Sex and Order of Counseling Effects on Paired Role‐Play Practice

In this study the effects of order of counseling and sex within counseling pairs were analyzed. A total of 51 graduate students, 35 women and 16 men, from introductory counseling classes were randomly assigned, according to their sex, to two levels of sex pairing and ordinal position. Multivariate analyses of variance and analyses of variance indicated that same sex or opposite sex pairing and ordinal position did not influence performances. Women, however, produced more reflection‐of‐feeling responses, and their responses tended to be more accurate than those of men. Also, women in ordinal Position 2 who had male partners in Position 1 outperformed women paired with women in Position 1. Results are discussed in reference to literature on modeling, sex differences, and role‐play practice. 1985 American Counseling Association