esteem, self-respect, self-discipline, self-improvement of good character and various abilities", which is 60.9%, showing the most recognition. In turn, the higher degree of recognition was demonstrated regarding the following items: "Has strong ability to resist pressure and frustration", "Has strong organizational and managerial ability, organizes and carries out various activities, and guides the construction of Party, Communist Youth League and classes", "Has a very good problem-solving ability, can solve students' growth, career choices, friends, healthy life and other practical problems", "Has strong communication and coordination, communication skills, Resolves contradictions and conflicts" and "Has the ability to disseminate excellent Chinese culture and tradition" and other factors. As a result, the proportion of "very agreeable" was more than 50%. Have the consciousness of safety protection and pay attention to the safety of students' personal and property. 7(very agreeable) 211 51 Knowledge of laws and regulations, familiar with relevant national laws and regulations and school rules and regulations.
7(very agreeable) 180 43.5 Familiar with college students' ideological and political education related knowledge. 7(very agreeable) 238 57.5 Can understand the students' professional knowledge, master the training plan, professional prospects and so on. 7(very agreeable) 223 53.9 Master the basic knowledge of computer and network new media. 7(very agreeable) 174 42 According to the above statistical analysis, we can see that in the dimension of "Cultural knowledge", the item "Familiar with college students' ideological and political education related knowledge" is the most recognized, that is, "very agreeable", which accounts for 57.5%. Secondly, in terms of "Mastering basic safety knowledge," 57% of them think "very agreeable". In turn, the factors with higher recognition are: "Can understand the students' professional knowledge, master the training plans, professional prospects and so on", "Have knowledge of traditional Chinese culture, understand and familiarize with excellent traditional Chinese culture", "Have the consciousness of safety protection and pay attention to the safety of students' personal and property"; regarding them, the recognition rate was more than 50%.
(iv) Discussions on the Formal Questionnaires Long Shibang, Yang Shaogang, Chen Huiyi In the reliability analysis of the Formal Questionnaire, the internal reliability of the questionnaire, Cronbach's Alpha, is more than 0.9, which shows that the questionnaire has very good reliability. In the exploratory factor analysis of the Formal Questionnaire, we can see that the KMO of the sample is 0.935, greater than 0.6. The Bartlett's Spherical Test with significant p value less than 0.05 shows that the results of the exploratory factor analysis are reliable. The four dimensions of this study: values, moral quality, vocational ability and cultural knowledge, cover the thoughts, consciousness, quality, knowledge, ability and attitude of college counselors. Among the statistical results of the questionnaire survey, "Have correct world outlook, outlook on life and values", "Love the national system", "Love the motherland, have lofty patriotic feelings", "Strong ideological awareness", "Insist on human-centered education, "Care for students' real needs and love them sincerely", as well as as "Fairness and justice, be upright and fair", "Unity of knowledge and action, match word to deed", "Positive and optimistic mentality", "Honesty and trustworthiness, sincerity in dealing with others", "Being a model for teachers, having a decent style, and setting an example for students in the field of personality learning", "Has a rigorous and serious work style", "Love and devote oneself to one's work, love the ideological and political education of College students", "Care for students, pay attention to the cultivation of students' self-esteem, self-respect, self-discipline, self-improvement of good character and various abilities", "Has strong ability to resist pressure and frustration", "Has strong Therefore, the authors believe that these can be said to be the core competencies of college counselors. "Values" is the essential requirement of college counselors, which is conclusion.

The Spatial Structure of the Structure Model for the Core Competencies of College Counselors
Based on the questionnaire survey and discussion of college counselors' core competencies, the authors believe that college counselors' core competencies can be summarized into four dimensions, 10 levels and 23 basic indicators. The spatial structure of the structural model is as follows (  The summary of the four dimensions includes values, vocational ability, cultural knowledge and moral quality, forming a comprehensive community. The authors believe that this is a highly concise summary of the core competencies of college counselors and grasps the essence and key of the problem. First of all, values form the basic requirement of the role and mission of college counselors and the basis and premise of their work; secondly, moral quality is the concentrated reflection of college counselors' self-cultivation, pursuit of value and working attitude, and is the important condition for college counselors and college students to develop; thirdly, vocational ability is the key ability of college counselors to accomplish the fundamental task of building morality and cultivating people, and the essential requirement of the work content of college counselors.
It reflects the responsibility of college counselors and the essential requirements of college counselors and college students' career development. Finally, cultural knowledge is the source and basis of knowledge, cultural heritage and innovation. It is the guarantee for college counselors to grasp the law of education and teaching, and the core force for promoting the all-round development of college counselors and college students.
To summarise, 10 levels and 23 basic indicators of the refinement of college counselors' core competencies are mainly based on empirical research and practical situation of college counselors' core competencies. Through a thorough and meticulous analysis, exploration, and induction, the pyramid-shaped frame structure is formed from bottom to top, and from top to bottom, which extends and expands step by step from layer to layer. Among them, each downward level is the partial display and detail filling of the upper level, and is also the concentrated reflection and content support basis of the upper structure of each level. Therefore, each dimension, each level reflects clearly, each exerts An Empirical Study on the Core Competencies of College Counselors in China its best effect. The whole group constitutes a structure model for the core competencies of college counselors with a clear hierarchy, clear context and comprehensive integrity, which is centralized and effective, having certain scientific and reference value. The key elements of the structure model for the core competencies of college counselors are interrelated and prominent. They capture the relationship between development, the whole and the part, so that the overall and specific characteristics of the core competencies of college counselors are fully displayed.