The Professional Counselor | Volume 10, Issue 4 447 randomization. To mitigate the potential for error, the confounding variable of population size was included in our inferential statistical analyses. Examination of variables such as the demand for counselor education program entry are also important to examine in the future to ascertain whether programs are turning away students because of capacity issues related to faculty hiring. Such studies could appraise application numbers, enrollment numbers, and the program’s ideal yield should capacity not be an issue. Furthermore, a more detailed analysis into the relationship between a state’s educational requirements for licensure (i.e., whether graduates must complete a CACREP-accredited program) and the demand for doctoral counselor educators within a state is important. Lawson et al. (2017) have proposed that advocating for CACREP accreditation as the educational requirement for counselor licensure is important to the advancement of professionalization and professional identity. It is possible that the lack of CACREP-accredited doctoral programs in a state may be a barrier to establishing CACREP as the educational standard for licensure. Conclusion A large and statistically significant difference exists in the number of CACREP-accredited doctoral programs by region, even when controlling for population size. The Western region has by far the fewest doctoral programs and thus the greatest need for new doctoral programs. The lack of doctoral programs in the Western region and New England states may present a pipeline problem. The number of CACREP-accredited master’s programs has doubled in the Western region since 2009 while the number of doctoral programs has remained the same. As a result, CACREP-accredited master’s programs in the Western region and New England states may struggle to recruit qualified core faculty from in-region doctoral programs. The ratio of in-process master’s versus doctoral programs suggests that any existing pipeline issue will continue if not worsen in the coming years. Even though the number of CACREP-accredited master’s programs within a state appears to be a strong independent predictor of CACREP-accredited doctoral programs, new doctoral programs may be difficult to establish because of state regulatory issues, the existence of competing doctoral programs (e.g., counseling psychology), or the lack of research support infrastructure (e.g., smaller teaching loads, funding for doctoral students). In addition to small, private, teaching-focused institutions that seem to be developing doctoral programs in regions with few CACREP-accredited doctoral programs (e.g., Antioch University-Seattle, City University of Seattle, and Seattle Pacific University in the Western region), online CACREPaccredited doctoral CES programs are a potential solution to training prospective doctoral students in regions with few in-person doctoral programs. Online programs may also help to address any existing specific pipeline issues regarding faculty with school counseling specialties and faculty from culturally diverse backgrounds. Future studies are needed to support whether online CACREP-accredited doctoral programs are helping master's programs to address these recruitment needs. Additional follow-up studies are also needed to examine the role of geographic location in candidate selection of in-person and online faculty positions, as it is possible that geographic location has less prominence in candidate selection of faculty roles today compared to several decades ago when prior studies in counselor education were conducted (e.g., Magnuson et al., 2001). Conflict of Interest and Funding Disclosure The authors reported no conflict of interest or funding contributions for the development of this manuscript.
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