The Professional Counselor | Volume 10, Issue 4 573 Analysis of Reflections Data The data from the reflections were used to triangulate the interview data. In general, there was a high level of consistency between the reflections (submitted immediately following the modules) and the qualitative interviews (conducted after a time lapse). One interesting finding more evident in the reflections than in the interviews was the description of the emotional reactions to gatekeeping material. At the end of the analysis process, we created word clouds (pictorial displays of word frequencies) of the most common words used by participants. Through this process, we discovered there was a high frequency of a minimum of 12 emotionally laden words such as “scary” and “upsetting” in the data set, with more emotionality expressed in the reflections than in the interviews. Because the reflections were written, it appears that students were more likely to express emotional reactions in reflections than in the qualitative interviews. It is also possible that because the reflections were collected right after the experiential learning activities, emotional reactions were more accessible when the students wrote their reflections than at the time of the interviews. Discussion and Implications The CACREP expectation that counselor educators instruct doctoral students in gatekeeping and the awareness that new entrants to the counselor education workplace may experience considerable distress in their roles as gatekeepers inspired the study. Although gatekeeping and remediation may require a relatively small time commitment for new counselor educators, the nature of the work can be difficult and legalistic. The predominant goals of the study were to develop and infuse into the doctoral curriculum an experiential model for gatekeeping instruction and to gain insights into the lived experiences of doctoral students as they engaged in the learning modules. The DEG Model is presented as one approach to doctoral instruction in gatekeeping. The experiential and developmental foundations for the approach are strongly supported in research, but literature on the application of these theories to the context of teaching gatekeeping to doctoral students was not available. Thus, the DEG Model and the qualitative study of the student learning experiences with the model are exploratory in nature. Nine students reported their perceptions and reactions to the DEG Model. An analysis of the lived experience of the students led to the discovery of four themes: importance of gatekeeping, behind the curtain, understandings vary by developmental level, and uneven responses to experiential learning. All nine participants were of one mind that gatekeeping, dispositional assessment, and remediation are important. Given that all nine students were from different master’s programs representing institutions located in various regions of the country, this finding suggests that gatekeeping has assumed a position of primacy as an essential function in counseling academic programs and an expected role for counselor educators. Earlier gatekeeping research reported hesitancy in trainees related to gatekeeping because of factors such as program culture, lack of protection for the gatekeepers, and confusion about the standards for gatekeeping (Shen-Miller et al., 2015). The results of this study suggest a possible shift in the perspective of new entrants to the counselor education workplace. In addition, state licensure boards have underscored the importance of gatekeeping the profession. Shen-Miller et al. (2015) also found that trainee ambivalence about the gatekeeping role mirrored faculty ambivalence, suggesting that faculty modeling of appropriate gatekeeping and remediation may be a critical factor in the changing attitudes of doctoral students. An alternative viewpoint is that though the students unanimously supported a belief that gatekeeping is important, their belief systemmay not translate well to their first actual gatekeeping situation as a counselor educator. The study participants had no direct experience with the often painful situations faculty face when legal action or student grievances are directed against them.
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