Testing the Multicultural Counselling Competency Model in Nigerian School Guidance Practice: A Nationally Representative Survey

The multicultural counselling competency (MCC) framework has driven significant professional development reforms in Western counselling contexts, but its applicability and empirical performance within Nigeria's highly diverse ethnocultural school environment have not been systematically tested. This study tested the multicultural counselling competency model in Nigerian school guidance practice through a nationally representative survey. A cross-sectional quantitative design was used, with 600 school counsellors sampled proportionately from all six geopolitical zones across 24 states. The Multicultural Counselling Knowledge and Awareness Scale (MCKAS) and the Multicultural Counselling Competencies Scale-Revised (MCCS-R) were administered alongside measures of counsellor demographic and professional background variables. Confirmatory factor analysis, structural equation modelling, and multi-group invariance testing across geopolitical zones were conducted. Findings confirmed a three-factor MCC structure (awareness, knowledge, skills) in the Nigerian context with acceptable fit, partially replicating the Western model while revealing a significant Nigeria-specific factor labelled community-cultural attunement. Multicultural competency was significantly lower in rural schools and among counsellors without postgraduate training. Geopolitical zone significantly moderated MCC levels, with South West counsellors demonstrating the highest scores. The study provides the first nationally representative empirical test of the MCC model in Nigeria, contributing both validation evidence and a culturally additive factor structure. Keywords: multicultural counselling competency, Nigerian school counsellors, nationally representative, cultural diversity, factor analysis.