Feb 4, 2017 | Volume 7 - Issue 1
Clare Merlin, Timothy Pagano, Amanda George, Cassandra Zanone, Benjamin Newman
The Council for Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs (CACREP) recently released its 2016 standards. Included in these standards is a requirement for school counseling master’s programs to have a minimum of 60 credit hours by the year 2020. This credit hour requirement is an increase from the previous 48-hour requirement and has caused considerable debate in the counselor education field. In this article, the authors assert that the credit hour increase will lead to positive or neutral effects for school counseling programs and benefit the field of school counseling as a whole. This claim is supported by historical examples, anticipated benefits to school counseling, and findings from a pilot study with school counseling programs that previously transitioned to 60 credit hours (N = 22).
Keywords: CACREP, accreditation, school counseling, counselor education, credit hours
The unification of the counseling profession is an aspiration long held within the field (American Counseling Association, 2009; Bobby, 2013; Simmons, 2003). However, historic differences in Council for Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs (CACREP) standards for completion of a counseling degree complicate a singular identity for the profession. Without a unified expectation of degree requirements, professionals who identify as “counselors” struggle to find a consentient definition for the counseling role. In order to reach unification in the field, it is necessary for counseling organizations and professionals to agree on the minimum credit requirements needed to obtain a counseling degree (Bobby, 2013; Williams, Milsom, Nassar-McMillan, & Pope, 2012).
Minimum credit requirements for a school counseling degree gained recent attention as CACREP released updated standards in 2016, including a new standard (1.J.) requiring 60 semester credit hours for all counseling specializations, including school counseling, rather than the previous 48-credit hour requirement (CACREP, 2015). CACREP designed this standard to create unity among program specialties so that all specialties—addictions counseling, career counseling, clinical mental health counseling, clinical rehabilitation counseling, college counseling and student affairs, marriage, couple, and family counseling, and school counseling—require the same number of credit hours (CACREP, 2015; Williams et al., 2012).
The publication of standard 1.J. has implications for numerous counselor education programs. In 2014, the authors researched the 229 CACREP-accredited school counseling programs in existence at the time and found that 170 programs, or 74%, required less than 60 credit hours for program completion. Similarly, in a study examining school counselor education programs (N = 126), Perusse, Poynton, Parzych, and Goodnough (2015) found that programs ranged in credit hour requirements from 30 to 67 semester credit hours, with an average of 49.6 credit hours. Sixty-one percent of program coordinators surveyed indicated that they required between 48 and 59 credit hours, whereas only 18% required 60 to 67 credit hours, and 14% required 36 to 45 credit hours. Although only 57% of the sample surveyed was CACREP-accredited, the percentage of participants requiring less than 60 credit hours in their programs in 2015 (75%) indicates that for these programs to become CACREP-accredited or reaccredited, many program coordinators will need to increase credit hours to 60 to meet standard 1.J.
Despite CACREP’s intentions for unification via standard 1.J., the standard’s implications for school counseling programs across the country have led to debate among counselor educators. In this article, the authors acknowledge concerns over the standard’s implications but suggest that an increase in required credit hours for CACREP-accredited school counseling programs will ultimately benefit school counseling programs and the school counseling field as a whole. The authors support this claim with a review of the history of CACREP and credit hour increases, prior research on the topic, results of a pilot study with programs that previously transitioned to 60 credit hours, and anticipated benefits for the school counseling field.
History
CACREP began in 1981 as a partnership between the Association for Counselor Education and
Supervision (ACES) and the American Personnel and Guidance Association, now known as the American Counseling Association (ACA; Bobby, 2013; Urofsky, Bobby, & Ritchie, 2013). This formation resulted when leaders from ACES, the American School Counselor Association (ASCA), the American College Personnel Association, and American Personnel and Guidance Association created comprehensive accreditation standards for counseling programs (Urofsky et al., 2013). Prior to the formation of CACREP in 1981, the only accreditation for counseling programs was provided by ACES on a voluntary basis (CACREP, 2017).
CACREP was formed to address three purposes: (a) to create guidelines reflecting expectations of the counseling profession, (b) to promote professionalism in counseling, and (c) to increase credibility in the profession (Adams, 2006; Bobby, 1992). More than 30 years later, the central mission of CACREP remains promoting the profession of counseling and related fields via “the development of preparation standards; the encouragement of excellence in program development; and the accreditation of professional preparation programs” (CACREP, 2017, para. 54). Through this process, CACREP provides accreditation to individual programs at the master’s and doctoral levels (CACREP, 2014).
Each area of CACREP accreditation maintains different programmatic standards in addition to a core set of general standards required of all counseling programs. CACREP designed the school counseling standards to prepare graduates to work with K–12 students to effectively address their personal/social, academic and career concerns (CACREP, 2015). CACREP standards appear increasingly valuable as leaders in the counseling profession seek a unified professional identity, particularly in light of the widely varying state licensing standards for counselors (Mascari & Webber, 2013). The CACREP standards serve as universal guidelines of best practices in educating future counselors. Moreover, researched benefits of attending a CACREP-accredited counseling program instead of a non-accredited program may include “increased internship and job opportunities, improved student quality, helpfulness in private practice, increased faculty professional involvement and publishing, and acceptance into a counselor education doctoral program” (Mascari & Webber, 2013, p. 20).
CACREP standards appear particularly relevant in the school counseling profession. In a study of 187 school counselors, on average, participants rated the CACREP school counseling standards as “highly” or “very highly” important to school counseling (Holcomb-McCoy, Bryan, & Rahill, 2002). This finding indicates support for the value of CACREP school counseling standards to the field of school counseling (Branthoover, Desmond, & Bruno, 2010), which is important, given that school counseling programs are the most represented master’s counseling specialty among CACREP-
accredited programs. School counseling programs comprise 36% of all CACREP-accredited programs, nearly 10% more than clinical mental health counseling programs (CACREP, 2016a).
Standards Changes
Despite research on the perceived value and benefits of CACREP standards, multiple facets of CACREP have proven controversial within the counseling profession. These controversies serve as proverbial lightning rods, creating conversation among leaders in the field (Schmidt, 1999). Historically, debate emerged in counselor education due to standards revisions. As in most professions, CACREP regularly modifies its standards to account for changes in the field of counseling (Adams, 2006). To modify the standards, a CACREP standards Revisions Committee formulates revised standards, releases the standards to the public for a comment period, and revises standards according to public feedback. They then release a second draft of revised standards, allow for public comment, and revise the standards accordingly before releasing a final set of revised standards (Williams et al., 2012). Periodic revisions of CACREP standards help counseling leaders address the current and future training needs of professional counselors (Bobby & Urofsky, 2008). These modifications are integral to the development of the counseling profession and parallel other helping professions that regularly revise training standards (Adams, 2006).
2009 Standards changes. One standards change controversy stems from the counseling profession developing a professional identity independent from counseling psychology and other counseling-
related fields. CACREP 2009 standard I.W.2. indicated that core faculty members preferably are trained in Counselor Education and Supervision doctoral programs (CACREP, 2009).
Research conducted shortly after the standard was published in 2009 demonstrated mixed opinions on the standards change—55% of the 180 counselor educators surveyed agreed or strongly agreed with the standard and 45% disagreed or strongly disagreed with it (Cannon & Cooper, 2010). Although counseling leaders may be attempting to move the field toward unification with standards like I.W.2., standards changes will not transpire without debate in the field.
Around the same time, a second debate emerged when proposed 2009 CACREP standards required community counseling programs to become clinical mental health counseling programs with 60 credit hours, rather than the previous 48-hour community counseling requirement, in order to become accredited (CACREP, 2009). This standard eventually became part of the 2009 CACREP standards, but not before raising fractured dialogue among counselor educators (Henriksen, Van Wiesner, & Kinsworthy, 2008). Henriksen et al. (2008) found opinions among 51 counselor educators in the state of Texas were nearly evenly divided about the issue—49% preferred to keep a 48-credit hour minimum, and 51% preferred a switch to a 60-hour minimum.
Similarly, Cannon and Cooper (2010) surveyed 295 CACREP counselor educators and found that attitudes toward the 2009 standards changes were mixed. They found attitudes toward the credit hour increase differed between community counseling counselor educators and clinical mental health counselor educators. Twenty-seven percent of community counselor educators agreed or strongly agreed with the 48-credit hour requirement, whereas only 4% of clinical mental health counselor educators agreed with the same requirement. Across all participants, 31% indicated satisfaction with the 2009 standard revisions, 38% disagreed or strongly disagreed that they were satisfied with the revisions, and 31% reported indecision. Similar disagreement over standards changes emerged six years later around the 2016 CACREP standards.
2016 Standards changes. On May 12, 2015, CACREP released the 2016 Standards, effective July 1, 2016. These standards are the product of a review process in which a Standards Revision Committee comprised of counselor educators from across the country examined if and how the CACREP Standards needed to be changed to meet the shifting needs of the counseling profession. They also focused on “simplifying, clarifying, and consolidating the existing standards” in their revisions (CACREP, 2012, para. 1). CACREP released the first draft of the 2016 Standards in September 2012 and allowed for public comment. They revised the Standards according to feedback, released the revised draft for further public comment, and revised the standards once more (Williams et al., 2012). The Standards Revision Committee then submitted a final Standards draft to the CACREP Board of Directors for adoption. It was adopted and released in May 2015 (CACREP, 2016b).
The 2016 CACREP standards suggest more equitable education among the different counseling specializations with regard to the required number of credits a student must accrue in order to graduate (CACREP, 2015). For example, although the 2009 CACREP standards required that the addictions counseling, clinical mental health counseling, and marriage, couple, and family counseling programs had a minimum of 60 semester credit hours, the school counseling, career counseling, and student affairs and college counseling programs required only a minimum of 48 semester credit hours (CACREP, 2009). The proposed 2016 Standards, however, require that all degree programs have a minimum of 60 credit hours by 2020 (CACREP, 2015). In time, these changes aim to unify all counseling specializations (Williams et al., 2012). Such an increase in credits aligns with CACREP’s mission of developing standards that better the profession and affirm a unified identity (Bobby, 2013).
When CACREP published proposed standard 1.J., requiring school counseling programs to have a minimum of 60 credit hours by 2020 (CACREP, 2015), debate arose. At the 2013 ACES School Counseling Interest Network meeting, counselor educators expressed concern about the proposed standard (Transforming School Counseling and College Access Interest Network [TSCCAIN], 2013). Some attendees asserted that mandating an increase to 60 credit hours would disenfranchise low-income students. Attendees argued that an increase in program costs and subsequently, tuition costs, could make counseling less practically desirable to otherwise qualified prospective students. Additionally, some counselor educators stated that increasing the number of credits for school counseling programs would place an undue burden on the training programs themselves by forcing these programs to hire more faculty members to teach additional courses. However, some counselor educators expressed support for the proposed credit hour increase, suggesting the standard could lead to higher quality applicants to school counseling programs and ultimately produce better qualified professionals in the field (TSCCAIN, 2013).
Although concerns about the outcomes of transitioning to 60 credit hours are understandable, when compared to the gains that can be made by increasing credit hours, standard 1.J. appears warranted. Three pieces of evidence support this claim: existing research on credit hour increases, data from a pilot study, and anticipated benefits to the school counseling field.
Existing Research
To date, no research has explored the implications of changing school counseling credit hour requirements from 48 to 60; however, it is beneficial to explore other fields of study to understand trends, long-term effects and the manner in which other researchers have studied this topic. Previous studies either focused on non-counseling fields (T. K. Fagan, personal communication, November 1, 2014) or are in school counseling-related fields, but the research is significantly outdated (Barkley & Percy, 1984; Hollis, 1998).
More than 30 years ago, Barkley and Percy (1984) explored enrollment in counselor education programs. As the most recent individuals to publish on this topic, their research still warrants attention. Barkley and Percy’s study examined the declining rate of applications to counselor education programs (N = 90) in the United States at that time. They used correlation research to examine whether or not relationships existed between the number of applications to programs, program accreditation status, and whether programs had increased credit hours between 1975 and 1983. Barkley and Percy found that although accredited programs in their sample (n = 8) had more applicants than non-accredited programs (n = 77), those that increased credit hours (n = 39) encountered fewer applicants than those that did not (n = 37). They hypothesized that applicants to lower credit hour programs were more interested in attending lower credit requirement schools than higher credit requirement schools (Barkley & Percy, 1984; Hollis, 1998). They found that these relationships were weak, however, and concluded: “There is no evidence from this study to support a hypothesis that seeking accreditation and/or moderate increases in credit hour requirements results in declining enrollments” (Barkley & Percy, 1984, pp. 23–24).
In the related field of school psychology, the National Association of School Psychologists (NASP) is a professional association recognized by the National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education as a specialized professional association. NASP began reviewing and approving school psychology programs in 1988. In 2011, approximately 70% of school psychology programs in the United States were NASP-approved (Prus & Strein, 2011). When the NASP credit hour requirement for school psychology programs changed from a master’s degree to a 60-credit hour Educational Specialist (Ed.S.) requirement, programs that adjusted to meet this new requirement received a comparable amount of applications (T. K. Fagan, personal communication, November 1, 2014). This outcome in school psychology suggests that school counseling programs increasing to 60 credit hours also may receive similar numbers of applicants after increasing to 60 credits as they did before increasing credit hours.
Although little research addresses differences between counseling programs before and after credit hour changes, research on CACREP-accredited programs and non-accredited programs may indicate potential differences, given that, on average, accredited programs require more credit hours than non-accredited programs (Hollis, 1998; Mascari & Webber, 2013). In 1998, Hollis compared admissions data from 104 mental health counseling programs and found that on average, CACREP-accredited programs required students to have higher grade point averages for admission (3.02) than non-accredited programs (2.91). Minimum GRE scores for admissions were nearly the same, but graduation rates differed. Despite similar average enrollments across programs, CACREP-accredited programs graduate more students on average than non-accredited programs (Hollis, 1998). This research may indicate potential differences in graduation rates and admission standards between programs with higher and lower credit hour requirements.
These three examples suggest that credit hour increases do not lead to poorer outcomes for programs and may in fact enhance the overall educative experience. Though findings did not include conclusive evidence of benefits from increasing credit hours, the studies showed that after programs increased credit hours, they encountered similar admissions outcomes (Barkley & Percy, 1984; T. K. Fagan, personal communication, November 1, 2014) or improved graduation rates (Hollis, 1998) compared to those measures before increasing credit hours. Consequently, there is no research base to conclude that increasing counseling program credit hours is harmful to counseling programs in admissions or graduation rates.
Pilot Study
Although existing research is consistent, it is outdated. To understand the potential outcomes school counseling programs encounter when they increase credit hours, the authors conducted a pilot study to explore the admissions and job placement data of CACREP-accredited school counseling master’s programs that previously transitioned to 60 credit hours. In 2014, 59 (26%) of the 229 school counseling CACREP-accredited programs required 60 credits or more for program graduates. This number constitutes more than one quarter of all CACREP-accredited school counseling programs, despite CACREP requiring only 48 credit hours at the time. Furthermore, it supports Hollis’ (1998) assertion that counseling programs often increase their required credit hours before higher standards are established. These increases may symbolize support for and valuing of increased credit hours for the benefit of program graduates. The authors collected admissions and job placement data from CACREP program liaisons (henceforth, “participants”) whose school counseling programs previously transitioned to 60 credit hours. They also explored the participants’ perceptions regarding whether transitioning to 60 credit hours impacted program admissions and graduate job placement rates. Though the study was a pilot with limited sample size (N = 22), the exploratory data may prove insightful for school counseling faculty members looking to transition programs to 60 credit hours. These data also may be helpful for researchers to understand the potential impact of credit hour transitions on programs.
Participants provided data via a 26-item electronic questionnaire. Twenty-four questions addressed quantity of applications, quality of applications (measured by enrolled students’ undergraduate grade point average [GPA], GRE scores, racial demographics, gender demographics, international demographics, and out-of-state demographics [Cassuto, 2016]), and graduate job placement rates. Two open-ended questions explored participants’ perspectives on the topic. The questions read: “From your perspective, what, if any, impact did the transition to a 60-credit graduation requirement for master’s school counseling programs at your institution have on the quantity, quality and diversity of applicants?” and, “What (if any) feedback on the survey would you like to provide to the researchers?”
Positive and Neutral Outcomes
CACREP standard 1.J. established equal credit hour requirements in order to create unity among counseling specialties, thus leading to positive effects for the profession (Williams et al., 2012). In their pilot study, the authors found that all participants contributing program data (n = 7) experienced positive or neutral effects in some items measuring admissions quality, admissions quantity or graduate job placement rates after transitioning to 60 credit hours. Although data indicated mixed experiences for two items, enrolled students’ undergraduate GPAs and GRE scores, in the majority of items participants encountered only positive and neutral effects. These items were: racial diversity of enrolled students, number of enrolled international students, number of enrolled out-of-state students, and job placement rates of program graduates.
Participants who provided comments to open-ended questions (n = 22) contributed further insights on these positive outcomes after transitioning to 60 credit hours. Nine participants explicitly stated that transitioning to a 60-credit hour minimum had a positive impact on their school counseling master’s programs. For example, one participant stated that the 60-credit hour program format “brought better applicants,” and another participant said, “I believe our student applicant pool increased in size as well as improved in quality of applicant.” A third participant indicated the following as a result of changing to 60 credit hours:
The quality of our program increased as did our enrollment. We anticipated an initial drop in enrollment that never materialized. Students told us that they preferred the comprehensive training they would get with a 60-hour program and selected us over other 48-hour programs. Our program grew as a result of moving to 60 hours.
This feedback suggests that for this participant’s program, transitioning to 60 credit hours clearly led to positive results.
Six participants responded to open-ended questions indicating neutral outcomes from transitioning to 60 credit hours. They stated that they did not believe their programs’ transition to a 60-credit hour minimum had an impact on admissions or job placement rates. For example, one participant noted, “The transition from 48 to 60 hours seemed to have no effect whatsoever on the quantity and quality and/or diversity of applicants.” Another participant described the change as having “little to no negative impact” on their program, and another described it as having “minimal impact.” The latter participant wrote, “I see no significant change in applicant qualifications.”
It is notable that three of the items that did not change for any participants—quantity of enrolled international students, quantity of enrolled out-of-state students, and enrolled students’ racial diversity—are items measuring program diversity. This finding suggests that for the participants in this pilot study, the credit hour transition did not impact applicant diversity to their school counseling programs. This may counter the notion that requiring 60 credit hours for program completion will disenfranchise certain students due to increased tuition (TSCCAIN, 2013). In addition, previous research indicates variables such as financial aid packages, faculty contact with prospective students, diverse student populations, and faculty diversity influence the recruitment of diverse students (Guiffrida & Douthit, 2010; Shin, Smith, Goodrich, & LaRosa, 2011; Talleyrand, Chung, & Bemak, 2006). These variables may be more impactful on recruiting diverse students than program credit hours.
Negative Outcomes
Despite the professed intent of CACREP standard 1.J. (Williams et al., 2012), some counselor educators speculated that such credit hour increases would have negative effects on school counseling programs (TSCCAIN, 2013). Of all participants in the pilot study whose programs transitioned to a 60-credit hour requirement, none expressed perceptions that increasing their credit hours led to negative outcomes. This finding suggests opposition to arguments that increasing to 60 credit hours will result in harmful effects in programs. The fact that 22 study participants commented on their transitions to 60 credit hours and none expressed the belief that transitioning caused negative outcomes appears noteworthy.
Descriptive statistics of program data showed that only one item, enrolled students’ gender diversity, decreased or stayed the same when participants’ programs transitioned to 60 credit hours. Although this finding may indicate worsening gender disparity in counseling, recent statistics demonstrate a consistent discrepancy in the number of male and female individuals in the counseling profession (Evans, 2013). According to data from ACA, males consistently comprised only 26–29% of the ACA membership between 2002 and 2012 (Evans, 2013). Given the consistency of these percentages over time, it is reasonable that the participants in this study saw gender diversity decrease or stay the same despite transitioning to 60 credit hours because the construct is one that is stable over time and may not have been impacted by credit hour increases. Similarly, CACREP’s 2015 Annual Report authors noted that only 18% of students enrolled in CACREP programs are male (CACREP, 2016a), adding additional legitimacy to a concern for gender disproportionality in counseling overall and disaffirming concern for decreased gender diversity due to credit hour increases.
Program Factors Impacting Outcomes
In the debate over increasing school counseling program credit hours, dialogue centered on the impact that a credit hour increase might have on programs. However, pilot study findings indicated that when programs previously transitioned to 60 credit hours, program-specific characteristics likely had a greater impact on transition outcomes than the transition itself. For example, multiple participants indicated that current events during the time of their credit hour transition appeared to impact their program admissions and student job placement rate more than the actual credit hour transition. As one participant explained:
I don’t think the 60 credits had any impact. The year we moved to 60 was right when the economy went bust, so all of our programs experienced a drop in applicants. We tend to be pretty consistent in the quality of our applicants overall as well as in the relative diversity of our applicants.
Other participants noted that their original number of credit hours prior to transitioning to 60 credits likely impacted their program outcomes after transitioning. Several participants worked in school counseling programs that transitioned from 55 or 57 credit hours to 60 credits. They stated that increasing their program requirements by just a few credit hours did not appear to impact their program admissions or graduate job placement rate.
Another participant indicated school counselors in their state are paid a higher salary if they graduate from 60-credit hour programs. Therefore, offering a school counseling program with a 60-credit hour track helped market the program, the participant reported. If school counseling faculty members work in states in which school counselors receive higher salaries for earning 60 credit hours, then a credit hour increase may lead to more positive changes in admissions than negative ones.
Lastly, hosting other counseling specialties (e.g., clinical mental health, addictions) at a university may impact a school counseling program and its transition to 60 credit hours. One participant noted that their school counseling program increased to a 60-credit hour minimum because the other counseling programs at their institution already required 60 credit hours. This participant said, “We decided to move all programs to 60 hours rather than have the difference in concentrations (in part due to perceptions of why one concentration would require more than the other).” If faculty members are increasing credit hours for school counseling programs at institutions in which other counseling programs already required 60 credit hours, the credit increase may be more widely accepted by potential applicants and lead to neutral or positive outcomes in admissions.
According to pilot study participants, each of these program factors impacted the effects their programs encountered after changing to 60 or more credit hours. Counselor educators leading school counseling programs that have not yet transitioned to 60 credit hours may take note of the factors and examine their own programs’ characteristics that may impact transition outcomes. Counselor educators would benefit from reflecting on the context and characteristics of their programs before concluding that increasing to 60 credit hours will be problematic.
Benefits to School Counselors
As the field of school counseling has evolved, so has the preparation of school counselors-in-training. Such preparation has evolved from an emphasis on vocational guidance (Cinotti, 2014), to training on comprehensive programming (ASCA, 2012; DeKruyf, Auger, & Trice-Black, 2013), to training on leadership and advocacy to create systemic change in schools (Ockerman, Patrikakou, & Feiker Hollenbeck, 2015). Researchers, counselor educators and school counselors are frequently calling for even better training. Recent calls include better preparation in instructional techniques to effectively conduct classroom guidance lessons (Ohrt, Blalock, & Limberg, 2016), collaborative coursework with educational leadership students (Beck, 2016; DeSimone & Roberts, 2016), preparation specific to working in urban areas (Hannon, 2016), suicide assessment practice (Douglas & Wachter-Morris, 2015), training in navigating professional identity issues (Gilbride, Goodrich, & Luke, 2016; Scarborough & Luke, 2008) and improved training in Response to Intervention to advance school counseling services (Ockerman et al., 2015).
In creating CACREP standard 1.J., CACREP has created an opportunity for counselor educators to add coursework that meets these calls and better prepares school counselors-in-training for the needs they will encounter in schools. Counselor educators may want to consider adding courses on the preparation topics called for, such as consultation in school counseling (Ockerman et al., 2015), leadership in school counseling (Beck, 2016; DeSimone & Roberts, 2016), and conducting classroom guidance lessons (Ohrt et al., 2016). In better training future school counselors in these areas, counselor educators can enhance the expertise of school counselors graduating from their programs, and ultimately better support K–12 students.
Lastly, CACREP’s standard 1.J. holds the potential to benefit the school counseling field as a whole. School counselors serve as both counselors and educators in schools and often receive mixed messages about this dual role (Cinotti, 2014). CACREP’s previous school counseling credit hour requirements may have contributed to school counselor role confusion, suggesting that school counselors were not as well-trained as clinical mental health counselors or counselors in other specialties requiring 60 credit hours. In establishing the same credit hour requirements for all counseling programs, CACREP has asserted that school counselors are equally as well-prepared as their colleagues in clinical mental health, marriage and family counseling, addictions counseling, and other specialties. Such an affirmation lends support to the professional standing of school counselors in the counseling field.
Future Research
With the recent release of the 2016 CACREP standards and the inclusion of standard 1.J. requiring 60 credit hours for school counseling programs, faculty members who work at programs with less than 60 credit hours may want to look to the 59 programs that have already transitioned to 60 credit hours as models for transition. Although counselor educators have understandable concerns about the impact that a credit hour increase may have on school counseling programs, previous research and the authors’ pilot study findings provide limited support for these concerns. Instead, research indicates that on average, school counseling programs may encounter improved outcomes in programs admissions and graduate job placement rates or similar outcomes to those experienced before increasing credit hours. Future research on programs that transition to 60 credits will prove valuable in confirming these outcomes.
To conduct this research, researchers will need longitudinal program data, including ongoing admissions and job placement data, from universities. In collecting data for their pilot study, the authors learned that many school counseling programs do not maintain continuous data on admissions and job placement. Of the 34 participants who initially responded to the pilot study questionnaire, 27 participants could not provide complete quantitative data on program admissions or job placement rates. Many of these participants noted that they were unable to do so because such data were unavailable. Some participants reported that transitioning to 60 credit hours so long ago inhibited them from finding and submitting data; seven participants indicated that they transitioned to 60 credit hours more than 15 years ago.
Reasons for unavailable data varied, but most had to do with the absence of data-keeping over time. One participant wrote, “I apologize that I don’t have concrete data for you. It’s a long time ago that we changed to 60 hours (8 years). I was not program director then.” Another participant explained, “We transitioned almost 30 years ago . . . and it would be impossible to get the information to you.” A different participant highlighted that aggregate data-keeping presented a challenge. They wrote, “I am sorry I cannot answer the first part of this survey. Because we have a counselor-first identity, all program admission processes are in aggregate—we do not have separate data for community counseling students, clinical mental health counseling students, and school counseling students.”
These data-keeping challenges pose an obstacle for future research on the impact of credit hour changes on counseling programs. They also support Shin and colleagues’ (2011) findings that counselor education programs often do not maintain admissions data. In their survey research study of 114 CACREP liaisons, Shin et al. found that although some participants reported maintaining admissions and student race and ethnicity data for up to 20 years, other programs reported keeping this data for as little as one year. Moreover, 57% of participants reported not retaining information on prospective students that declined admission to their programs. Although these data may or may not be related to the impact that credit hour changes have on counseling programs, these data-keeping percentages suggest that counseling programs could benefit from collecting and maintaining data in more thorough and consistent ways.
When conducting research on credit hour increases, researchers may also want to examine data points other than admissions and job placement. When counselor educators devote added credit hours to new coursework, they can consider how this coursework will benefit counselors-in-training, then measure those benefits. For example, if counselor educators devote extra credit hours to coursework in advanced techniques, they should collect and maintain data on the counseling techniques of counselors-in-training before and after transitioning to 60 credit hours. If counselor educators create extra coursework in consultation in schools, advocacy or leadership, these skills can be assessed in students before and after creating the courses. Evaluations from employers of alumni can also be examined to explore if counselor ratings improve after increasing credit hours.
If researchers are to better understand the impact that credit hour changes have on counseling programs, it is imperative that counselor educators regularly collect and store data on program outcomes. If counselor educators can begin doing so before credit hour changes take effect, they may be able to track trends in program outcomes associated with the credit hour changes over time. Researchers would be wise to begin longitudinal studies with programs in order to collect data on an ongoing basis and determine if the credit hour change has any effect. This research could prove useful in informing future CACREP standards, including potential credit hour changes. As Barkley and Percy (1984) recommended more than three decades ago, “Counselor education programs [ought to] begin keeping data on applications, acceptances, and enrollments. . . . These factors are too important to the life of most counselor education programs not to have accurate data readily available” (p. 25).
Conclusion
In the three and half decades since CACREP was established, credit hour increases for accredited programs have been met with divided reactions from counselor educators (Cannon & Cooper, 2010; Henriksen et al., 2008; TSCCAIN, 2013). The publication of CACREP’s 2016 Standards is no exception. Counselor educators are wise to consider the program implications of any new standard, including standard 1.J. However, to date, no research provides cause to believe that this standard will significantly contribute to negative school counseling program outcomes. To the contrary, previous research indicates program outcomes will improve or stay the same after increasing credit hours, and findings from the authors’ pilot study reflect similarly. Future research can provide further valuable insights on the impact of credit hour increases on counseling programs.
Conflict of Interest and Funding Disclosure
This research study was conducted by the authors and was supported in part by a CACREP Student Research Grant. The article is the sole work of the authors and does not necessarily reflect the beliefs or ideas of CACREP, the CACREP Board of Directors, or CACREP staff.
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Clare Merlin, NCC, is an Assistant Professor at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. Timothy Pagano, NCC, is a doctoral candidate at the University of North Dakota. Amanda George, NCC, is a Professional School Counselor for Loudon County Public Schools in Sterling, VA. Cassandra Zanone, NCC, is a J.D. candidate at the University of California at Los Angeles. Benjamin Newman, NCC, is a doctoral student at the College of William and Mary. Correspondence can be addressed to Clare Merlin, 9201 University City Boulevard, Charlotte, NC, 28223, cmerlin1@uncc.edu.
Jul 20, 2016 | Article, Volume 6 - Issue 2
Kathleen Brown-Rice, Susan Furr
It has been found that 10% of counselors-in-training are ill-suited for the profession (Gaubatz & Vera, 2002). In that, they have problems of professional competence (PPC) that impede their ability to function as professional counselors (Elman & Forrest, 2007). These PPC include skill competencies, ethical behaviors and appropriate personal functioning (Kaslow et al., 2007). To evaluate students in terms of professional competence and prevent those with inadequate skills and dispositions from entering the profession, gatekeeping is utilized. Counselor educators are required to be transparent in their gatekeeping procedures with students. Students are to be informed of “the levels of competency expected, appraisal methods, and timing of evaluations for both didactic and clinical competencies” and be provided “ongoing feedback” (American Counseling Association [ACA], 2014, p. 15). There has been significant research to provide counselor educators with information to establish gatekeeping and remediation procedures (Gaubatz & Vera, 2002; Homrich, DeLorenzi, Bloom, & Godbee, 2014; Hutchens, Block, & Young, 2013; Kerl, Garcia, McCullough, & Maxwell, 2002; McAdams, Foster, & Ward, 2007; Pease-Carter & Barrio Minton, 2012; Vacha-Haase, Davenport, & Kerewsky, 2004; Zoimek-Daigle & Christensen, 2010). However, little research has been done to examine the impact on counselor educators when interacting with students who have PPC and the roadblocks that impede educators’ ability to gatekeep.
Gatekeeping Procedures
Gatekeeping is a mechanism for counselor educators to determine the fitness of students to enter the counseling profession (Vacha-Haase et al., 2004). Gatekeeping begins as part of the admission process of a counseling program (Kerl & Eichler, 2007). During the admission process, counselor educators do not allow entry to prospective students who show traits, qualities or behaviors that would result in them not being able to meet professional competencies or who lack the prescribed academic requirements (Lumadue & Duffey, 1999; Swank & Smith-Adcock, 2013). However, gatekeeping is not just part of the admission process. Ziomek-Daigle and Christensen (2010) found that gatekeeping is a progressive activity that includes four phases, including preadmission screening, postadmission screening, remediation plan and remediation outcome.
Informing Students of Program Expectations
The American Counseling Association Code of Ethics (2014) provides that counseling students be aware of what type and degree of skill and knowledge will be required of them to be successful in the program, specific training goals and objectives, what students’ evaluations are based on, and the policies and procedures for students’ evaluations. One of the most important methods of ensuring understanding of expectations is informing students of the program’s expectations at the beginning of the program. Once clearly defined behaviors are established, sharing these expectations with students can result in fewer problematic situations (Kerl et al., 2002; McAdams et al., 2007). Furthermore, not providing students with clear expectations for conduct may be viewed as unfair to those wanting to become counselors (Homrich et al., 2014).
It is recommended that professional standards be made clear to students and applied consistently (Hutchens et al., 2013). Using multiple methods of distributing information is desired by students who have stated they want information shared both orally and in written form, and want the information presented throughout the program (Pease-Carter & Barrio Minton, 2012). Pease-Carter and Barrio Minton (2012) found that students desired information not only about academic expectations but also wanted to know about self-disclosure, reflection, personal growth and student rights.
Assessing Students’ PPC Behaviors
Individual programs have developed standards for evaluating students on professional competencies and use these evaluations to provide formative feedback (Kerl et al., 2002). Historically, the most commonly cited problematic behaviors have been inadequate clinical skills, defensiveness in supervision and deficient interpersonal skills (Vacha-Haase et al., 2004). Efforts to identify criteria for evaluating students in terms of professional behaviors, interpersonal behaviors and intrapersonal behaviors have recently been undertaken (Homrich et al., 2014), and these criteria provide a platform for developing clear expectations for counseling trainees.
Roadblocks to Gatekeeping
There are a variety of reasons that counselor educators do not engage in the gatekeeping process. Gateslipping rates have been reported as higher in programs where faculty members reported that their colleagues were concerned about being sued or receiving less than favorable teaching evaluations (Gaubatz & Vera, 2002; Jacobs et al., 2011). In some settings, colleagues and administration provide support for engaging in gatekeeping; however, lack of clear evidence and bias toward leniency lead to gateslippage (Brear & Dorrian, 2010). Absence of well-defined program policies may make it difficult to initiate gatekeeping conversations with a student as well (Jacobs et al., 2011).
Gatekeeping demands a great amount of time and energy, and situations involving PPC often seem unending (Gizara & Forrest, 2004). Not only do PPC have to be identified and communicated to the student, remediation plans need to be developed. Such plans may include helping the counselor-in-training obtain remedial assistance, providing intensified supervision, documenting the activities of the plan and ensuring the student understands due process options (Ziomek-Daigle & Christensen, 2010). When remediation plans are not successful, decisions about dismissal must be made, and the actions taken must be transparent (Kaslow et al., 2007).
There may be occasions where the gatekeeping responsibility is diffused among different entities. In a review of ethical issues around professional competence problems (Johnson et al., 2008), Johnson labeled this issue as the “hot potato game” (p. 589), where the last entity engaged with the problematic student is stuck with the issue. If a student is allowed to gateslip through the graduate program, then the training facility and licensing board now become involved. Rather than address the issue when it is first recognized, the student may be allowed to move to the next stage of training with the hope that the problem disappears or that that it is addressed at the next level. Addressing issues early in the training may help avoid more serious issues, like the empathy veil, later when students go to clinical sites.
The Empathy Veil
This term was coined by Brown-Rice and Furr (2014) and refers to the counselor educator’s need to empathize with the counselor-in-training, which can result in reluctance to engage in gatekeeping activities. Role tension may be one factor in developing an empathy veil. This term evolved from work by Sue and Sue (2012) where a person’s worldview is seen as having an invisible veil that is created by cultural conditioning and is believed to operate outside of consciousness. Forrest et al. (2013) found that empathy may contribute to avoiding confronting student issues for fear of damaging the relationship. Because of the role that faculty play in fostering growth and development, which often involves compassion and support, it may become difficult to provide accurate summative evaluations of trainees’ behaviors (Johnson et al., 2008). Given that many faculty members also are professional counselors, they may view their role as assisting the student in behavior change and thus work with the student to address interpersonal issues that interfere with developing counseling skills (Kerl et al., 2002). This empathy can be both a support and a challenge when difficult conversations about problematic professional, interpersonal and intrapersonal behaviors need to take place (Jacobs et al., 2011). Although empathy can create a safe environment in which to discuss difficulties, an educator’s empathy also can lead to overprotective behaviors that may actually interfere with the student’s development (Gizara & Forrest, 2004).
Role of Diversity
Another important area of consideration is how cultural differences intersect with PPC. When there is a cross-cultural student PPC situation, a complex power differential arises that not only is associated with the faculty–student relationship, but also related to cultural differences (Goodrich & Shin, 2013). Kaslow et al. (2007) proposed that consideration should be given to the impact of beliefs, values and attitudes when assessing competence problems. Fear of appearing biased may complicate identifying trainees with PPC and how decisions are made regarding students (Shen-Miller, Forrest, & Elman, 2009). The counselor educator’s own cultural background may influence how counselors-in-training are evaluated, and it is recommended that cultural dynamics be assessed when addressing PPC (Rust, Raskin, & Hill, 2013). Shen-Miller, Forrest, and Burt (2012) identified two approaches that often are used by faculty in assessing students—culture-attentive (i.e., approaches that include attention to aspects of diversity) or colorblind (i.e., inattention or minimization of differences associated with diversity). These views represent two ends of a “continuum of conceptualizing intersections between diversity and professional standards” (Shen-Miller et al., 2012, p. 1207). In trying to find a place on this continuum to address PPC, do counselor educators underidentify PPC because of fear of being biased? Or, are counselor educators more prone to overidentify PPC because of not examining contextual factors that influence competence? In this study, an attempt is made to examine counselor educators’ views of what interferes with their ability to address issues of counselor education student PPC.
Other Barriers
Previous research has found that educators believe that they have not been provided with sufficient training related to gatekeeping and remediation procedures, and they do not feel supported by their agency and colleagues (Gizara & Forrest, 2004; Vacha-Haase et al., 2004). Additionally, counselor educators may be reluctant to dismiss a student for dread of potential litigation and personal recrimination (Crawford & Gilroy, 2012; Hutchens et al., 2013) and receiving poor teaching evaluations (Gaubatz & Vera, 2002). Recent court cases have increased awareness about the legal consequences of gatekeeping. The Ward and Keeton cases have highlighted the need for counseling programs to establish clear statements about student expectations (Herlihy, Hermann, & Greden, 2014). Other cases have taught faculty members the importance of providing regular process evaluations and thorough documentation (McAdams & Foster, 2007). Reflection on the results of facing a court challenge includes the significance of having a measure of performance that helps faculty retain objectivity and the importance of adhering to established procedures (McAdams et al., 2007).
The purpose of this study was to answer the following research questions: (a) What types of master’s students’ PPC do Council for Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs (CACREP) counselor educators perceive have the greatest impact on them as educators? (b) What do CACREP counselor educators perceive are roadblocks that interfere with their ability to engage in the gatekeeping of master’s students with PPC? and (c) What is CACREP counselor educators’ knowledge of their programs’ protocol for addressing a student with PPC? In this study, student refers to a master’s student enrolled in the participant’s counseling program, colleague is another counselor educator teaching in the participant’s counseling program, and impact means to have a strong effect. PPC refers to attitudes and behaviors that could interfere with the professional competence of a counselor-in-training, including: (a) a lack of ability or opposition to acquire and integrate professional standards into one’s professional counseling behavior; (b) a lack of ability to attain professional skills and reach an acceptable level of competency; (c) a lack of ability to manage one’s stress, psychological dysfunction or emotional responses that may impact professional performance; or (d) engagement in unethical behavior (Falender, Collins, & Shafranske, 2009).
Methods
Participants and Procedures
Prior to initiating the study, institutional review board approval was obtained. Recruitment of participants was conducted by an e-mail to all faculty employed at CACREP-accredited programs in the United States. The researchers of this study obtained a list of accredited programs from the official CACREP Web site and then visited each program’s Web site to obtain the e-mail addresses of the program’s counselor educators. Seven programs did not list faculty e-mails on their university Web sites. The exact number of educators teaching in CACREP-accredited programs is not known, as the programs’ Web sites might have imprecise or out-of-date information. Based upon the e-mail addresses gathered from the university Web sites, a list of 1,584 faculty members was created. Thereafter, one e-mail solicitation was sent to all identified faculty that directed participants to an online survey entitled, Problems of Professional Competency Survey – Counselor Educator Version (PPCS-CE), which was located on Psychdata.com. Of the 1,584 e-mails that were sent, 71 were undeliverable due to lacking a valid address or security issues, 15 were returned with automatic responses that the faculty member was absent (e.g., on sabbatical, no longer at university, ill, professor emeritus), and five responses indicated that the receiver of the e-mail was not a counselor educator. This left a total sample size of 1,493 CACREP counselor educators. For a population of 1,500, a sample size of 306 is adequate to generalize with a confidence interval of 95% (Gay, Mills, & Airasian, 2009). A total of 382 participants completed the survey; however, respondents with missing or invalid data (n = 12, less than 4%) were eliminated via listwise deletion, leaving a total number of 370 participants included in this study. This resulted in an adequate sample size of 370 participants and a final response rate of 25%. Frequencies and percentages of the demographic variables in this study are reported in Table 1.
| Table 1 Numbers and Percentages of Demographic Variables |
| Variable |
Number |
Percentage |
| Gender: |
|
|
| Female |
213
|
58
|
| Male |
157
|
42
|
| Background: |
|
|
| Caucasian |
310
|
84
|
| African American |
24
|
6
|
| Hispanic/Latino |
12
|
3
|
| Multi-Racial |
15
|
4
|
| Asian/Pacific Islander |
8
|
2
|
| Native American |
1
|
1
|
| Age: |
|
|
| 20 years to 29 years |
7
|
2
|
| 30 years to 39 years |
77
|
21
|
| 40 years to 49 years |
97
|
26
|
| 50 years to 59 years |
76
|
21
|
| 60 years or older |
113
|
31
|
| Sexual Orientation: |
|
|
| Heterosexual |
331
|
90
|
| Bisexual |
9
|
2
|
| Gay or Lesbian |
30
|
8
|
|
|
|
| Description of Program: |
|
|
| Predominantly on Campus |
318
|
86
|
| Predominantly Online |
7
|
2
|
| Hybrid of Online/on Campus |
45
|
12
|
|
|
|
| Location of Program: |
|
|
| South |
146
|
40
|
| Northeast |
93
|
25
|
| Midwest |
74
|
20
|
| West |
57
|
15
|
| Highest Degree: |
|
|
| PhD – CACREP Program |
201
|
54
|
| PhD – Non-CACREP Program |
38
|
10
|
| EdS in Counseling |
10
|
3
|
| PhD – Counseling Psychology |
31
|
8
|
| PhD – Clinical Psychology |
4
|
1
|
| Other (doctoral in another discipline ormaster’s in counseling or related field) |
86
|
23
|
| Academic Rank: |
|
|
| Assistant Professor |
145
|
39
|
| Associate Professor |
102
|
28
|
| Professor |
92
|
25
|
| Clinical Instructor |
8
|
2
|
| Adjunct Instructor |
6
|
.2
|
| Other |
17
|
5
|
|
|
|
| Years Teaching in a CACREP-Accredited Program: |
|
|
| Less than 2 years |
59
|
16
|
| 2 to 5 years |
84
|
23
|
| 6 to 10 years |
90
|
24
|
| 11 to 15 years |
66
|
18
|
| 16 to 20 years |
28
|
8
|
| Over 20 years |
43
|
12
|
| Licenses and Certifications Held: |
|
|
| Licensed Professional Counselor |
201
|
55
|
| Licensed Alcohol and Drug Counselor |
21
|
6
|
| Provisionally Licensed Professional Counselor |
14
|
4
|
| Licensed Marriage & Family Counselor |
33
|
9
|
| Licensed Psychologist |
37
|
10
|
| Licensed Social Worker |
7
|
2
|
| Certified School Counselor |
95
|
26
|
| National Certified Counselor |
199
|
54
|
Instrument
The survey for this present study was designed based upon the Problems of Professional Competency Survey – Master Student Version (PPCS-MS) developed by Brown-Rice and Furr (2013), related to determining master’s students’ enrolled in CACREP-accredited programs knowledge of classmates with PPC. The PPCS-MS was constructed based upon the literature regarding PPC in psychology, counseling and social work. To establish content validity and reliability, the PPCS-MS underwent an expert review process and two pilot studies to provide clarity and conciseness of the survey questions. Additionally, a principal components analysis created components representative of what the review of the literature provided on these issues (Brown-Rice & Furr, 2013). The questions and format of the PPCS-MS were used and adjusted to create a self-report survey entitled the Problems of Professional Competency Survey – Counselor Educator Version (PPCS-CE). This instrument was divided into three parts: Part I – Demographic Information, Part II – Counselor Educators and Students with PPC, and Part III – Counselor Educators’ Knowledge of Colleagues’ PPC (removed from this analysis). Part II included three sections. Section I, Counselor Educators’ Knowledge of Students’ Problems of Professional Competency, included one question to determine whether participants have observed students with PPC and two questions to determine participants’ knowledge of the type of students’ PPC and the impact of the problematic behavior. Each PPC was rank ordered from 1 being the most common and 9 being the least common observed behavior, and the impact of having a student with PPC was ranked ordered with 1 having the most impact and 9 having the least impact. Chi square analyses of each of the rank ordered items led to a rejection of the null hypotheses of the categories of the item occurring with equal probabilities.
Section II of Part II of the survey investigated counselor educators’ reactions to students’ PPC and consisted of seven questions. The answers to all these questions were based on a 5-point Likert scale (1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree). Section III, Counselor Educators’ Knowledge of Counseling Program’s Protocol for Addressing Problems of Professional Competency, included questions relating to responsibility for being aware of students PPC and programs’ protocols for addressing PPC. The first nine questions were evaluated on a 5-point Likert scale. The tenth item was unstructured to provide a place for participants to provide additional information.
Results
Types and Impact of Students’ Problematic Behavior
Of the 370 participants, the majority (91%, n = 338) reported that they had observed students with PPC in their programs. Additionally, 2% (n = 8) of the respondents indicated they did not know if there were students with PPC in their programs, leaving 7% (n = 24) who had not observed any students with PPC. To answer the first research question regarding the types and impact of master’s students’ PPC observed by CACREP counselor educators, the responses for the 338 participants who reported observing a student with PPC were examined according to the rank order question regarding the types of PPC that participants most observed with counselors-in-training in their programs. The most frequently identified problematic behaviors included inadequate clinical skills (M = 2.90, SD = 1.88), inadequate interpersonal skills (M = 3.15, SD = 1.69), inadequate academic skills (M = 3.38, SD = 2.29), inability to regulate emotions (M = 4.16, SD = 1.88), and unprofessional behavior (M = 4.29, SD = 2.13). Those behaviors ranked as less impactful were unprofessional behavior (M = 4.29, SD = 2.13), unethical behavior (M = 5.63, SD = 2.03), psychological concern (M = 6.20, SD = 1.84), personality disorder (M = 7.60, SD = 1.61), and substance use disorder (M = 7.69, SD = 1.68).
The responses for the rank order question regarding the type of impact of having counselors-in-training in their program with PPC focused on the behaviors having the most impact on the faculty member. Included in this list were disrupted the classroom learning environment (M = 2.99, SD = 1.86), negatively affected other students (M = 3.26, SD = 1.52), increased participant’s workload (M = 3.29, SD = 2.05), and increased participant’s stress (M = 3.39, SD = 1.64). Additional items that were ranked as less impactful included negatively affected client care (M = 5.06, SD = 2.44), negatively affected relationship with students (M = 5.47, SD = .87), negatively affected relationship with colleagues (M = 6.59, SD = 1.42), negatively affected reputation of the program (M = 6.81, SD = 1.90), and a grievance or litigation occurred (M = 8.25, SD = 1.94).
Roadblocks to Gatekeeping
All participants (n = 370) completed Section II, Part II of the PPCS-CE, and these participants’ responses for strongly agree and agree were combined to report the subsequent findings. Each of the participants reported degree of agreement or disagreement regarding beliefs around the roadblocks that interfere with their ability to engage in the gatekeeping of master’s students with PPC. Fifty-three percent (n = 197) reporting struggling emotionally to balance being empathetic with a student demonstrating PPC and their gatekeeping duties. When looking at addressing PPC with a student who is culturally different from the participant, 38% (n = 141) stated they were reluctant to do so due to the fear they would appear culturally insensitive, and 36% (n = 137) were reluctant to do so due to the fear of allegations of discrimination. Regarding being supported by others, 13% (n = 47) provided they did not feel supported by their chair to address a student who demonstrated PPC, and 13% (n = 47) stated they did not feel supported by their colleagues to address a student who demonstrated PPC. Further, 92% (n = 339) were concerned about the counseling profession when a student with PPC was allowed to pass through the program. Additionally, 30% (n = 110) provided they were reluctant to address a student demonstrating PPC for fear of recrimination (e.g., negative teaching evaluations, legal action).
Protocol for Addressing Students with PPC
When the participants’ responses for strongly agree and agree were combined, 99% (n = 368) believed it was their responsibility to be aware of students with PPC, 91% (n = 335) believed that it was their chair’s responsibility, and 96% (n = 354) believed it was both their chair and respondents’ responsibility to be aware of students with PPC. Additionally, 94% (n = 347) were aware of their programs’ procedures regarding how to address problematic behavior, 71% (n = 263) reported their chair had discussed their programs’ procedures regarding addressing PPC with them, and 38% (n = 140) stated they had received training from their program regarding how to intervene with a student who they believe is demonstrating PPC. Further, 87% (n = 321) were aware of the appropriate intervention to take with students with PPC, 51% (n = 189) would like more information regarding how to identify students with PPC, and 61% (n = 226) of the participants would like more information on how to respond to a student with PPC.
Discussion and Implications
The PPC identified in this study as being observed most frequently are consistent with those problematic behaviors identified in other studies. Vacha-Haase et al. (2004) also identified that inadequate clinical skills and deficient interpersonal skills were most commonly cited as problematic behaviors. In a study examining a proposed set of standards for clinical training, Homrich et al. (2014) identified three categories of behaviors needed by graduate students in clinical training, which included professional behaviors, interpersonal behaviors and intrapersonal behaviors. The types of PPC counselor educators observed in this study parallel the findings of Homrich et al. (2014) in that inadequate clinical skills and unprofessional behavior are similar to their theme of professional behaviors, and the category of inadequate interpersonal skills is comparable to their theme of interpersonal behaviors. Inability to regulate emotions is analogous to their theme of intrapersonal behaviors. Because they were examining clinical training standards, there was no mention of academic skills, yet this type of PPC was cited as a concern by many of the respondents in this study.
Examination of these data leads to questions about how counseling programs admit students. Both academic skills and interpersonal skills are areas that can be addressed through the admissions process. Smaby, Maddox, Richmond, Lepkowski, and Packman (2005) found that undergraduate GPA and GRE Verbal scores could be predictive of scores on the Counselor Preparation Comprehensive Examination (CPCE), which focus on knowledge, but were not highly predictive of personal development. Given the level of concern over academic skills, using these cognitive measures is important, but expanding the way of assessing academic ability also needs to be sensitive to issues around diversity and bias in standardized measures.
In a survey on admission screening measures, training directors indicated that the personal interview was the most effective screening measure (Leverett-Main, 2004). Using creative group strategies during the admission process has been advocated to help assess academic potential as well as dispositions (Swank & Smith-Adcock, 2013). Smith, Robinson, and Young (2007) found that an assessment of wellness might uncover issues around psychological distress that could affect performance in a counseling graduate education program.
Previous research has indicated that faculty members have concerns about addressing PPC because of their desire to be supportive of students (Johnson et al., 2008; Kerl et al., 2002), which would support the concept of the empathy veil (Brown-Rice & Furr, 2014). In this study, 53% of respondents reported struggling emotionally to balance empathy with their gatekeeping duties to intercede with a counselor-in-training with PPC. When the open-ended responses were reviewed, participants’ responses supported this empathetic struggle. For example, one respondent stated, “I have heard many times how a grade should be considered through compassion for student circumstances rather than demonstrated competency.” Another participant provided, “Our empathy wants to give them another chance, but our ethics don’t necessarily allow for it. It’s a struggle for me. It is not a part of the job that I anticipated. Although I remember learning the concept in my doctoral program, I wasn’t prepared to address it.” Therefore, it would appear that these counselor educators are struggling with empathy veils.
When looking at other roadblocks (e.g., lack of peer and institutional support, diversity in gatekeeping, threat of litigation or recrimination from a counselor-in-training), there were some interesting findings. Previous research has found a lack of support for counselor educators from administration and colleagues in dealing with problematic students (Gizara & Forrest, 2004; Vacha-Haase et al., 2004). This concern has been found to be especially true for field supervisors (Bogo, Regehr, Power, & Regehr, 2007; Homonoff, 2008). However, the results of the current study found that only 13% stated they did not feel supported by their chair or colleagues to address a student who demonstrated PPC. The open-ended responses supported these findings. For example, participants stated, “We have a culture and climate of supporting our gatekeeping role in the counseling profession”; “My colleagues and I work as a team in addressing student concerns”; and “I feel supported by my chair and department when dealing with such issues. We deal with these issues as a department. No one is alone in addressing such issues.” Therefore, for this study, lack of institutional and peer support do not seem to be roadblocks. This could be due to the fact that all the participants in this study worked at programs that were accredited by CACREP. CACREP (2016) requires a procedure for addressing student professional and personal development. Counselor educators at programs that are not CACREP-accredited may report different findings. A limitation of this study is that only faculty from CACREP-accredited programs were contacted. Future research focusing on non-CACREP programs and site supervisors regarding this issue may be beneficial. Those working in the field may not have a deep understanding of the role of gatekeeping and may need to develop clear guidelines for their role as supervisors for both counselors-in-training and for counselors seeking licensure.
When the counselor-in-training was from a different cultural background than the counselor educator, 38% of the respondents expressed concern about appearing culturally insensitive, and 36% were concerned about allegations of discrimination. Because this survey was a self-report measure, there is risk that some participants provided answers they considered to be socially desirable (which is a limitation of the study). The field of counseling is committed to multicultural competence in skills, knowledge and awareness, which could make it difficult for counselor educators to acknowledge problematic behaviors in students who are different from themselves. Research has indicated that White counselors tend to favor the colorblind approach in disposition cases (Neville, Lilly, Duran, Lee, & Browne, 2000). Yet fear of responding in a way that appears insensitive may have contributed to responding in socially desirable ways on this instrument. More exploration is needed in this area. While recent literature has addressed how to be culturally responsive when intervening with counseling students’ problematic behavior (Goodrich & Shin, 2013), there is a lack of research regarding culturally responsive performance standards. Until the counseling profession establishes clear performance expectations that are culturally sensitive, the tension between colorblind and culture-attentive expectations will continue to complicate responding to PPC. For example, class performance often has an evaluation component concerning class participation. If a student is from a culture where students do not contribute unless called upon by the professor, then this student may perform poorly because of not understanding expectations. The professor needs to be sensitive to this type of difference and work with the student to develop ways of being successful.
Few participants reported involvement in a legal action related to gatekeeping and remediation with a student demonstrating PPC; however, 30% stated they were reluctant to address a student for fear of retaliation from the student. Given that counselor educators who have been involved in such cases have disclosed the emotional toll these processes take on a program and its faculty members (Dugger & Francis, 2014; McAdams et al., 2007), it seems understandable that there is concern. Therefore, support from ACA, resources in the form of consultation with other campuses and endorsement of gatekeeping processes from one’s own campus are essential in navigating this demanding process. Although legal actions are not common, developing appropriate gatekeeping procedures will help prevent negative outcomes (Dugger & Francis, 2014).
In addition, Brown-Rice and Furr (2014) provided that counselor educators and supervisors should “maintain appropriate ethical boundaries and avoid dual relationships with counselors-in-training, inform and educate themselves regarding the proper gatekeeping protocols and limit their own hypocrisy regarding acting in a competent and ethical manner” (p. 5). There has been substantial research and discussion regarding ethical boundaries, dual relationships and establishing proper gatekeeping procedures (Brown, 2013; Kolbert, Morgan, & Brendel, 2002; Morrissette & Gadbois, 2006; Ziomek-Daigle & Christensen, 2010). However, there seems to be a lack of attention to the competence of counselor educators and how counselors-in-training perceive educators’ professional and personal competence. Do students see faculty members engaging in the same attitudes, skills, behaviors and self-awareness that they are required to adhere to? Are counselor educators modeling the behaviors they want to see in their students or do they hold students to different standards?
Almost all the participants (94%) provided they were aware of their programs’ procedures regarding how to address problematic behavior, and 87% were aware of the appropriate intervention to take with students with PPC. However, only 38% stated they had received training from their program regarding how to intervene with a problematic student. In the open-ended responses, participants stated that their programs had established procedures and all faculty members were aware of them; however, they also reported that PPC were minimized or not addressed. For example, one participant provided, “while there is often a policy in place . . . I find that colleagues fail to follow that policy in practice.” Another respondent stated, “It is also up to the adviser to address the issue with the student and create a plan of improvement. Not all faculty do this and this leads to students receiving different treatment.” Additionally, a participant shared that colleagues were resistant to “address inappropriate student attitudes, dispositions, personality characteristics, and behaviors unless they reach such a critical threshold that they pose a significant threat to clients or, in some cases, faculty egos.” It also appears that how a student is addressed may be related to faculty dynamics. For example, “Political alliances among faculty play a major role in determining which students are targeted for intervention.”
Participants overwhelmingly reported they were aware of their programs’ procedures and the appropriate interventions to take when they encounter counselors-in-training with PPC. However, they also reported that they struggle with their gatekeeping duties due to empathy, diversity issues and fear of recrimination; half of the participants (51%) stated they would like more information regarding how to identify students with PPC, and 61% would like more information on how to respond to these students. Apparently, counseling programs are doing a good job developing procedures and communicating these procedures to faculty members, as recommended by Gaubatz and Vera (2002). But there remains a disconnect between knowledge about procedures and the ability to implement a response to PPC that may be related to the roadblocks identified in this study.
Counselor educators and supervisors know what they are supposed to do if a PPC has been clearly delineated; however, they struggle with identifying problematic behavior that reaches a threshold of needing to be formally addressed and taking action related to problematic student behaviors. The gap between the recognition that a student is not meeting expectations and the point where formal action is initiated may be filled with the counselor educators’ own beliefs about how they can fix the problem as well as their own anxieties related to the barriers discovered in this study. The recognition of and intervention with students with PPC can be further complicated by counselor educators having to negotiate faculty politics. It would seem that more attention is needed on assisting counselor educators in negotiating these barriers to ensure students do not gateslip.
Conclusion
The results of this current study provide insight that educators are aware of counseling students with problematic behaviors, and these behaviors are impacting the learning environment, other students in the program and personal stress. It also appears that the largest roadblock present and impacting counselor educators’ ability to engage in gatekeeping procedures relates to their empathy veils. The authors of this article perceive that there is a struggle for counselor educators between balancing compassion for students’ life circumstances and developmental level with holding them to an acceptable level of professional competence. Counselor educators know it is their responsibility to engage in ethical gatekeeping procedures; however, they do not want to be excessively critical of students. Having an understanding of the empathy veil will assist educators in finding the balance between challenging and supporting students. Counselor educators must not accept students with PPC into their programs or allow them to move on without confronting and remediating their problematic behaviors. Educators need to do their due diligence and be willing to lift their empathy veils and engage in their gatekeeping responsibilities.
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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Kathleen Brown-Rice, NCC, is an Assistant Professor at the University of South Dakota. Susan Furr is a Professor at the University of North Carolina Charlotte. Correspondence can be addressed to Kathleen Brown-Rice, 114E Clark Street, Vermillion, SD 57069, kathleen.rice@usd.edu.
Feb 9, 2015 | Article, Volume 5 - Issue 1
Eleni M. Honderich, Jessica Lloyd-Hazlett
A purposeful sample of 359 graduate counseling students completed a survey assessing factors influencing program enrollment decisions with particular attention to students’ awareness of and importance ascribed to accreditation from the Council for Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs (CACREP) prior to and following enrollment. Results indicated that accreditation was the second most influential factor in one half of the students’ enrollment decisions; nearly half of participants were unaware of CACREP accreditation prior to enrollment. Accreditation was a top factor that students attending non-CACREP-accredited programs wished they had considered more in their enrollment decisions. Findings from the survey indicate that prospective counseling students often lack necessary information regarding accreditation that may influence enrollment decisions. Implications for counseling students and their graduate preparation programs, CACREP and the broader counseling profession are discussed.
Keywords: CACREP, accreditation, counseling students, enrollment decisions, graduate preparation programs
The Council for Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs (CACREP) provides specialized accreditation for counselor education programs. Within higher education, accreditation is a “quality assurance and enhancement mechanism” premised on self-regulation through intensive self-study and external program review (Urofsky, 2013, p. 6). Accreditation has been reported to be particularly relevant to prospective counseling students, given increases in both the number of programs seeking CACREP accreditation (Ritchie & Bobby, 2011) and implications of program accreditation status for students’ postgraduation opportunities. Research to date has not surveyed counseling students about their knowledge of CACREP accreditation prior to or following enrollment in graduate-level counseling programs.
Graduate Program Enrollment Decisions
For prospective counseling students, selecting an appropriate counselor preparation program for graduate-level study is an exceedingly complex task. Prospective students must choose from a myriad of options across mental health fields, areas of specialization and program delivery formats (i.e., traditional, virtual and hybrid classrooms). Those prospective students who are unfamiliar with CACREP accreditation and potential implications of program accreditation status for postgraduation opportunities may not sufficiently consider accreditation a relevant criterion during selection of a graduate-level counselor education program.
To date, the majority of higher education enrollment research has focused on undergraduate students. Hossler and Gallager (1987) outlined a three-stage college selection model that integrates econometric, sociologic and information-processing concerns of prospective enrollees. The first stage, predisposition, culminates with a decision to attend college or not. Past student achievement, ability and level of educational aspiration, along with parental income, education and encouragement, are important influences at this stage. The second stage, search, includes gathering information about prospective institutions, submitting applications and receiving admission decision(s). Finally, choice, describes the selection of a college or university. Factors influencing enrollment decisions include a variety of personal and institutional characteristics including socioeconomic status, financial costs and aid, academic qualities, location, and recruitment correspondence (Hossler & Gallager, 1987).
Academic reputation, job prospects for graduates, campus visits, campus size and financial aid offerings have been identified as critical factors influencing undergraduate student enrollment decisions (Hilston, 2006). Research also has underscored the weight of parental opinions in shaping undergraduate student enrollment decisions. More limited research has examined factors influencing graduate student enrollment decisions, but appears necessary given differences across contexts of individuals making undergraduate versus graduate-level enrollment decisions.
Within a non-field-specific survey of 2,834 admitted graduate students, Kallio (1995) found the following factors to be most influential in participants’ program selection and enrollment decisions: (a) residency status, (b) quality and other academic environment characteristics, (c) work-related concerns, (d) spouse considerations, (e) financial aid, and (f) campus social environment. A more recent examination of doctoral-level students within higher education administration programs (Poock & Love, 2001) indicated similar influential factors with location, flexibility of accommodations for work–school–life balance, reputation and friendliness of faculty of highest importance. Flexibility of program requirements and delivery format also were indicated. Ivy and Naude (2004) surveyed 507 MBA students and identified a seven-factor model of variables influencing graduate student enrollment decisions. The seven factors were the following: program, prominence, price, prospectus, people, promotion and premium. Students indicated elements of the program, including range of electives and choice of majors; prominence, including staff reputation and program ratings; and price, including tuition fees and payment flexibility, as the most salient factors.
Accreditation and Graduate Program Enrollment Decisions
In a review of the status of accreditation within higher education, Bardo (2009) delineated major trends with implications for both current and prospective students. First, across higher education fields, there is heightened emphasis on accountability through documented student learning outcomes that transcend individual course grades. Second, there are calls for greater transparency around accreditation procedures and statuses. Parallel attention also is given to ethical obligations of institutions and accrediting bodies to provide clearer information to students, not only about the requirements of enrollment in accredited institutions, but also about the significance of accreditation to postgraduation outcomes (Bardo, 2009).
Accreditation is a critical institutional factor that appears to have both a direct and an indirect impact on graduate program enrollment decisions. Most directly, accreditation may be a specific selection criterion used by prospective students when exploring programs for application or when making an enrollment decision among multiple offers. Indirectly, the accreditation status of an institution likely influences each of the seven p’s identified by Ivy and Naude (2004) as informing graduate student enrollment decisions. For example, accreditation may dictate minimum credit requirements, required coursework, program delivery methods and acceptable faculty-to-student ratios. Thus, the need emerges to examine factors informing counseling students’ decisions regarding enrollment in graduate-level programs, with specific attention to students’ levels of awareness and importance ascribed to CACREP accreditation. To contextualize the current study, a brief history of CACREP and perceived benefits and challenges of accreditation are provided.
CACREP History
CACREP held its first board meeting in 1981 and was founded in part as a response to the development of accreditation standards in other helping professions, such as the American Psychological Association, the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education and the Council on Rehabilitation Education. In its history of over 30 years, a primary goal of CACREP has been to assist in the development and growth of the counseling profession by promoting and administrating a quality assurance process for graduate programs in the field of counseling (Urofsky, Bobby, & Ritchie, 2013). Currently, just over 63% of programs falling under CACREP’s jurisdiction hold this accreditation; specifically, by the end of 2013, CACREP had accredited 634 programs at 279 institutions within the United States (CACREP, 2014). In the 2012–2013 school year alone, CACREP-accredited programs enrolled 39,502 students and graduated 11,099 students (CACREP, 2014).
As described by Urofsky and colleagues (2013), some revisions to the CACREP standards represent intentional efforts toward growth, self-sufficiency and effectiveness. Such modifications reflected in the 2009 CACREP standards include greater emphases on unified counselor professional identity through specifications for core faculty members and increased focus on documented student learning outcomes in response to larger trends of accountability in higher education. In contrast to these CACREP-directed modifications, Urofsky and colleagues (2013) highlighted that some historical revisions to CACREP standards have been influenced by the larger context of the counseling field. Pertinent contextual issues include licensure portability and recognition from larger federal agencies, including the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs, Department of Defense and TRICARE, a government-funded insurance company for military personnel. Following the passing of House Bill 232 (License as a Professional Counselor, 2014), Ohio became the first state to require graduation from a CACREP-accredited program (clinical mental health, rehabilitation or addictions counseling) for licensure beginning in 2018. More than 50% of states accept graduation from a CACREP-accredited program as one path for meeting licensure educational requirements (CACREP, 2013). Further, while not directly advocated for by CACREP, graduation from a CACREP-accredited program is required for counselors seeking employment consideration in the Department of Veteran Affairs and the Department of Defense, and for TRICARE reimbursement (TRICARE, 2014).
Perceived Benefits of CACREP Accreditation
Specific benefits of CACREP accreditation have been identified in the literature at both the individual student and institutional levels, which may inform prospective students’ decisions regarding enrollment in graduate-level counseling programs. Perceived benefits of CACREP accreditation identified by entry-level counseling students include increased internship and job opportunities, improved student quality, increased faculty professional involvement and publishing, and increased acceptance into doctoral-level programs in counselor education and supervision (Mascari & Webber, 2013). Doctoral students are assured training that will qualify them to serve as identified core faculty members in CACREP-accredited counseling programs (CACREP, 2009).
Counseling students’ graduate program enrollment decisions also might be influenced by differential benefits afforded to graduates of CACREP-accredited programs who are pursuing professional licensure. Though licensure requirements vary from state to state, a growing number of states place heavier emphasis on the applicant’s receipt of a counseling degree from an accredited program (CACREP, 2013). Some states associate “graduation from a CACREP-accredited program as evidence of meeting most or all of the educational requirements for licensure eligibility” (Ritchie & Bobby, 2011. p. 52). Licensure applicants graduating from non-CACREP-accredited programs may need to provide supplemental documentation to substantiate their training program’s adherence to licensing criteria. In some instances, applicants graduating from non-CACREP-accredited programs may need additional coursework to meet criteria for licensure, which incurs additional costs and delays application processes.
Graduate programs’ CACREP accreditation status might impact counseling students’ enrollment decisions relative to postgraduation insurance reimbursement and qualification for certain job placements (TRICARE, 2014). Specifically, following intensive professional advocacy initiatives, TRICARE began recognizing and reimbursing counseling professionals as mental health service providers without the need for physician referral. However, as of now, counselors graduating from non-CACREP-accredited training programs after January 1, 2015 will be unable to receive approval to practice independently within the TRICARE system. Considering the estimated 9.5 million people insured by TRICARE (TRICARE, 2014), this contingency may present serious implications for counseling professionals who have graduated or will graduate from non-CACREP-accredited training programs. Johnson, Epp, Culp, Williams, and McAllister (2013) noted that thousands of both currently licensed mental health professionals and counseling students will be affected as they “cannot and will not ever be able to join the TRICARE network” (p. 64).
Existing literature also highlights benefits of CACREP accreditation at the program and institutional levels, which may impact counseling students’ graduate program enrollment decisions. Achievement and maintenance of CACREP accreditation entails exhaustive processes of self-study and external peer review. Self- and peer-review processes contribute to shared quality standards among accredited counselor preparation programs and demonstrated student learning outcomes based on standards established by the profession itself (Mascari & Webber, 2013). Faculty members employed by CACREP-accredited counselor education programs also appear to differentially interface with the counseling profession. Specifically, a statistically significant relationship has been found between CACREP accreditation and professionalism for school counselor educators, as reflected by contributions to the profession (i.e., journal publications and conference presentations), leadership in professional organizations and pursuit of counseling credentials (Milsom & Akos, 2005).
Perceived Challenges of CACREP Accreditation
In addition to highlighting potential benefits of CACREP accreditation, extant literature delineates potential challenges associated with CACREP accreditation, which may directly or indirectly impact counseling students’ graduate program enrollment decisions. Primary among identified challenges are time and financial resources related to the attainment and maintenance of CACREP accreditation (Paradise et al., 2011). Financial requirements associated with CACREP accreditation include application expenses and annual fees, the costs of hiring faculty to meet core faculty requirements and student-to-faculty ratios, and labor costs associated with compiling self-studies.
Considering that the 2009 CACREP standards identify 165 core standards and approximately 60 standards per specialty area (Urofsky, 2013), attaining accreditation can be a cumbersome process. Curricular attention given to each standard can vary widely across programs. In response to significant and longstanding calls for increased accountability in higher education, CACREP-accredited programs are required to identify and provide evidence of student learning outcomes (Barrio Minton & Gibson, 2012). To address this requirement, it may be necessary for some programs to reorganize curricular elements, as well as to integrate assessment software and procedures to support this data collection within their programs.
An additional challenge of CACREP accreditation surrounds perceived limitations placed on program flexibility and innovation. Paradise and colleagues (2011) found that of the counseling program coordinators they interviewed (N = 135), 49% believed that the 2009 CACREP standards “would require all programs to be ‘essentially the same” (p. 50). Among changes ushered in by the 2009 CACREP standards, education and training requirements of core faculty and the designated student-to-faculty ratios have received critical attention (Paradise et al., 2011). Clinical experience beyond the requirements of graduate-level internship is not specifically considered within requisites for identified core faculty members (CACREP, 2009, I.W.). While adopted largely to foster counselors’-in-training internalization of a clear counselor professional identity (Davis & Gressard, 2011), these standard requirements may influence program hiring decisions and curriculum content and sequencing (CACREP, 2009; Paradise et al., 2011).
Over CACREP’s history of more than 30 years, the landscape of the accrediting body, as well as the larger counseling profession it serves, has dramatically shifted. Bobby (2013) called for greater research examining the effects of CACREP accreditation on programs and student knowledge, skill development and graduate performance. A specific gap exists in the literature related to factors influencing counseling students’ graduate program enrollment decisions, including the potential relevance of students’ knowledge of CACREP prior to and following enrollment. Research in this area not only would illuminate counseling students’ propensities for making informed choices as consumers of higher education, but might also reveal critical implications for and ethical obligations of students, programs and CACREP itself within contemporary and complex accreditation climates. Consequently, the current study examined the following research questions: (a) What factors influence students’ decisions regarding enrollment in graduate-level counseling programs? (b) How aware are students of CACREP accreditation prior to and following program enrollment? (c) How important is CACREP accreditation to students prior to and following program enrollment? (d) Is there a difference in CACREP accreditation awareness between students in CACREP- and non-CACREP-accredited programs prior to program enrollment? (e) Does students’ awareness of CACREP-accreditation increase after program enrollment?
Method
Participants
In total, 40 graduate-level counseling programs were contacted to participate in this study. A purposeful sample was chosen, seeking participation from four CACREP-accredited and four non-CACREP-accredited programs from each of the five geographic regions within the United States (i.e., Western, Southern, North Atlantic, North Central, Rocky Mountain). For each geographic region, CACREP-accredited and non-CACREP-accredited programs were selected based on the criteria of student body size and status as a public versus private institution. Specifically, within each of the five geographic regions, four institutions (one small [n < 10,000], one large [n > 10,000], one private, one public) were purposefully selected for each accreditation status (CACREP, non-CACREP). Selection criteria did not include cognate focus; however, participants included students within clinical mental health; school; marriage, couple and family; counselor education and supervision; and addictions counseling programs.
A request for participation was made to the counseling department chairs of the 40 purposefully selected programs via e-mail. In total, representatives from 25 of the 40 contacted programs (62.5%) agreed that their programs would participate in this study. The participation rate of CACREP-accredited programs was higher than that of non-CACREP-accredited programs; the overall participants included 15 of the 20 contacted CACREP-accredited programs (75%) and 10 of the 20 contacted non-CACREP-accredited programs (50%). At the institutional level, counseling program participation across the five regions was representative of national program distribution. Following attainment of consent from the counseling department chairs, an electronic survey was provided to each of the 25 participating programs for direct dissemination to students meeting the selection criteria.
A total of 359 master’s and doctoral students currently enrolled in counseling programs nationwide responded to the survey. The exact response rate at the individual student level is unknown, as the number of students receiving the survey at each participating institution was not collected. Of the 359 participants surveyed, 22 surveys were deemed unusable (e.g., sampling parameter not met, blank survey response) and were not included in analyses. Of the remaining 337 participants, missing data were addressed by providing sample sizes contingent on the specific research question.
Participants’ ages (n = 332) ranged from 20–63, with a median age of 28. Gender within the sample (n = 335) consisted of 14.3% male, 85.1% female and 0.3% transgender; the remaining 0.3% of participants preferred not to answer. In regards to race/ethnicity (n = 334), 84.1% of the sample identified as Caucasian, 7.2% as African-American, 2.7% as Latino/a, 1.8% as Asian, 1.5% as biracial, 0.3% as Pacific Islander and 0.3% as Hawaiian; the remaining 2.1% preferred not to answer. The reported educational levels (n = 331) included 90.4% of participants in a master’s program and 9% in a doctoral program; the remaining 0.9% participants were postdoctoral and postgraduate students taking additional coursework. Participants reported enrollment in the following cognate areas (n = 331): mental health and community counseling (48.8%), school counseling (27.7%), marriage and family counseling (5.4%), counselor education and supervision (5.1%), other (4.0%), rehabilitation counseling (3.0%), addictions counseling (2.1%), multitrack (1.8%), assessment (1.2%), and career counseling (0.9%).
In order to obtain program demographic information based on the aforementioned purposeful sampling design, participants were asked to identify the university attended. However, as 15.5% of participants provided an unusable response (e.g., preferred not to answer), self-reported program descriptive demographic data were analyzed instead. Participants classified their institution as public or private (n = 332) as follows: 68.7% reported attending a public university and 31.3% a private university. Student population of the university also was self-reported (n = 326) as follows: 38.7% of the participants attended universities with a student population of fewer than 10,000, 23.3% with a student population of 10,000–15,000 and 38% with a student population of over 15,000. The program accreditation status per participants’ self-report (n = 307) indicated that 56.7% were enrolled in CACREP-accredited programs, 34.9% were enrolled in non-CACREP-accredited programs and 8.5% were uncertain about program accreditation status.
Procedure
The researchers implemented Qualtrics to house and distribute the electronic survey. Survey items included participant and counseling program demographics, factors influencing decisions on enrollment in graduate-level counseling programs, awareness of CACREP accreditation prior to and following enrollment, and importance ascribed to CACREP accreditation prior to and following enrollment. Relative to factors influencing decisions on enrollment in graduate-level counseling programs, participants first were asked to list the top three factors influencing their enrollment decision. Participants then were asked to select the most important factor among their top three. Additionally, participants responded to the following question: “When choosing your graduate program, is there a factor you now wish had been more influential in your decision?” Questions pertaining to participants’ awareness of and ascribed importance to CACREP accreditation included the following: (a) “When first applying to graduate school, how familiar were you with CACREP accreditation?” (b) “When first applying to graduate school, how important was CACREP accreditation for you?” (c) “Currently, how familiar are you with CACREP accreditation?” (d) “Currently, how important is CACREP accreditation for you?” Participants used a four-point Likert scale for their responses, which ranged from “very familiar/very important” to “not familiar/not important.” The category of “I was/am not aware of accreditation” also was provided where appropriate.
Results
Research question one examined the top factors participants considered and wished they had considered more when making a counseling program enrollment decision (n = 328). As shown in Table 1, results indicated the following rank order for the top 10 factors that influenced participants’ enrollment decisions: (a) location at 33.6%, (b) program accreditation at 14.0%, (c) funding/scholarships at 12.2%, (d) program prestige at 8.6%, (e) faculty at 7.7%, (f) program/course philosophy at 4.2%, (g) program acceptance at 3.9%, (h) faith at 3.9%, (i) schedule/flexibility at 3.6% and (j) research interests at 2.4%. The top 10 factors that participants wished they had considered more when making their enrollment decisions included the following: (a) “none” at 42.3%, (b) funding/scholarships at 15.2%, (c) program accreditation at 12.8%, (d) faculty at 6.8%, (e) research interests at 5.1%, (f) program prestige at 4.5%, (g) networking opportunities at 3.6%, (h) location at 2.4%, (i) schedule/flexibility at 1.5% and (j) personal career goals at 1.2%. Further analysis indicated the following three factors that participants at non-CACREP-accredited programs (n = 106) wished they had considered more when making an enrollment decision: (a) program accreditation at 31.8%, (b) “none” at 30.8% and (c) funding/scholarships at 9.3%.
Table 1
Counseling Students’ Enrollment Decision Factors
|
Factors Participants Considered
|
|
Factors Participants Wished They Had Considered More
|
|
Factor ranked order
|
% of n
|
|
Factor ranked order
|
% of n
|
| Location |
33.6 |
|
None |
42.3 |
| Program accreditation |
14.0 |
|
Funding/scholarships |
15.2 |
| Funding/scholarships |
12.2 |
|
Program accreditation |
12.8 |
| Program prestige |
8.6 |
|
Faculty |
6.8 |
| Faculty |
7.7 |
|
Research interests |
5.1 |
| Program/course philosophy |
4.2 |
|
Program prestige |
4.5 |
| Program acceptance |
3.9 |
|
Networking opportunities |
3.6 |
| Faith |
3.9 |
|
Location |
2.4 |
| Schedule/flexibility |
3.6 |
|
Schedule/flexibility |
1.5 |
| Research interests |
2.4 |
|
Career goals |
1.2 |
| Note. n = 328 |
Research question two explored participants’ awareness of CACREP accreditation prior to (n = 308) and following enrollment (n = 309) in graduate-level counseling programs. Before enrollment, only one quarter (24.7%) of the sample indicated being “familiar” (n = 49) or “very familiar” (n = 27) with CACREP accreditation. The remaining 75.3% of the sample reported less awareness of CACREP accreditation prior to enrollment, with these participants reporting only being “somewhat familiar” (n = 93) or “not familiar” (n = 139) with CACREP accreditation. In contrast, following enrollment in graduate-level counseling programs, nearly three quarters (73.1%) of the sample noted either being “familiar” (n = 124) or “very familiar” (n = 102) with CACREP accreditation. The remaining 26.9% of participants reported being “somewhat familiar” (n = 66) or “not familiar” (n = 17). Overall, the percentage of all students reporting that they were either “familiar” or “very familiar” with CACREP accreditation increased by 48.4% following enrollment in graduate-level counseling programs.
Consideration was given to potential differences in familiarity with CACREP accreditation among (a) doctoral- and master’s-level students and (b) students attending CACREP- and non-CACREP programs. For those students enrolled in a master’s-level program (n = 276), regardless of program accreditation status, 21% reported being either “familiar” or “very familiar” with CACREP accreditation pre-enrollment. For doctoral-level students (n = 27), 63% indicated familiarity with CACREP accreditation prior to enrolling in a graduate program. These results indicated that doctoral-level students appeared to show more awareness of CACREP accreditation pre-enrollment, as a 42% difference in familiarity level existed. Post-enrollment, familiarity levels increased for both groups, as evidenced by 72.8% of master’s-level students (n = 201) and 81.5% of doctoral-level students (n = 22) reporting either being “familiar” or “very familiar” with CACREP accreditation. The difference between the two groups was now 8.7%, with doctoral students exhibiting more familiarity with CACREP post-enrollment.
Students’ familiarity with CACREP prior to and following enrollment also were considered between students in accredited (n = 173) and non-CACREP-accredited (n = 107) programs, as well as among students who reported being unsure of their program’s accreditation status (n = 26). Prior to enrollment, the following percentages of students reported being either “familiar” or “very familiar” with CACREP accreditation: 31.8% in CACREP-accredited programs, 18.7% in non-CACREP-accredited programs and 0.0% among those unaware of program accreditation status. Post-enrollment, 78.2% of students in a CACREP-accredited program, 77.4% of students in a non-CACREP-accredited program and 23.1% of those unaware of their program’s accreditation status reported being either “familiar” or “very familiar” with CACREP accreditation. Overall, the results indicated that higher percentage levels of CACREP familiarity existed both pre-enrollment and post-enrollment for students in CACREP-accredited programs when compared to students in either non-CACREP programs or who were unaware of their program’s accreditation status.
Research question three explored the level of importance participants placed on CACREP accreditation prior to (n = 309) and following enrollment (n = 308) in graduate-level counseling programs. Before enrollment, 39.5% of the sample noted that CACREP accreditation was either “important” (n = 50) or “very important” (n = 73). The remaining 60.5% of participants reported the following levels of importance ascribed to CACREP accreditation prior to enrollment: “somewhat important” (n = 51) or “not important” (n = 34), or indicated they were “not aware” (n = 102) of accreditation. After enrollment, participants’ levels of importance ascribed to CACREP accreditation increased, with 79.6% of the sample describing CACREP accreditation as “important” (n = 80) or “very important” (n = 165). Approximately one fifth (20.4%) of the sample reported low levels of importance ascribed to CACREP post-enrollment, rating CACREP accreditation as “somewhat important” (n = 33) or “not important” (n = 22), or indicated they were “not aware” (n = 8) of accreditation. From pre-enrollment to post-enrollment, the percentage of students identifying CACREP as “important” or “very important” increased by 40.1%.
Potential differences in the results as a function of program accreditation status also were examined. The following percentages of students believed CACREP accreditation was either “important” or “very important” prior to graduate school enrollment: 58% if the program was reported to be accredited (n = 101), 17.8% if not CACREP accredited (n = 19), and 3.8% if the participant was unsure of the program’s accreditation status (n = 1). Post-enrollment, ascribed levels of importance increased for all students regardless of program accreditation status, as follows: 89.7% of students in CACREP-accredited programs (n = 156), 72.6% of students in non-CACREP-accredited programs (n = 77) and 38.5% of students unaware of their program’s accreditation status (n = 10) indicated that CACREP accreditation was either “important” or “very important” to them.
Research question four explored potential differences in levels of awareness of CACREP accreditation prior to enrollment in graduate-level counseling programs between participants in CACREP-accredited programs, those in non-CACREP-accredited programs and those unaware of program accreditation status. Descriptive results indicated that a difference existed between CACREP accreditation awareness levels prior to enrollment contingent on self-reported program accreditation status; to determine whether a significant statistical difference existed, a one-way ANOVA was used. The omnibus F statistic was interpreted, which is robust even when sample sizes within the different levels are small or unequal (Norman, 2010). The results indicated that self-reported CACREP accreditation statuses (i.e., accredited, non-accredited, unaware of accreditation status) were found to have a significant effect on participants’ awareness of CACREP accreditation prior to enrollment into a graduate-level counseling program, F(2,303) = 15.378, MSE = 0.861, p < 0.001. The Levine’s test was significant, indicating nonhomogeneity of variance. To account for the unequal variance, post hoc analyses using Tamhane’s T2 criterion for significance were run to determine between which accreditation levels the significant difference in the mean scores existed. The post hoc analyses indicated that prior to graduate school enrollment, participants who self-reported attendance in accredited programs were significantly more aware of CACREP accreditation (n = 173, M = 2.88, SD = 0.976) than the following: (a) participants who self-reported attending non-accredited programs (n = 107, M = 3.36, SD = 0.934; p < 0.001) and (b) participants who reported uncertainty of their program’s current accreditation status (n = 26, M = 3.77, SD = 0.430; p < 0.001). Additionally, the analysis indicated that participants who self-reported enrollment in non-CACREP-accredited programs were significantly more aware of CACREP accreditation compared to participants who were uncertain of their program’s current accreditation status, p = 0.004. Overall, the results for research question four suggested the following information regarding awareness of CACREP accreditation prior to enrollment for all students: (a) those enrolled in CACREP-accredited programs indicated the most awareness, (b) those enrolled in non-CACREP-accredited programs exhibited the second most awareness and (c) those unaware of their program’s accreditation status reported the least awareness.
The omnibus F test for research question four was re-run, looking at only students currently enrolled in a master’s-level program, teasing out potential outlier effects produced by doctoral students’ knowledge base; descriptive statistics had indicated that doctoral-level students exhibited more awareness of CACREP accreditation prior to enrollment. When examining only master’s-level students (n = 274), the results indicated that self-reported CACREP accreditation statuses (i.e., accredited, non-accredited, unaware of accreditation status) were found to have a significant effect on these students’ awareness of CACREP accreditation prior to enrollment in a graduate-level counseling program, F(2,274) = 14.470, MSE = 0.724, p < 0.001. Tamhane’s T2 post hoc analyses suggested similar results for master’s-level students’ CACREP awareness contingent on the program’s accreditation status when compared to results found for all participants (i.e., both master’s- and doctoral-level students). For master’s-level students, the following results were found: (a) those enrolled in CACREP-accredited programs indicated the most awareness, (b) those enrolled in non-CACREP-accredited programs exhibited the second most awareness and (c) those unaware of their program’s accreditation status reported the least awareness.
Research question five assessed whether participants’ levels of CACREP accreditation awareness increased after enrollment in graduate-level counseling programs. Overall, the descriptive results indicated that participants’ awareness of CACREP accreditation increased after enrolling in a counseling program regardless of other factors (e.g., grade level, program accreditation status). The two-tailed dependent t test indicated that the mean score for CACREP accreditation awareness significantly increased for all students after enrollment in a graduate-level counseling program (M = 1.130, SD = 1.046, t(306) = 18.934; p < .001), with the following mean scores reported: prior to enrollment (n = 307), M = 3.11, SD = 0.975, and following enrollment (n = 307), M = 1.98, SD = 0.869.
Discussion
The purpose of this research was to examine factors that influence students’ decisions regarding enrollment in graduate-level counseling programs, with specific attention to students’ knowledge of CACREP accreditation prior to and following enrollment. The findings of this study were congruent with previous research, indicating that counseling students deemed program location to be the most influential factor in their enrollment decision-making process (Poock & Love, 2001). A dearth of previous research existed on the role of program accreditation in enrollment decisions; the current study suggests that program accreditation status signifies the second most influential factor, reported by 14% of the participants surveyed. Across the sample, program accreditation ranked third among factors participants wished they had considered more prior to making an enrollment decision. For participants attending non-CACREP-accredited programs, the ranking of accreditation increased to the number one factor these students wished they had considered more (31.8%), closely followed by no other factors (30.8%). Results of this study suggest that while CACREP accreditation is important to some students when choosing a program, ultimately, enrollment decisions are influenced by a number of factors whose weight varies from student to student.
A critical finding emerging from this research is that nearly half of participants (45.1%) were not familiar with CACREP accreditation prior to enrollment in a graduate-level counseling program. In contrast, only 8.8% of students reported being very familiar with CACREP accreditation prior to enrollment. These results support the assertion that counseling students may lack information necessary to make an informed program enrollment choice. Specifically, if prospective students are not aware of the existence of accrediting bodies or the potential implications of CACREP accreditation for postgraduation opportunities, they may omit accreditation as a decision-making criterion for enrollment. The ranking of CACREP accreditation as the first and third most important factors that students in non-CACREP and CACREP programs, respectively, wished they had considered more appears to reflect this omission.
Relatedly, one third of participants reported being unaware of the importance of CACREP accreditation prior to enrollment in a graduate-level counseling program. Drastically, post-enrollment, less than 3% of participants reported lacking awareness of the importance of CACREP accreditation. Post-enrollment, the participants appeared to perceive CACREP accreditation as very important, with over half of the participants (53.6%) reporting this perception. Significant differences existed in participants’ awareness of CACREP accreditation prior to enrollment between participants enrolled in CACREP- and non-CACREP-accredited programs. A possible grounding for this finding may be that participants who were aware of CACREP accreditation prioritized this factor differently when making an enrollment decision. Regardless of the CACREP accreditation status of their graduate-level counseling programs, participants’ knowledge of CACREP accreditation increased significantly following program enrollment. This result suggests that accreditation is an effectively shared domain of professional socialization within counselor preparation programs, but largely not communicated to students outside formal entry into the field.
Overall, the results of this study provide a valuable window to the varied factors that prospective counseling students consider when making graduate program enrollment decisions. Interestingly, while accreditation signified an important factor in this decision-making process, many students lacked awareness of accreditation and subsequent implications of attending a CACREP-accredited program prior to enrollment. Post-enrollment, awareness of and importance ascribed to program accreditation increased for students, indicating that some students’ selection priorities changed with increased knowledge about accreditation. Ultimately, though enrollment decisions are personal choices in which students consider a number of factors, this study’s findings suggest that unfamiliarity with accreditation might impact the subsequent decisions.
Limitations and Recommendations for Further Research
Several limitations to this study must be noted. First, the results might have been biased by the use of a purposeful volunteer sample, with counseling program representatives electing whether to participate based on unknown motivations. Additionally, while the participation rate was ascertainable at the institutional level, the participation rate at the individual student level was unknown, as the number of students receiving the instrument at each participating institution was not collected. Second, the binary designation of CACREP-accredited and non-CACREP-accredited programs is broad and may not sufficiently account for rich variation across and within programs. For example, the research design did not account for programs working toward accreditation. Further, the use of self-reported program demographic information (e.g., accreditation status, institution name) may have impacted findings, as over 15% of participants preferred not to answer or gave incorrect data. Finally, data analysis did not address potential differences in participants’ responses across program cognate areas, full- and part-time enrollment statuses, or traditional and virtual program delivery formats. Future research may be informed by consideration of these demographic variables, as well as the possible relationship of students’ gender, age and race/ethnicity on graduate program enrollment decisions. Additionally, given that many participants lacked awareness of CACREP accreditation prior to enrollment, but ascertained this knowledge while enrolled, future research should examine specific educative venues through which students learn about CACREP accreditation prior to and following enrollment in graduate-level counseling programs. Results of research examining how counseling students become, or fail to become, knowledgeable about CACREP accreditation can inform outreach efforts. Qualitative examination of these questions, as well as of students’ lived experiences within and outside CACREP-accredited programs, would be particularly helpful. Examination of counselor educators’ levels of awareness of and importance ascribed to CACREP, within both accredited and non-accredited programs, also is suggested.
Implications for Counselor Preparation Programs and the Broader Profession
Results of this study suggest critical disparities among counseling students’ awareness and perceptions of CACREP accreditation prior to and following enrollment in graduate-level counseling programs. Considering the increased implications of accreditation within the counseling profession, this study’s findings substantiate a professional need to assist individuals in making optimally informed decisions about graduate school. Such an intervention moves beyond the individual student level, bringing renewed attention to the obligations of counselor preparation programs and professional associations. Though prospective students bear the responsibility of the enrollment decision, such an argument becomes confounded (and circular) when one considers that about 50% of students surveyed were unfamiliar with CACREP accreditation prior to graduate school enrollment.
Program Level
This study supports Bardo’s (2009) assertion of the responsibility of programs to educate students about the benefits, challenges and rationale of accreditation. Transparent and educative dissemination of facts relative to the significance of accreditation is becoming paramount, particularly in light of new state-level requirements for licensure (License as a Professional Counselor, 2014) and continued movements toward portability, which may introduce new liabilities for programs not accredited by CACREP. Programs may wish to integrate such information about CACREP accreditation into recruitment processes and application materials, such as program websites, on-campus visits and open houses, and prospective student communications. The intention is to assist students in making well-informed decisions when choosing a counseling graduate program related to individual preferences and goals. For non-accredited programs, such transparent discussions may pose additional implications, considering that participants of this study deemed accreditation an important enrollment decision factor. However, because students prioritize enrollment decision factors differently, non-accredited programs still have the potential to attract students through their program’s prestige, philosophy, faculty, location and other factors that individuals prioritize.
Broader Professional Level
Among contemporary influences on the counseling profession, the TRICARE resolution is a particularly significant event. Graduation from a CACREP-accredited counselor preparation program increasingly differentiates students’ postgraduation employment and licensure opportunities. It is essential to recognize the differing, and potentially incongruent, contexts emerging for CACREP-accredited and non-CACREP-accredited programs. While complex, there is a clear need for proactive and inclusive dialogue across the profession that both minimizes potential collateral damage and maximizes the power of unified preparation standards for achievement of broader goals of professional recognition and licensure portability.
Results of this study lend support to the assertion that CACREP and other professional associations must find new ways of reaching out to non-accredited programs in order to assist them in recognizing the benefits and importance of accreditation, not only for their graduating students and individual institutions, but also for the counseling profession as a whole (Bobby, 2013). It also is essential that both financial support and mentorship continue to be provided to counselor preparation programs seeking and maintaining CACREP accreditation. Directed professional advocacy efforts to inform various stakeholders about the importance of CACREP accreditation as a national preparation standard also are recommended (Mascari & Webber, 2013).
Summary
The history of CACREP as an accrediting body has been and continues to be inextricably connected to broader movements of the counseling profession. Ultimately, the credibility and importance of CACREP accreditation remains grounded in the larger profession it serves. Ongoing respectful and critical dialogue related to CACREP is imperative within the general profession, and more specifically, with potential students of graduate-level counseling programs. Such transparent discussions are grounded by this study’s findings—although many students considered accreditation an influential factor when making enrollment decisions, nearly half of the participants sampled were unaware of accreditation prior to enrollment in a counseling graduate program. Assisting vested stakeholders, including institutions and students, in making informed decisions is an important part of the dialogue that is introduced through this research and invites subsequent conversation.
Conflict of Interest and Funding Disclosure
The authors reported receiving a grant contribution
from CACREP for the development of this manuscript.
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Urofsky, R. I. (2013). The Council for Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs: Promoting quality in counselor education. Journal of Counseling & Development, 91, 6–14. doi:10.1002/j.1556-6676.2013.00065.x
Urofsky, R. I., Bobby, C. L., & Ritchie, M. (2013). CACREP: 30 years of quality assurance in counselor education: Introduction to the special section. Journal of Counseling and Development, 91, 3–5. doi:10.1002/j.1556-6676.2013.00064.x
Eleni M. Honderich, NCC, MAC, is an Adjunct Professor at the College of William and Mary. Jessica Lloyd-Hazlett, NCC, is an Assistant Professor at the University of Texas-San Antonio. Correspondence can be addressed to Eleni M. Honderich, College of William & Mary, School of Education, P.O. Box 8795, Williamsburg, VA 23187-8795, emhond@gmail.com.
Oct 6, 2014 | Article, Volume 2 - Issue 2
Yuh-Jen Guo, Shu-Ching Wang, Shelly R. Statz, Craig Wynne
Growing individual access to the Internet helps universities take advantage of academic webpages to showcase unique characteristics and recruit prospective students. This study explored how the Council for Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs (CACREP) accredited counseling programs have utilized their program webpages for similar purposes. Results indicate many deficiencies existing in the contents of webpages hosted by CACREP counselor education programs.
Keywords: CACREP, accreditation, webpages, internet, counselor education
The world is moving to the rhythm of the Internet at a very fast pace. Thirty percent of the world population connects to the Internet, 78.3% of the North American population is online, and the usage of the Internet has increased 480.4% in the past 10 years (Miniwatts Marketing Group, 2011). In 2010, the Internet surpassed the television as the “essential medium” (Edison Research, 2010), whereas social network websites connected 77% of the population 18–24 years old (Edison Research, 2010). Webpages have become the virtual venue of information inquiry and socialization.
The counseling profession also rode the surge in Internet technology. Sampson, Kolodinsky, and Greeno (1997) foresaw several potential uses of the Internet in counseling. The marketing and delivery of various counseling services online, as well as supervision and research were identified by these authors as emerging areas for online counseling practices. To date, career exploration (American College Testing, n.d.; Sampson, 1999) has been moved from traditional page flipping to web browsing. Counseling has been effectively practiced online in the specialties of career counseling (Gati & Asulin-Peretz, 2011), college counseling (Derek, 2009; Quartoa, 2011), supervision (Chapman, Baker, Nassar-McMillan, & Gerler, 2011; Nelson, Nichter, & Henriksen, 2010), mental health counseling (Heinlen, Reynolds-Welfel, Richmond, & Rak, 2003; Mallen, Vogel, & Rochlen, 2005), self-help groups (Finn & Steele, 2010), and counselor education (Benshoff & Gibbons, 2011; Rockinson-Szapkiw, Baker, Neukrug, & Hanes, 2010).
A prominent feature of the Internet is the information super highway that provides tremendous materials online for information searching and inquiry (Kinka & Hessa, 2008). Universities and colleges take advantage of the Internet and publicize institutional information online through their webpages (Middleton, McConnell, & Davidson, 1999). Students now have the opportunity to access facts about a prospective university and academic program in which they are interested (Poock & Lefond, 2001, 2003). The current functions of university webpages have been extended beyond the online showcase to the active role of public relations (Gordon & Berhow, 2009) and student recruitment (Kittle & Ciba, 2001; Poock & Lefond, 2001, 2003). However, there is a need to increase research on the actual effectiveness of university websites in satisfying the prospective users (Middleton et al., 1999).
Very little attention has been devoted to the study of the use of the graduate counseling programs’ webpages (McGlothlin, West, Osborn, & Musson, 2008), even though the use of the Internet has become popular in various aspects of counseling training and practices. McGlothlin, West, Osborn, and Musson (2008) noted the potential capacity of counseling programs’ webpages as online marketing tools and conducted a review of webpages for 187 CACREP-accredited counseling programs. Their results indicated various deficiencies, such as missing CACREP accreditation information. This study reviewed the webpages of all CACREP-accredited counseling programs in order to examine the essential published information and to explore possible deficiencies which may prevent these webpages from being effective marketing tools for prospective students.
Method
CACREP Webpages
All CACREP-accredited counseling programs listed on the CACREP directory page (CACREP, n.d.) were used in this study. It was important to point out that one counseling department could house multiple accredited counseling programs; hence these counseling programs would share the departmental webpages. Few universities had multiple campuses where independent counseling programs were operating. The review criteria was to count each set of webpages for one content review even though there might be two or three accredited counseling programs sharing the same departmental webpages. Counseling programs in different campuses were counted separately when they were listed as different accredited programs on the CACREP directory.
A total number of 220 departmental webpages were reviewed. Within these 220 departments, researchers reviewed webpage contents covering 528 CACREP-accredited counseling programs. There were 42 institutions with 66 CACREP-accredited programs not accessible either from the CACREP directory list or the main institutional webpages. During the research process, multiple attempts to access the webpages of these 66 counseling programs had failed, and these programs were subsequently excluded from this study.
Procedure
A list of CACREP-accredited programs was retrieved from the CACREP directory page (CACREP, n.d.) during the 2009–2010 academic years. This directory provided links to all CACREP program webpages. When the links on the directory were not accurate or up-to-date, online search engines, including Google and Yahoo, were used to access program webpages. This route took researchers to the institutional webpages or the departmental webpages. In some cases, researchers were able to find the counseling program webpages through institutional or departmental webpages. Some program webpages were not able to be located after multiple attempts.
Two graduate students were trained as webpage reviewers. They went over a couple of webpages with researchers to become familiar with the process of reviewing webpage contents and determining the major content categories. One reviewer took an academic semester to examine all program webpages. The first reviewer began with the contents of several program webpages to create a list of major content categories from those webpages. This reviewer then presented the categories, such as “program mission” and “current student,” to the researchers. The category presentation was held to verify the efficiency and accuracy of the reviewer. Throughout the review process, the reviewer remained in constant communication with researchers and discussed unclear webpage contents with researchers to determine how to categorize such contents. The second reviewer followed the exact same links to review all CACREP program webpages independently and she compared her review results with those of the first reviewer to verify the accuracy of the recorded data. The second reviewer took another academic semester to complete this task. Both reviewers continued to access the program webpages with broken links on CACREP directory. They tried to locate these webpages through the institutional and departmental webpages. Those inaccessible webpages of counseling programs were excluded from this study.
The major content categories were determined on those common webpage headlines and information grouped in sections or links for prospective users. The common headlines included topics such as program mission and program description. Essential information included sections such as program contact information and the links for current students or faculty and staff. Many universal terms, such as mission and department contact, were used across the majority of program webpages. When reviewers encountered webpage contents they were not certain about how to categorize, they brought these contents to discuss with researchers in order to determine the categories for these contents. Reviewers were counting what common headlines were published on any given program webpages. Either these common headlines were listed on webpages or they were not. Essential information might contain additional contents that reviewers needed to count the accessible numbers. For example, one program webpage could list seven full-time faculty members, but it only provided three links to access three faculty’s publication records. In this case, there would be a “7” on the faculty count and a “3” on faculty publication.
Data Analysis Process
As explained in the procedure and methods section, two types of data were eventually collected in the review process. A set of nominal data was generated from reviewers’ examination on common headlines or essential information in webpage contents. The nominal data was coded as “0” and “1” to represent whether or not one headline or information existed on a particular webpage. For example, when reviewers were able to see the mailing address on one webpage, they would mark a “1” on the category of program mailing address. Nominal data could be tallied for total numbers. Another set of data was the interval data acquired by counting the numbers listed under one category. A total of 28 major categories were compiled by reviewers.
A careful examination of these 28 categories allowed researchers to group them into three content domains: program, faculty, and students. Each of the three domains contained a number of categories delivering essential information for that domain. For example, the program domain would contain categories such as mailing address, e-mail address, and mission, which all related to what the program was about. Based on the different qualities of the two data types and the purposes of this study, a descriptive analysis (Creswell, 2008) was selected to describe the data sets. This procedure was used to depict the content quality of the webpages of CACREP-accredited counseling programs and reveal what could be the deficient areas on program webpages.
Results
The review process was able to access 220 program webpages (84%) from a list of 262 departments offering at least one CACREP-accredited counseling program. These 220 departmental webpages contained information for 528 CACREP-accredited counseling programs (88.9%) from 594 programs listed on CACREP directory. A total of 28 categories carrying the essential information were labeled. These categories were grouped into three domains of program, faculty and student based on the types of information presented in the categories. The program domain consisted of categorical information about the counseling program. Information in a program domain aimed to introduce a counseling program to prospective users. The faculty domain contained categorical information aimed to introduce counselor educators to prospective users. The student domain consisted of categorical information which counseling programs provided for prospective and current students, as well as alumni.
Figure 1 represents the results of our investigation on the essential information published on all accessible webpages of CACREP-accredited counseling programs. The data in Figure 1 indicated whether or not a type of essential information was displayed on program webpages and the numbers of counseling programs actually displaying the essential information.
Among the 28 major content categories, nine categories were placed under the program domain: (1) program mailing address, (2) program phone number, (3) program description, (4) CACREP accreditation information, (5) program e-mail address, (6) program director information, (7) program goals, (8) program mission, and (9) program vision. Eleven categories were grouped under the faculty domain: (1) faculty resources pages, (2) faculty roster, (3) faculty e-mail addresses, (4) faculty degrees, (5) faculty photos, (6) faculty research interests, (7) faculty webpages, (8) faculty credentials, (9) faculty publications, (10) faculty presentations, and (11) faculty vitas. Eight categories were placed under the student domain: (1) student resources pages, (2) prospective student pages, (3) current student pages, (4) university admission link, (5) alumni pages, (6) student organization page, (7) counseling resources pages, and (8) student employment information.
Among the 28 categories, two categories had a 100% accessibility rate (220 out of 220). The “student resources” and “program mailing address” were accessible on all program webpages. The category of “program vision” had the least accessibility with only 12% found on counseling program webpages. Many categories in the faculty domain appeared to have lower accessibility rates compared to those in program and student domains. Six out of 11 categories of faculty domain did not have high accessibility rates: research interests (65%), web pages (63%), credentials (63%), publications (45%), presentations (37%), and vitas (33%). Only the faculty resources pages had high accessibility (98%).
In addition to the descriptive analysis presented in Figure 1, interval data was collected and tabulated in Table 1. Table 1 displayed the counts on ten categories of the faculty domain. This table compared each category against the total number of counseling faculty listed by 528 counseling programs. There were 1,469 counselor educators listed on the counseling department webpages where the faculty was employed. However, the information in the ten categories of faculty domain did not show an equivalent accessibility across all counseling programs.
The list in Table 1 showed a ranking of faculty information available to online public access. Among the total of 220 program webpages, there were 191 webpages posting faculty rosters which could be used to count the full-time counselor educators in those departments. A total of 1,469 counselor educators were listed as full-time faculty members. Not all categories were available on all 191 program webpages. The third column displayed the numbers of program webpages allowing access to a particular category.
Among the 1,469 counselor educators, there were 1,254 e-mail addresses (85.4%) and 1,072 highest graduate degrees (73%) posted with the faculty names. Faculty photos were found on 1,004 counselor educators (68.3%), but only 875 faculty webpages (59.6%), which were used to present personalized information about counselor educators, were able to be found on program webpages. Counselor educators’ research interests were accessible for 702 faculty members (47.8%). A total of 522 counselor educators (35.5%) had displayed the professional credentials or licenses they held. The program webpages only posted the publication records of 514 counselor educators (35%) and professional presentation of 326 (22.2%). Faculty vitas were made available on 72 program webpages with a count of 337 counselor educators (22.9%).
Discussion
Webpages have become a popular media for online information disclosure and exchange (Bateman, Pike, & Butler, 2011; Tapscott & Williams, 2008). The Internet is a crucial technological tool which counseling programs are utilizing. In this study, 84% of counseling departments were accessed and 88.9% of CACREP-accredited counseling program webpages were reviewed. This percentage was close to the number (86%) reported by a previous study (Quinn, Hohenshil, & Fortune, 2002). Most counseling programs, 90% or more, listed their contact information (mailing, e-mail, phone, and program director’s contact information) as well as program description (97.7%) and CACREP accreditation information (97.3%) on their webpages. Such findings concurred with results found in a previous study indicating that a high percentage (above 75%) of contact information could be detected on department webpages (McGlothlin et al., 2008). However, our findings endorsed improved display of CACREP information (an increase from 62% to 97.3%) and program description (from 75% to 97.7%). The accessibilities of program goals, mission and vision were all below 69%, with vision being the lowest (12%). Although our findings indicated that program vision was not a common item on department webpages, students should have easy access to contacting a counseling program and identifying whether or not a program is CACREP-accredited.
Regarding faculty information, the majority of counseling programs posted faculty resource pages (97.7%) and faculty roster (87%). It was noticed that some counseling faculty members were listed within the collegial faculty roster and without a tag to identify who was a member of the counseling faculty. Table 1 also indicated that not every counselor educator had his or her essential information online for public browsing. Among the 1,469 listed counselor educators, students would be able to access the information containing faculty e-mail addresses (85.4%), highest degrees (73%), photos (68.3%), individual faculty webpages (59.6%), research interests (47.8%), licenses and credentials (35.5%), and faculty publications (35%). The lowest percentages of accessibility on faculty information were faculty vitas (22.9%) and faculty presentations (22.2%).
Our findings confirmed the high percentage of faculty contact information and the low percentage of faculty descriptions reported by a previous study (McGlothlin et al., 2008). McGlothlin et al. (2008) reported that 87.7% of webpages contained faculty contact information and 46% contained faculty description. Our study further examined the contents of faculty description and found an uneven and inconsistent style of information disclosure. It was clear that not every listed faculty member displayed all of the following information online: (1) e-mail address, (2) highest earned degrees, (3) photos, (4) personal webpages, (5) research interests, (6) credentials or licenses, (7) publications, (8) presentations, and (9) vitas. These deficiencies may potentially pose difficulties for students who access program webpages for faculty information.
Clearly, counseling programs should provide essential information for past, current and prospective students. Our results indicated that counseling programs had primarily constructed webpages with information for current and prospective students, as well as alumni. These student pages included student resources (100%), prospective students (99.5%), current students (98.6%), alumni (96.3%), and student employment (86.8%). The high percentages of accessibility demonstrated that counseling programs focused more on maintaining webpage information related to students.
Our results concluded that most counseling programs considered the main function of their webpages as a tool to communicate with students due to the high percentage of student-related webpages. On the other hand, information about counseling programs themselves had not been valued equally. The introduction of counseling programs was less focused because the program contact information obtained a high accessibility rate, but the program missions and goals were often omitted. Faculty information appeared to have an even lower emphasis on program webpages. The low accessibility of faculty information was represented by the below 50% display rate of faculty’s research interests, licenses and credentials, publications, presentations, and vitas. Our findings suggest that CACREP counseling programs concentrate their web design efforts on enriching student-related pages, but devote less effort on the construction and maintenance of webpages displaying essential information on counseling programs and their faculty. However, this would be a debatable conclusion without further investigation on counseling students’ browsing preferences.
Implications
The use of webpages in counseling programs needs more thorough research to determine how to effectively disclose and exchange essential online information to students and the public. Several critical points and questions have been raised from our research that can assist future web design in counseling programs:
1. It is important to determine what essential materials should be disclosed and exchanged on program webpages. A proper web design and the quality of information disclosure are vital criteria for effective webpages (Maddux & Johnson, 1997). Counseling programs have to carefully consider how they want to be viewed on the Internet. Who are the potential viewers of department webpages? What specific information are viewers seeking? Will the information be useful to the viewers and benefit the programs?
2. Webpage marketing must monitor its dissemination of information and web design (Poock & Bishop, 2006). Information posted on webpages should attract viewers’ attention and satisfy browsing purposes. Careful consideration of web design can provide easy access to information sought by viewers.
3. Counseling programs need to consider the value of their webpages within the university web structures. When counseling programs do not have full control of their webpages, their information dissemination and design may lack integrity. Webpage viewers look for fast and effective access to desired information (Poock & Bishop, 2006), and when viewers access program information via college or university websites, they may be discouraged by the lack of quick access.
4. Awareness of cultural factors is necessary for the design of webpages in counseling programs. Maddux, Torres-Rivera, Smaby, and Cummings (2005) repeated a study (Torres-Rivera, Maddux, & Phan, 1999) regarding multicultural counseling-related websites and concluded there were deficiencies on the display of culturally related information. Considerations for the accessibility of disabled viewers are needed since counseling program webpages might contain obstacles that hinder disabled viewers’ free access (Flowers, Bray, Furr, & Algozzine, 2002). Since the webpages are reaching an audience beyond offices and campuses, they need to include cultural sensitivity.
5. In addition to online marketing, webpages carry departmental public relations into the virtual world (Gordon & Berhow, 2009). Hill and White (2000) indicated that webpages carry the images of the programs they are representing. It is certainly not a professional appearance when items and information are missing or partially displayed on program webpages. With limited resources, counseling programs need to construct their webpages in a professional manner and formulate the webpages to distribute high quality and thorough information.
6. In light of webpage usage, new features are constantly emerging in web design. Many popular forms of online media, such as Facebook and YouTube, may certainly enrich the contents of counseling program webpages. For example, the use of images (Vilnai-Yavetz & Tiffere, 2009) and video (Audet & Paré, 2009) on webpages achieves specific advantages for viewers. In addition to information dissemination, the communication feature of webpages also is important to web design (Gordon & Berhow, 2009; Kent & Taylor, 1998). This feature allows viewers to communicate with the programs and receive timely feedback (Kent & Taylor, 1998). Counseling programs should consider incorporating these advanced features into their program webpages to better reach viewers.
It is important to make sure that webpage viewers will be able to access desired information easily on departmental webpages. Future research efforts should focus on what essential information should be displayed on counseling program webpages, as well as the satisfaction of program webpage users.
Limitations
It is important for readers to realize the potential limitations for interpretation and generalization of these research results. Webpages are frequently changed and upgraded. Subsequent improvements and revisions may dramatically change the outlook of the reviewed webpages. Our assessment should be considered a “snapshot review” since our project intended to produce a “one-shot” quantitative measurement of counseling program webpages. Less attention was paid to the quality of contents and the methods and services for information disclosure, such as video clips, and information exchange, such as message boards. Further studies on the effectiveness of various web design tools and features among counseling program webpages should be able to provide more in-depth information on effective counseling program webpage designs.
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Yuh-Jen Guo, NCC, is an Assistant Professor at the University of Texas at El Paso. Shu-Ching Wang works at the Ysleta Independent School District, El Paso, Texas. Shelly R. Statz is a social worker at the University of Wisconsin Family Medicine Residency program. Craig Wynne is a doctoral student at the University of Texas at El Paso. The authors thank Drs. Rick Myer and Sarah Peterson at UTEP for their assistance in manuscript preparation. Correspondence can be addressed to Yuh-Jen Guo, University of Texas at El Paso, 705 Education Building, College of Education, 500 West University Avenue, El Paso, TX 79968, ymguo@utep.edu.
