616 The Professional Counselor | Volume 10, Issue 4 of counseling professionals during the dissertation phase. Their specific theory of initiation, management, and completion of the dissertation includes three elements: relational factors (i.e., personal relationships and friends), professional factors (i.e., career and professional identity), and internal factors (i.e., within the person). These themes are explored to position this study in the context of what is currently known about high-quality doctoral dissertation advising from the perspective of the chairperson, which further supports the theory of initiation, management, and completion of the dissertation process. Research Identity Development The experiences and challenges associated with the pursuit of a doctoral degree in counselor education and supervision (CES) have received increased focus within scholarly literature (Hinkle et al., 2014; Hoskins & Goldberg, 2005; Lamar & Helm, 2017; Neale-McFall & Ward, 2015). Critical to the pursuit of a doctoral degree is the scholarly identity forged among students during the dissertation process (Dollarhide et al., 2013; Limberg et al., 2013). For some doctoral students, the pursuit of a doctoral degree in CES is connected to research interests and goals developed during post–master’s degree experiences (Farmer et al., 2017; Hinkle et al., 2014). Upon entering a doctoral program, students often maintain those initial interests and goals or adopt new interests that align with expanded goals and/or faculty and program expectations (Lei, 2009). According to Hoskins and Goldberg (2005), congruence between students’ goals, faculty expectations, and doctoral program goals is a key determinant of student attrition and persistence in CES doctoral programs. Faculty have an important role in the development of a scholar and research identity among CES doctoral students (Dollarhide et al., 2013; Limberg et al., 2013). Relationships with mentors and faculty contribute to doctoral students’ professional identity development as counselor educators (Limberg et al., 2013). To that end, faculty support is important in doctoral students’ research identity development (Dollarhide et al., 2013; Lamar and Helm, 2017). Nevertheless, gaps persist within the study of research identity development in CES. Although there has been examination into students’ rationales for the pursuit of graduate education in professional counseling and how this pursuit informs the development of one’s professional identity (Limberg et al., 2013), less is known about the experiences of doctoral students in CES (Dollarhide et al., 2013). As a result, little is known about the professional, research, and scholar identity development of doctoral students in CES and how doctoral study impacts the aforementioned areas of identity development (Dollarhide et al., 2013). Chairpersons provide research-related ideas, strategies, and requirements useful to the development of students’ research identity. Examples of ideas and strategies include students seeing themselves as knowledge creators, the ability to identify gaps in literature, and a focus on completing a study that can be done in a reasonable time (Dollarhide et al., 2013). The dissertation stage is a place where students understand and accept their responsibility for creating new knowledge in the field. Yet, as faculty postulate these ideas and disseminate their recommendations to doctoral candidates, there may be a disconnect between seeing one’s role as a knowledge creator (student) and gatekeeper (faculty). As gatekeepers for their doctoral candidates, faculty create barriers and maintain rules around what they deem is research, a structure for how to conduct research, and how the research will impact the field of counselor education. Researchers have yet to explore how students receive this feedback. Having their needs considered and receiving consistent feedback have been outlined as helpful with doctoral students understanding how gatekeeping supports them throughout the dissertation process (Dollarhide et al., 2013; Hilliard, 2013).
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