The Professional Counselor | Volume 10, Issue 4 475 As variability exists in how respective programs deliver CETI courses (Hunt & Weber Gilmore, 2011), we studied a single CETI course as a way to illustrate an example of common issues and potential discrepancies faced by students and instructors engaged in a doctoral CETI course. We examined this course, taking into account both experienced instructor and novice student views, to (a) reveal common views on ideal course design, delivery, and evaluation components among participants navigating a common curriculum; (b) identify any similar or divergent views between the instructor and students; and (c) determine how to design course content and instruction to meet the future needs of students. The study was guided by the research question: What are instructor and student views on the essential design, delivery, and evaluation elements needed for a CETI course? Method Q methodology is a unique research method containing the depth of qualitative data reduction and the objective rigor of by-person factor analysis (Brown, 1993). Researchers have effectively utilized this method in the classroom setting to facilitate personal discovery and to increase subject matter understanding (Watts & Stenner, 2012). Specifically, students’ self-perspectives are investigated and then related to other students’ views, which are then related to nuances within their own views (Good, 2003). Q methodology has also been effectively used as a pedagogical exercise to examine subjectivity in intensive samples of participants (McKeown & Thomas, 2013). Focusing on intensive samples, and even single cases, allows researchers to retain participants’ frames of reference while concurrently revealing nuances within their views, which may be lost within larger samples (Brown, 2019). Yet, the rigor of findings from intensive samples derived from Q factor analysis remains. We selected Q methodology for the current study versus a qualitative or case study approach (Stake, 1995) to reveal common and divergent viewpoints in relation to common stimulus items (i.e., a Q sample composed of ideal design, delivery, and evaluation of CETI course components from the literature). We also wanted both the instructor and students participating in the sampled doctoral CETI course to provide their subjective views on the optimal design, delivery, and evaluation components of a doctoral CETI course, while incorporating the rigorous features of quantitative analysis (Brown, 1980). Concourse and Q Sample Specific steps were taken to develop the Q sample, which is the set of statements used to assist participants with expressing their views during the Q-sorting process. The first step is selecting a concourse, which is a collection of opinion statements about any topic (Stephenson, 2014). Many routes of communication contribute to the form and content of a concourse (Brown, 1980). The concourse for this study was composed of statements taken by the authors from select teaching literature and documents (e.g., ACES, 2016; McAuliffe & Erickson, 2011; West et al., 2013). After carefully searching within these sources, researchers selected statements specifically containing teaching experts’ views on essential components for teaching preparation, in general, and CETI courses in particular. The concourse selection process resulted in over 240 concourse statements, which was too many for the final Q sample (Brown, 1970, 1980). Second, the concourse of statements was reduced by the first author using a structured deductive Q sample design shown in Table 1 (Brown, 1970). Data reduction using a structured design results in a reduction of concourse statements into a manageable Q sample (McKeown & Thomas, 2013). Accordingly, data reduction proceeded with the removal of unclear, fragmented, duplicate, or unrelated statements until there were eight items for each of the types, resulting in the structured 48item sample shown in the Appendix.
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