170 The Professional Counselor | Volume 14, Issue 2 Data Collection and Analysis Our sole data collection method was one-time, individual, semi-structured interviews with 28 contributors. We all participated in the data collection process, conducting individual interviews lasting on average 45 minutes each. Each interview was conducted using web conferencing technology (i.e., Zoom), was audio recorded, and was professionally transcribed. We developed an interview protocol to address our overall research question, informed by our review of the literature and specifically inquiring about the reasons contributors chose to become professional counselors. The interview protocol can be found in the Appendix. Our data analysis process was consistent with general grounded theory analysis methods (Miles & Huberman, 1994; Vollstedt & Rezat, 2019) and those identified by counseling researchers who have conducted and published grounded theory research studies (Hannon & Hannon, 2017; Singh et al., 2010), which included an interactive, three-step process of open coding, axial coding, and selective coding. Our open coding process began after the completion of the fifth interview, wherein members of our team conducted a detailed review of the interviews to find discrete ideas, events, or experiences (i.e., codes) that communicated the reasons why the contributors decided to become professional counselors (Corbin & Strauss, 1990; Singh et al., 2010). Open codes from the first five interviews helped us to develop a codebook as a basis for comparison for the remaining 23 interviews. Our team reached consensus on a list of open codes present in the 28 interviews and then began the axial coding process. Axial coding is a process in which “categories are related to their sub-categories, and the relationships tested against the data” (Corbin & Strauss, 1990, p. 13). In essence, our research team worked together to categorize the open codes, describing them more summatively as we considered the causal conditions, contexts, and intervening variables that explained why these contributors chose to become counselors (Corbin & Strauss, 1990). Finally, we engaged in selective coding of the interview data, which required us to identify a core category that described the central phenomenon (i.e., decision to become counselors) around which all other categories are integrated (Vollstedt & Rezat, 2019). Trustworthiness To validate our discoveries, our research team employed a number of trustworthiness strategies. One strategy was member checking (Hannon & Hannon, 2017; Lincoln, 1995) at three different times: 1) during interviews (i.e., asking clarifying questions of contributors during interviews); 2) after interviews (i.e., forwarding transcribed interviews to contributors for additional information and/or corrections); and 3) after our agreement of findings (i.e., providing an executive summary of findings to contributors). No contributors requested content changes. A second trustworthiness strategy we leveraged was investigator triangulation (Denzin & Lincoln, 2000), or when a study includes multiple researchers to assist with accuracy and confirmability of analysis. The investigator triangulation was facilitated through activities such as team meetings to discuss our relationship to the research topic, our individual interpretations of the data, and the subsequent consensus coding that allowed us to intentionally monitor and address the influences of any potential biases. This investigator triangulation provided our team the opportunity to bracket any potential biases we had in our analysis process. A third strategy we used was individual journaling (Giorgi, 1985) to help inform our analysis meetings and determine the ways in which contributors’ accounts affected us emotionally and/or intellectually. Findings We endeavored to learn, and develop a grounded theory about, why a group of Black people decided to become counselors through this study. What we identified, grounded in the contributors’ responses, was a set of interacting and influencing factors that inspired them to become counselors.
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