Historical trends in counsellor education dissertations

ABSTRACT

There exists a dearth of literature on the content, research method and research design trends of dissertations in education. Within one large subfield of education (i.e. counsellor education), an online and full-text archive of dissertations has become available. This archive contains over 200 dissertations produced in Oregon State University’s Counselling Academic Unit from 1947 to 2014. Research questions concerning decadal differences in content, research method and research design were examined empirically. No decadal differences were discovered in the three aforementioned areas. Reasons for these findings were discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Dissertation
• history of counselling
• counsellor education

Acknowledgements

The research contained in this manuscript was conducted under the approval of the Oregon State University Institutional Review Board (Study ID No. 6374) and was part of the first author’s dissertation research project.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Judith Richards received her master’s in counselling from the University of San Francisco and her Ph.D. in counselling from Oregon State University. She currently serves as a researcher in the Counselling Academic Unit at Oregon State University. Dr Richards has extensive professional experience in psychotherapy with children and adolescents; addiction; third culture kids; shame-based family systems; dual diagnosis treatment; wilderness therapies; experiential therapies; emotional impoverishment; relational trauma recovery; neurobiology; post traumatic growth; infidelity; maturity development; college counselling; college student services; and marriage and family therapy.

Cass Dykeman received his master’s in Counselling from the University of Washington and his doctorate in Counselling from the University of Virginia. Prior to his work in higher education, he worked as both an elementary school and high school counsellor in Seattle. As a counsellor educator, Dr Dykeman has worked at Eastern Washington University (1993–1997) and Oregon State University (1997–present). At the university level he has served in the following roles: School Counselling Programme Lead, Ph.D. Programme Lead, Counselling Academic Unit Lead and Department Chair. Dr Dykeman has published two books and is in double-digits in peer-reviewed articles and book chapters. In addition, he has received over 1.2 million in federally sponsored external funding. As for service, he has served in the following roles: President – Washington Association for Counselor Education and Supervision, President – Western Association for Counselor Education and Supervision, Member – Journal for Counseling and Development Editorial Board and Member – CACREP On-site Accreditation Team Member.

Sara Bender is an Assistant Professor of Psychology at Central Washington University. She teaches a variety of undergraduate courses in psychology as well as graduate courses in counsellor education. As a licensed mental health counsellor and approved clinical supervisor, Dr Bender has extensive experience working in community mental health and academic settings. Her research and scholarly activities focus on clinical supervision, online pedagogy, mental health literacy and the provision of mental health services to traditionally under-served populations.

ORCiD

Cass Dykeman http://orcid.org/0000-0001-7708-1409