The Professional Counselor | Volume 10, Issue 4 439 excluded from the study. A 2018 CACREP report indicated that 405 programs in the United States were CACREP accredited (CACREP, 2019b). The percentage of counselor education programs in the United States that are CACREP accredited is unknown and most likely differs among states and regions. For example, 98% of master’s counselor education programs were CACREP accredited (52 of 53 programs) in Ohio, with the only non–CACREP-accredited program in the process of working toward accreditation. In comparison, only 24% of master’s counselor education programs in California (23 of 96 programs) were CACREP accredited. The large difference in CACREP representation between California and Ohio can partially be attributed to state regulatory issues. In Ohio, candidates for counseling licensure are required to graduate from CACREP-accredited programs. In contrast, California does not require CACREP accreditation and became the last state to license counselors in 2010 (T. A. Field, 2017). Specialized accreditation appears less common across professions in California. Despite having the most licensed marriage and family therapists (LMFTs) of any state, only 10% (8 of 82) of LMFT preparation programs in California are accredited by the Commission on the Accreditation for Marriage and Family Therapy Education (COAMFTE; n.d.). California is an outlier in the Western region, as 95% (38 of 40) of programs within the other states in that region (Alaska, Arizona, Hawai’i, Nevada, Oregon, Washington) were CACREP accredited. Data Analysis Data were entered into a Microsoft Excel worksheet and organized by the following columns: states, number of CACREP-accredited doctoral programs per state, number of CACREP-accredited master’s programs per state, state population size, state population density, number of colleges and universities per state, and the number of APA-accredited counseling psychology doctoral programs per state, and region. States were organized by regions defined by national counselor education associations and organizations (e.g., North Atlantic region, North Central region). Data from all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia were entered into the database. To test the first and second hypotheses, data were analyzed using SPSS (Meyers et al., 2013). For the first hypothesis, a one-way analysis of co-variance (ANCOVA) for independent samples was selected to compare the number of doctoral programs by region, controlling for population size. The required significance level for the one-way ANCOVA was set to .05. The researchers determined the required sample size for .80 power, per Cohen’s (1992) guidelines. Per G*Power 3 (Faul et al., 2007), a one-way independent-samples ANCOVA requires a sample size of 42 states for .80 power at the .05 alpha level. To test the second hypothesis, a linear multiple regression analysis (randommodel) was computed to identify predictor variables for the number of CACREP-accredited doctoral programs by state. Five predictor (i.e., independent) variables were entered into the regression equation. These predictor variables were as follows: (a) the number of CACREP-accredited master’s programs per state, (b) state population size, (c) state population density, (d) number of colleges and universities by state, and (e) number of APA-accredited counseling psychology programs per state. As described above, the presence of an APAaccredited counseling psychology program could potentially reduce the likelihood of a university also offering a CACREP-accredited counselor education program at the same institution. Per G*Power 3 (Faul et al., 2007), a linear multiple regression analysis (randommodel) requires a sample size of 39 states for .80 power at the .05 alpha level. To further understand trends in the data regarding the regional representations of CACREPaccredited doctoral programs and CACREP-accredited master’s programs, data were also organized graphically via a data visualization platform (Tableau). These data for the number of programs by state are presented in Figures 1 and 2.
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