CHS Professor Receives American Rehabilitation Counseling Association's Top Research Award
Dr. Emre Umucu, assistant professor of Rehabilitation Counseling, will be recognized by the American Rehabilitation Counseling Association at the American Counseling Association EXPO in New Orleans later this month. Umucu will receive the association’s 2019 ARCA Research Award, which recognizes high quality empirical research in the field of rehabilitation counseling, for his study on well-being in the veteran population.
Umucu’s study, entitled “Flourishing in Student Veterans With and Without Service-Connected Disability: Psychometric Validation of the Flourishing Scale and Exploration of Its Relationships with Personality and Disability,” examined the relationship between flourishing, personality traits and service-connected disability among student veterans. Umucu psychometrically validated the Flourishing Scale for student veterans; evaluated the association of Big-Five personality traits and flourishing, and evaluated the differences in flourishing among student veterans with and without service-connected disabilities. Findings from the study indicate that the Flourishing Scale is a reliable and valid scale that can be used to measure flourishing among veterans. The study supports existing research that has found a correlation between personality traits and flourishing, and also provides further evidence of the impact of service-connected disabilities on academic success. The findings of the study may be useful for the development of future interventions to enhance well-being in veterans.
Umucu reported that he will continue to conduct research in this topic given that he believes that postsecondary education works as a public health intervention since it reduces poverty, unemployment and unhealthy behaviors, and increases well-being and societal contributions.
The entire article may be accessed online at: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0034355218808061
Umucu directs the Master of Rehabilitation Counseling Program’s Veteran VVell-Being Lab (V 3), which examines factors affecting happiness, well-being, and quality of life in people with chronic conditions, specifically veterans with chronic conditions, through the lens of positive psychology.
To learn more about the Veteran VVell-Being Lab (V 3), please send an email to: eumucu@utep.edu.
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