It's Not Just Another Line on Your Resume

Kelly L. Wester, PhD

Assistant Professor

Department of Counseling and Educational Development

University of North Carolina at Greensboro

Greensboro, NC 27402

Todd F. Lewis, PhD

Assistant Professor

Department of Counseling and Educational Development

University of North Carolina at Greensboro

Greensboro, NC 27402

Note: This study was partially funded the Chi Sigma Iota Chapter Kappa Sigma Upsilon, and the Graduate Student Senate, at Kent State University

It's Not Just Another Line on Your Resume¡

Originating in the late 1800s, the profession of counseling took almost a century before it was officially considered a ¡°profession.¡± To be considered a profession specific criteria must be met, including having a specific body of knowledge with recognized training programs that are accredited, professional organizations that include peers, legal and ethical policies, licensure standards, and supervised clinical training ¨C just to mention a few (Hollis, 2000; Myers & Sweeney, 2001). Although the profession of counseling is now considered to be an ¡°official profession,¡± it was not a quick or easy journey to achieve this status. As Sweeney (2001) reported, we, as a profession, have been lucky to have a ¡°rich history¡­[of] strong leaders¡± that devoted time and energy into promoting and furthering our profession (p. 18). These leaders began with Jessie B. Davis, the first individual who attempted to make a guidance system part of a school curriculum in the late 1800s (Sweeney, 2001), and paved the way for today¡¯s counseling leaders.

Typically, when one hears the word ¡°leader¡± the definition or image that jumps to mind is one of a president of an organization, such as the American Counseling Association (ACA), Southern Association of Counselor Educators and Supervisors (SACES), or a state level counseling association.  However, leaders are not necessarily individuals who take leadership positions, but also can include people who are ¡°behind the scenes¡± who are contributing to the counseling field through advocacy, service, research, and/or education.

Advocacy has been defined as an action that is ¡°aimed at benefiting clients and/or the profession¡± (Engles & Bradley, 2001, p. 92) and includes ¡°social activism as well as the promotion of the profession¡± (Myers & Sweeney, 2004, p. 466). Advocacy has helped to bring about our professional identity, definition of a professional counselor, national certification, state licensure, national accreditation for education programs, and more (Myers, Sweeney, & White, 2002). Although our profession has come a long way, we still have a challenging journey ahead of us. According to Myers, Sweeney, and White (2002) and Myers and Sweeney (2004), we still need advocates to publicize our profession and the services we provide, and to pursue legislative action.

Advocacy occurs through service, research, and education. According to Collison (2001) professional associations can help with advocacy for counselors and the future of the counseling profession. The majority of professional counseling organizations include a statement encouraging advocacy for the profession. One such professional association is Chi Sigma Iota (CSI). CSI originated in 1985 as a response to feelings of a lost professional identity in the field of counseling (Sweeney, 2001). Although the majority of professional counseling organizations include statements on advocacy, CSI is one of the few that incorporates advocacy and professional scholarship into its mission statement. CSI¡¯s mission is ¡°to promote scholarship, research, professionalism, leadership and excellence in counseling, and to recognize high attainment in the pursuit of academic and clinical excellence in the profession of counseling¡± (CSI, n.d.). CSI encourages and commends professionals, including students, educators, and practitioners, who have a commitment to research and service that strengthens and advocates for the profession of counseling ¨C including clients, professionals, and the profession as a whole (e.g., Beta Upsilon, 2004; Gladding, 2002; Myers, 2002).

CSI stresses advocacy by stating six advocacy themes that encourage education programs to ensure students graduate with a clear professional identity and sense of pride as a counselor; professionals to advocate within the counseling profession, as well as across other professions, for the advancement of counseling; professionals to promote the field of counseling and services provided through scientifically sound research; and to promote wellness and prevention as a main philosophy in which we perceive our clients and live our daily lives (CSI, 1998). Overall, CSI is an association that views one of the most important endeavors of advocating for our profession as ¡°promoting of excellence in the profession of counseling,¡± which is the header that exists on their website (www.csi-net.org).

CSI has made the statement that being a member of CSI is ¡°not just another line on your resume.¡± Although professional counseling organizations, particularly CSI, have stressed promoting excellence, advocating for our profession, and a commitment to the profession of counseling through research and service, no research has ever examined if this mission statement is true for members of the association. The current study was originally part of larger project examining leadership styles within the profession of counseling; however, one of the questions asked on the original survey was ¡°Are you a current (dues paying) member of CSI?¡± This question allowed analyses to be conducted to examine the differences in advocacy (measured by scholarship and service positions) between CSI and non-CSI members.

The reason for the inquiry is two-fold. First, although professional associations have been found to stress advocacy for the profession (Collison, 2001), no research has been conducted that examines whether membership to an organization is related to advocacy for the profession. And second , CSI was specifically examined because through its mission statement, leadership excellence, and advocacy themes, CSI promotes and supports advocacy for our profession, ourselves as counselors, and our clients through service and research. Thus, the purpose of this paper was to examine the impact of professional association membership, specifically CSI, on research and service ¨C two aspects of advocacy for the profession.

Thus, the current research questions being examined in this paper are (a) are CSI members significantly different in the amount of research and service they engage in than non-CSI members? and (b) is membership to a professional organization, such as CSI, related to the amount of research and service an individual engages in?

Methods

Sample

The sample consisted of 800 members from the Association of Counselor Education and Supervision (ACES) membership database. Permission to access this database was given by the American Counseling Association. The researchers systematically randomly selected every fifth member from the ACES database, cycling through the database two times, resulting in 800 participants. Approval to use human subjects in the current study was granted by Kent State University¡¯s Institutional Review Board.

Instruments

For the current research questions, the demographics form was used. Participants were asked to report whether they were currently a dues paying member of CSI, along with reporting the number of positions they have held-excluding CSI specific positions (including presidential positions, committee members of various organizations, directors or project coordinators), presentations at conferences, and publications (including peer-reviewed, online, newsletters, etc). Other instruments were used to collect other information from participants for leadership styles and counselor characteristics for the purpose of the main study, but were not used in this study.

Administration Process

The self-administered surveys were estimated to take 40-minutes to complete. Participants received three separate mailings. The first mailing included an informed consent letter, the Multi-Factor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ), Counselor Characteristic Inventory (CCI), a demographic form, and a pre-addressed postage-paid return envelope for the survey. The second mailing occurred two weeks after the initial mailing of the surveys and contained a letter reminding them of the survey and providing contact information if they needed a replacement survey. The third mailing, which also contained a reminder letter, occurred five weeks after the initial mailing (three weeks after the second mailing). Participants were mailed a replacement survey if they requested one.

Data analysis

Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) was used to examine the differences in the amount of research, scholarship, and service engaged in by doctoral students, counselor educators, and practitioners, because these were the main respondents of the survey. It was determined that these differences needed to be examined prior to examining the research questions in order to verify if each of the groups (i.e., counselor roles) needed to be examined separately, and not as an entire sample, due to the amount of activity they reported. Independent t-tests were used to examine the differences between CSI members and non-CSI members in research, scholarship, and service. Finally, a multiple regression was used to examine the relationship that existed between CSI membership and research, scholarship, and service while controlling for demographic variables.

Results

The final sample consisted of 232 participants from the field of counseling (29% response rate). Sixty-two percent (62%) of respondents were female. Table 1 shows the demographic breakdown for both CSI and non-CSI members. The majority of respondents were Caucasian (88%), with 3% identifying themselves as African American, 2% as Hispanic, 4% as other. Less than 1% of participants identified themselves as Asian American, Native American, or Pacific Islander. Participants ranged from 26 to 83 years old, with a mean age of 48.59 (SD=12.29). The majority of respondents had their master¡¯s (n=113, 49%) and doctoral (n=110, 48%) degrees, with 8 participants reporting having only received their bachelor¡¯s degree at the time of the survey.

Table 1

Demographics of CSI members (n=60), non-CSI members (n=166) and total sample (N=232)

Although the sample originated from the ACES membership database, participants in the current sample were well-distributed across roles in the field of counseling. Participants were asked to indicate their primary role in the field of counseling. Nineteen percent of respondents reported that they were currently enrolled in a master¡¯s (n = 10) or doctoral (n = 34) program. Over one-third (38%) of participants reported being a counselor educator (42 assistant, 21 associate, 26 full professors), with 40% reporting being a practicing clinician and 3% being retired from the counseling profession. Thirty-seven participants out of the 232 indicated that they counseled part-time as an additional role; however, their main role was that of master¡¯s student (n = 6), doctoral student (n = 12), assistant professor (n = 11), associate professor (n = 5) or full professor (n = 3). Because being a practicing counselor was not the main role for these 37 participants, only the primary role was used for analysis purposes.

Sixty of the participants (26.4%) reported being a current, dues paying, members of CSI (see Table 1). These members were spread out across all of the counseling roles, including students, educators, and practitioners. Prior to attempting to answer the research questions, doct