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...counseling-related programs to foster students' development as potential researchers.
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Applied types of counseling programs continue to be plagued by low levels of research productivity among their students and their graduates. For example, only 17% to 25% of doctoral-level psychology students (e.g., counselor education, counseling psychology graduates) choose academic settings, which are more likely to require research activities as their primary place of employment (Bailey, 2004; Zimpher, 1993), whereas 76% of counseling graduates become employed in practice settings (Zimpher DeTrude, 1990). Approximately 24% of psychology graduate students are ABD (i.e., all but dissertation) 2 years after their expected graduation date (Sanchez-Hucles & Cash, 1992), and only 25% of counseling psychology graduate students published at least once within a year and a half following their graduation (Zimpher, 1993). Two decades ago, counseling psychologists were publishing at a mean rate of seven and a modal rate of zero publications (Royalty & Magoon, 1985). More recently, the modal and median numbers of first and/or sole authorships among counseling and clinical psychologists remain low, ranging from zero (Brehms, Johnson, & Gallucci, 1996) to an average of 1.6 per year among counseling psychologists (Gore, Murdock, & Haley, 1998). These values are comparable with those reported by faculty employed in rehabilitation counselor education programs (i.e., mean number of empirical and nonempirical articles published in past 2 years was 1.76 and 2.0, respectively; Bieschke, Herbert, & Bard, 1998). Even the number of research manuscripts submitted to counseling journals has decreased over time (Whiston & Robinson, 1997).
This issue becomes even more of a concern when one looks at the research productivity of women and ethnic minority faculty (Brinson & Kottler, 1993; Fouad et al., 2000; Fouad & Carter, 1992). Differences in research productivity between women and men are evident even before they begin their employment in psychology-related academic programs. For instance, women and men report an average of 1.61 and 2.88 publications, respectively, prior to completing their doctorates (Cohen & Gutek, 1991). After the length of time employed in one's first position is statistically controlled, these gender differences disappear only when these individuals reach full professor status (i.e., assistant professor: 5.53 for women, 10.77 for men; associate professor: 8.69 for women, 14.8 for men; full professor: 19.07 for women, 29.55 for men; Fouad et al., 2000). Although the number of publications associated with female full professors appears to continue to be much lower than those associated with their male counterparts, these numerical differences are a result of men's greater length of employment in academic settings. A survey of ethnic minority counselor education faculty employed in programs accredited by the Council for Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs (CACREP) found that, on average, faculty members were only publishing at most one article per year (Bradley & Holcomb-McCoy, 2002). This low level of faculty research productivity is of great concern and has implications for faculty members' ability to facilitate the identity development of their students as potential researchers.
Taken as a whole, these publication-related statistics are both alarming and enigmatic, given that students do, in fact, express an interest in conducting research (Bieschke, Bishop, & Herbert, 1995) and in obtaining employment in an academic setting (i.e., 25% of the 2002 psychology graduates with doctorates; Bailey, 2004). Why do these percentages remain small despite counseling programs' recent efforts to better understand the aspects of research training environments that facilitate and hinder student involvement and interest in research, and what additional efforts will facilitate the involvement of students in research during their graduate training and possibly after they have completed their degree programs?
In response to the first question, there are several possible reasons for the lack of research productivity among counseling graduate students. These include (but are not limited to) low levels of research self-efficacy (Bishop & Bieschke, 1998; Brown, Lent, Ryan, & McPartland, 1996; Phillips & Russell, 1994); the unfortunate, yet sometimes accurate, perception that research is not personally meaningful (Heppner, Kivlighan, & Wampold, 1999; Hill, 1997) or relevant to their practice interests (Swickert, 1997); greater interest in practical applications or direct service activities rather than research (Holland, 1986; Leong & Zachar, 1991; Royalty & Magoon, 1985); and pressure and time constraints associated with simultaneously managing numerous professional and personal life roles (Bowman, 1997; Hill, 1997).
To their credit, counseling programs have made a concerted effort to revise research training environments to foster positive attitudes about research, which, it is hoped, would ultimately result in greater research productivity among their students. Several programmatic variables such as involving students in research early in their training and in minimally threatening ways, assisting students to look inward for research ideas, teaching about and valuing a variety of approaches to research, and conducting research as a partly social experience have been identified as factors necessary to increase student involvement in research (Gelso, 1993). This increased attention to the research training environment has proved beneficial in a number of ways. For instance, students' perceptions of the research training environment have been positively linked to research self-efficacy (Brown et al., 1996; Kahn, 2001; Kahn & Scott, 1997; Phillips & Russell, 1994) and productivity (Larson & Besett-Alesch, 2000; Phillips & Russell, 1994).
Although these efforts have been beneficial, unfortunately they have not served to enhance research interest and productivity to the extent that was expected. The amount of research conducted by graduate students remains dismally low (Zimpher, 1993), indicating that there is still much work to be done to understand this phenomenon.
One reason for the continued lack of student research productivity may have to do with the reality that retention and tenure decisions at research-oriented universities are determined, in large part, by faculty members' ability to publish in high-tier, peer-reviewed journals. Thus, low levels of faculty research productivity are likely to result in job loss for those individuals who may have a genuine interest in conducting research but question their own research abilities and whether they will be able to meet the tenure requirements associated with their particular academic setting (i.e., research productivity as measured, in part, by the number of publications; Mintz, 1992; Moyer, Salovey, & Casey-Cannon, 1999). Unfortunately, these faculty members are the very individuals who may be more likely to want to provide students with positive and inspiring programmatic research experiences.
Examination of the existing findings on research environment variables also provides some degree of insight into this phenomenon. The amount of variance accounted for by variables hypothesized to relate to interest and involvement in research indicates that some of these research training environment factors are more salient than others. According to Gelso and Lent (2000), research training environment, self-efficacy, and outcome expectations account for approximately 5% to 20%, 19%, and 43% of the explained variance, respectively, with regard to various research-related outcome criteria. Thus, the amount of unexplained variance indicates that other important factors have yet to be identified...
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