TPC Journal-Vol 9 Issue 3-FULL

The Professional Counselor | Volume 9, Issue 3 257 Data Collection Participants were asked to take part in an interview lasting between 15 and 40 minutes based on the length of participant responses. Participants were asked questions specifically related to their experience obtaining a license in the RMACES region, beginning with the overarching question: “What is your experience of obtaining clinical licensure, transitioning from one state to another?” The authors recruited participants from their own state and conducted at least one of the interviews, which were audio- or video-recorded. In addition to the initial research question, participants were asked, “What factors/elements have influenced your experience of licensure portability?” “What has been positive and what has been challenging or created a barrier?” “What have your interactions with the state’s licensure board been and how has this impacted your experience?” and “Can you briefly describe the step-by-step process that you had to go through to obtain licensure and how long the overall process took to complete?” The researchers attempted to meet the criteria of thematic saturation, or the continual sampling of the data collected from the participants until repetition was achieved and no new information was obtained (Bowen, 2008; Strauss & Corbin, 1990). Data Analysis Analysis consisted of engaging in the systematic nature of qualitative content analysis (Schreier, 2012). This helped set the stage for approaching the data with a beginner’s mind. First, we collected and transcribed interview data ( n = 12). Next, two members of the research team read through the collection to get a sense of the whole experience. The next step consisted of these two researchers individually reading the interview transcriptions and engaging in open coding to identify the most common and analytically rich essential themes from which to base a more selective coding scheme or category (Schreier, 2012). The researchers then engaged in selective coding to determine the units of analysis, categories, and themes (Cho & Lee, 2014; Schreier, 2012). In this case, the unit of analysis was related to the licensing process. The researchers engaged in the use of deductive and inductive analysis. The two approaches differ on how initial codes or categories are developed. The deductive approach starts with preconceived codes or categories derived from prior relevant theory, research, or literature, while in the inductive approach, codes and categories are directly drawn from the data (Cho & Lee, 2014). The initial codes were developed from a deductive approach using the categories of title, education, experience, and exam, identified previously in Table 1. Every unit of analysis was placed into a mutually exclusive category, meaning that no data fell between two categories or was placed into more than one category (Crowley & Delfico, 1996). Next the researchers engaged in inductive coding based on the aspects of the participants’ experiences that were not captured by the a priori deductive codes (Schreier, 2012). Inductive categories were developed as a means to compress the large amount of individual text into fewer content-related groups with similar meanings and connotations (Schreier, 2012; Weber, 1990). This also is known as a data reduction process in qualitative content analysis and is achieved through limiting “analysis to those aspects that are relevant with a view to your research question” (Schreier, 2012, p. 7). Next, two researchers compared codes and where discrepancies existed, we described our coding process (Cho & Lee, 2014; Saldaña, 2016). A third researcher triangulated the coding by the first two researchers. Discrepant data and negative cases were discussed among the three coding researchers, and we decided collectively on categories that best represented and explained the data (Cho & Lee, 2014; Saldaña, 2016). We formed a final codebook of the categories and descriptions. Each category contained the name, a description of meaning, examples, and inclusion and exclusion decision rules. The identification of categories and themes continued until no new themes were identified within the data and redundancy occurred (Guest, Bunce, & Johnson, 2006;