The Professional Counselor | Volume 10, Issue 4 627 from more structured and intentional dissertation methods (Perera-Diltz & Sauerheber, 2017). Without such guidelines, faculty members may rely on their own dissertation experiences to inform their current advising practices as faculty (Knox et al., 2011). Over time, the lack of standardized dissertation advising may contribute to disproportionate outcomes in (a) CES doctoral program completion rates, (b) research identity development among graduates of CES doctoral programs, and (c) overall CES program reputations. Although chairpersons have many strategies to use in providing feedback, they cannot determine how their feedback impacts their students’ progression. Gaining a better understanding of how doctoral candidates internalize feedback may lead to more clarity regarding whether the strategy and style of feedback was successful. A similar study from the perspective of current doctoral candidates or recent graduates would add tremendous value to the field. Quantitative studies could also explore relationships among variables. For example, the relationship between dissertation advising strategies and career choice is unknown. Schweiger et al. (2012) reported that approximately 50% of doctoral graduates in CES pursue non-academic careers, and it is possible that these graduates have different dissertation advising needs and/or received different forms of dissertation advising than candidates who entered academia after graduation. Limitations This study had several limitations. First, respondents were current faculty members in doctoral CES programs, and the data thus represents faculty perceptions and experiences. Future studies are needed to examine the perspectives of students when working with chairpersons to triangulate these strategies. Although prior research has shown that graduate students described similar strategies as those espoused by the participants in this study (Sinady et al., 2009), a follow-up study could be helpful to ascertain whether students felt the findings of this study were commensurate with their own experience. A limitation of qualitative methodology is the ability to generalize findings. Because dissertation processes look different across programs and universities, it is unclear whether the strategies highlighted by participants in this study are transferable to other programs. Additional quantitative studies are needed that use a larger sample to examine the relationship between these strategies and outcomes such as dissertation completion rates and time to completion. In this study, the research team only used one definition of success (i.e., completing the dissertation and graduating with a doctoral degree) when coding and analyzing data. Because the participants did not provide their own definition of success, we cannot say with certainty that they had the same conception in mind when responding to the question. Other definitions of success could include developing a scholar identity or being prepared to be an effective counselor educator. These alternative ways of understanding success could impact the way in which the participant responded to the question. In future research, it would be important to clarify these definitions with participants prior to their responding to the question. Finally, two coding team members had recently completed their own dissertations and may have found it difficult to bracket their experiences during the coding and analysis process. To mitigate these potential biases, the research team frequently discussed and documented their personalized reactions to the data when coding, used multiple coders for the first 11 transcripts, and used consensus coding to resolve discrepancies.
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