The first paragraph of the preface in Richard Balkin and David Kleist’s book Counseling Research: A Practitioner-Scholar Approach acknowledges that research is probably not something that most counselors get excited about.
However, it’s a much-needed endeavor and something that counselors are particularly suited for, they write.
“Counselors make great qualitative researchers because of the natural fit of hearing our clients’ narratives and to establishing meaning from them. These same skills can be used in developing meaningful research,” they write.
Counseling Research: A Practitioner-Scholar Approach was published by the American Counseling Association this year. Balkin, a professor and doctoral program coordinator at the University of Louisville and Kleist, a professor and chairman of the Department of Counseling at Idaho State University, know each other through their work in the Association for Counselor Education and Supervision (ACES), a division of ACA.
Counseling Today sent the co-authors some questions, via email, to learn more.
Your book emphasizes the “practitioner-scholar model” for research. Can you elaborate on that?
Rick Balkin: As a journal editor [Balkin is editor of ACA’s Journal of Counseling & Development], one of the topics discussed often is the gap between practice and research. Does one reflect the other? It should, and we see this in the ACA Code of Ethics, “Counselors have a responsibility to the public to engage in counseling practices that are based on rigorous research methodologies” (p. 8).
Many future counselors might think they will never do research, but they will definitely use research in their practice, and so we hope this text serves as a nice bridge. Furthermore, we provided sections on research design [to] help emerging researchers, such as a beginning doctoral student, begin to conceptualize how they can design and conduct research.
David Kleist: For myself, I was strongly motivated to clarify the “practitioner-scholar” role and relevance for master’s students identity as developing professional counselors. For years the profession of counseling has only viewed master’s students as passive consumers of research, not active knowledge-producers. However, with the counseling profession’s distinct training structure (with the terminal clinical degree being the masters), and the doctoral degree focused on counselor education and supervision, we need licensed professional counselors who see their role as researchers — that is practitioner-scholars — to inform the practice of counseling as they comprise the majority of front line counseling practitioners. A past doctoral advisee of mine, Megan Michalak (2013), conducted a grounded theory study of how counselor educators promote scholarship with counselors-in-training. Her research communicates that this role as knowledge-producer can be integrated into counselor training beyond merely training master’s students to be passive consumers of research.
In your words, why are counselors a good fit for research work? What particular skills do they bring to the endeavor?
Rick: Our skills in listening, attending to a narrative and trying to get deeper into the issues affecting our clients make us a natural fit for qualitative research. To be good stewards of the profession and strong advocates for professional counseling, we need to know that what we are doing is effective and helpful – and be able to explain that to consumers and stakeholders. We need to be knowledgeable about research and how to access and evaluate data in this era of accountability where counselors may be called in to court or have to justify our services and funding.
David: Rick is dead on accurate, particularly as to the readiness for counselors to conduct qualitative research. The foundational counseling skills are also the foundational skills of skilled qualitative researchers. The counseling profession is situated to be at the forefront of mental health qualitative research.
What was your inspiration to collaborate and create this book?
Rick: Often research courses for counseling students are farmed out to another departments or taught across the college of education. In other words, counseling programs often lack ownership of their research classes. That is unfortunate, because we end up learning about, and ultimately trying to adopt, the strategies used in educational research. But educational research is often related to student performance in classrooms, schools, school districts and statewide performance. These are large systems with a lot of people and data. But whom do counselors see? Predominately we see an individual, small groups, couples and families. So I view counseling research as quite different from educational research, and I wanted to highlight that as well as provide an opportunity for counseling departments and counselor educators to take more ownership of their research classes. ACA did not have a research book, so I saw an opportunity to lend a counselor voice to this area.
I truly enjoy teaching research and helping students understand and relate to concepts that quite often are found intimidating. David Kleist and I knew each other for many years and have co-chaired the ACES INFORM program together. I knew his passion for qualitative research, and I wanted that passion and voice reflected in the book. I think that is something that this text delivers that is different from other books.
David: Hearing that ACA reached out to Rick to write a research book made total sense. When Rick approached me I was touched by his generosity, and his understanding that he could write the qualitative chapters but maybe not with the same passion as he would the quantitative chapters. For myself, I felt overwhelmed, and initially quite hesitant. I knew that I had clear ideas and passion toward qualitative research but wondered what collaboration with Rick would look like. I trusted our past — and ongoing — relationship through ACES and thought we could create an accessible text that clearly communicates the role of scholar for both doctoral and master’s students in the counseling profession.
Do you feel the counseling profession, as a whole, produces enough research? Is there an unmet need (if so, what particular areas of research)?
Rick: I think we need to do more client-centered research. We see a lot of research come out on the role of counselors, counselor training and training/practicing within various competencies. But I think we need more research on what we [are] doing with our clients and how our interventions affect clients. I think this type of research can elevate our profession even further.
David: I agree with Rick and would refer back to my comments above to extend the conversation. The counseling profession’s training structure is distinct from the profession of psychology. Psychology has the doctoral degree as the terminal clinical degree, which clearly includes training to conduct research. Thus, psychology conceptualized the “scientist-practitioner model” more than 70 years ago to frame the purpose of the doctoral degree in psychology. The counseling profession would benefit from framing the training of professional counselors as “practitioner-scholars” [and] client-centered research would be the focus. For the doctoral degree, which focuses on producing counselor educators and supervisors, we need to conduct research on the education and supervision of counselors, too, stretching our time thin for also conducting client-centered research. Our profession is still young and developing, and framing our master’s level counselors as “practitioner-scholars” will go a long way to meeting Rick’s goal — our goal — of conducting more client-centered research.
What would you want counselor practitioners who aren’t in university settings to know about this topic?
Rick: Research is similar to our counseling skills; if you are not using your skills you tend to get rusty. So, for counselors who have not thought about research in a while, this text provides a very readable overview. We tried to use a voice in this text that is more engaging, fun and practical. Like any research text there are technical terms, but I believe we explain them well and we only use counseling examples. All of the research cited in the book is from counseling research. In essence, this is a book written by counselors for counselors.
David: Research is becoming more and more a collaborative endeavor. I would want counselors to have access to counselor educators in academic settings to consult on developing group research projects targeting the frontline provision of counseling services.
What makes research an area of interest for you, personally?
Rick: The formative experiences of my counseling career including working with adolescents admitted to inpatient psychiatric hospitalization. I worked during the period [when] managed care really started to take over — in Arkansas that was 1993 to 2000. So, I saw a lot of change in terms of length of [hospital] stay and how we had to justify our treatment interventions for working with adolescents. I constantly had to answer questions related to why the adolescent required hospitalization and what were we doing to address the issues. I had to verbalize an understanding of what [we] were doing and why it was effective — and yet the system was changing so rapidly I do not think there was sufficient data to justify what the insurance industry was executing. So, when I entered my doctoral program, I saw an opportunity to use research to advocate for clients and to push back against changes that were not helpful to our clients. I see research as a way to not only enhance the care we provide our clients but to advocate for them.
David: I became a counselor to better understand how I could “help people,” the cliché response for most beginning counselors in training. The core of this interest is a curiosity of people [and] of people in relationships. I see curiosity as core to the research process. For me, this book emphasizes to master’s students, in particular, that they have the essential quality of curiosity to not only to provide counseling services, but also to engage in research.
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Counseling Research: A Practitioner-Scholar Approach is available both in print and as an e-book from the American Counseling Association bookstore at counseling.org/publications/bookstore or by calling 800-422-2648 x 222
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Related reading: See Counseling Today‘s recent online exclusive: “What gets in the way? Examining the breakdown between research and practice in counseling”
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Bethany Bray is a staff writer for Counseling Today. Contact her at bbray@counseling.org
Follow Counseling Today on Twitter @ACA_CTonline and on Facebook at facebook.com/CounselingToday.
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Opinions expressed and statements made in articles appearing on CT Online should not be assumed to represent the opinions of the editors or policies of the American Counseling Association.