Boundary Considerations Between Doctoral Students and Master's Students

Counselor educators have a responsibility to teach students about boundary issues and multiple relationships. In addition to counselor–client concerns, there has been increased attention to faculty–student multiple relationships. Like faculty, doctoral students in counselor education programs often engage in roles with master's‐level students in which they hold a position of authority. This article reviews the professional literature on multiple relationships and boundary issues within counselor preparation programs and applies the research to boundary considerations between graduate students. Potentially fruitful areas for research are also suggested.     

When Expertise and Ethics Diverge: Lay and Professional Evaluation of Psychotherapists in Israel

This study investigated school psychology doctoral students' beliefs concerning their preparation for, and concern about, dealing with 12 ethical issues based on year in graduate school and whether they had taken an ethics course. Two hundred thirty-three doctoral students from 18 of the 44 American Psychological Association accredited programs in school psychology listed in the December 1996 issue of the American Psychologist completed ethical issues surveys. Results showed that students who had taken an ethics course and those with more years of graduate education said they felt more prepared to deal with ethical issues than students who had not taken an ethics course and who had fewer years of graduate education. Participants believed they were least prepared to deal with ethical issues involving child custody cases, possible ethical violations by colleagues, and potentially violent clients. Participants' concern about dealing with ethical issues was negatively related to their number of internship hours.     

The Christian College Advantage? The Impact of Christian Versus Secular Training Among Faculty at Christian Colleges and Universities

Are faculty trained at Christian institutions better equipped to integrate their faith with their professional work? This study uses a mixed methods analysis of Council of Christian Colleges and Universities (CCCU) faculty survey data to analyze whether and in what ways faculty who graduate from Christian undergraduate, master's, and doctoral programs are more apt to identify connections between their faith tradition and their course objectives. Findings show that faculty members prepared at Christian institutions are more likely to see this relationship and may conceive of it in more sophisticated ways. However, the gap is modest.     

Challenges to professional psychology education in the 21st century: response to Peterson

Professional psychology education faces many critical challenges brought about by the major changes occurring in the health care arena. This article shows that professional schools and programs have a good record of responding to these challenges and of taking proactive steps sponding to prepare their graduates for new health care roles and delivery systems. Data on admissions to psychology doctoral training programs demonstrate little support for the toral concerns raised by Donald R. Peterson (2003, this issue) about the preparation of students for graduate training in professional programs. Although quality concerns are important to investigate, such examination best resides with portant the American Psychological Association's Committee on Accreditation, which has the promotion of quality and excellence in professional psychology education and training as its major goal and responsibility.     

Counselor Education and Supervision: The Development of the CACREP Doctoral Standards

The purpose of this article is to illuminate the unique features of the Council for Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs guidelines and accreditation standards that shaped doctoral preparation in counselor education. Current issues that affect advanced training in counselor education and implications for future doctoral standards revisions are also presented.     

Graduate education in qualitative methods in U.S. psychology: current trends and recommendations for the future

The visibility of qualitative research methods (QRM) in U.S. psychology has increased with the dissemination of qualitative research in journals and books, formation of professional and scientific organizations, and recognition in educational institutions. While gains have been made, the current state of doctoral training in qualitative methods remains uncertain. It is unclear what training graduate students receive in U.S. psychology programs about qualitative methodologies and how further gains can be made in expanding visibility of QRM in graduate education. In this mixed-methods study, we surveyed a sample of faculty in U.S. psychology graduate programs about the frequency of QRM course offerings, graduate training, and students’ use of QRM in their dissertation research. We also explored qualitative responses from faculty regarding their attitudes about QRM and how these attitudes might help increase or diminish the frequency of methods training available to students. We found that even within graduate programs where there was support for QRM, enduring perceptions about the value of qualitative research limit faculty and graduate students’ use of qualitative methodologies in their research. With these findings in mind, we offer several recommendations for increasing the visibility of QRM in U.S. graduate education and the discipline of psychology as a whole.     

Balancing Personal and Professional Lives:

Graduate women have unique concerns as they cope with graduate school and attempt to balance their personal lives and relationships with their professional identity and achievements. In this article a review of women's developmental issues and the conflicts that women experience in graduate school will be described. Clinical observations of support groups for graduate women will be presented. The central themes described by both master's and doctoral level women who participated in these graduate women's support groups will be identified and discussed.     

Survival skills and ethics training for graduate students: A graduate student perspective

Graduate students in the sciences must develop practical skills geared toward scientific survival and success. This is particularly true now, given the paucity of research funds and jobs. Along with more elementary skills, research ethics should be an integral part of students’ scientific training. Survival skills include research skills, communication skills, general efficiency, and preparation for post-graduate work. Ethics training covers guidelines for use of animal and human subjects, data treatment, disclosure, credit issues, conflicts of interest, and response to misconduct. The objective of this paper is to describe, from a graduate student’s perspective, the need for survival and ethics training in graduate programs and to raise both faculty and student awareness of the possibilities for explicit instruction of these skills. Many survival skills and ethical practices will be learned without explicit direction and some are already part of standard training; but, this is not the case for all students or for all skills, so specific instruction is a necessity. Research faculty can use their own experience to help students to develop the proficiencies they will need to succeed.     

Career Research Interests and Training of Genetic Counseling Students

Research is important to validate clinical services, provide information on the effectiveness of practice techniques, and develop the knowledge base of a clinical profession. Genetic counseling students from American Board of Genetic Counseling (ABGC) accredited training programs were surveyed to determine their career research interests and interest in pursuing a hypothetical doctoral degree in genetic counseling. Genetic counseling program directors were surveyed to assess the emphasis on research training within their programs. A substantial number (46%, n = 92) of genetic counseling students are interested in performing research in their careers and many (40%, n = 80) would pursue a doctoral degree in genetic counseling if it was available. Students and directors from programs with a thesis requirement reported a significantly higher emphasis on career research preparation than those from programs without a thesis requirement. The results of this study indicate that future genetic counselors are interested in contributing to the research base that will advance the field. This study suggests a need to strengthen research training within ABGC accredited graduate programs and explore the development of a doctoral degree option in genetic counseling.     

The relation of family cohesion to marital adjustment

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between family cohesion and marital adjustment. The sample consisted of 70 married graduate students from the State University of New York at Buffalo. The Family Adaptability and Cohesion Evaluation Scale was used to measure family cohesion. The Dyadic Adjustment Scale was used to measure marital adjustment. The Demographic Data Sheet was used for demographic characteristics. Overall, the result of ANOVA with planned comparison revealed that high marital adjustment was not only associated with a moderate level of family cohesion but also associated with a high level of family cohesion.This article is based on the first author's doctoral dissertation at State University of New York at Buffalo.     

A Case Study of Teaching Social Responsibility to Doctoral Students in the Climate Sciences

The need to make young scientists aware of their social responsibilities is widely acknowledged, although the question of how to actually do it has so far gained limited attention. A 2-day workshop entitled “Prepared for social responsibility?” attended by doctoral students from multiple disciplines in climate science, was targeted at the perceived needs of the participants and employed a format that took them through three stages of ethics education: sensitization, information and empowerment. The workshop aimed at preparing doctoral students to manage ethical dilemmas that emerge when climate science meets the public sphere (e.g., to identify and balance legitimate perspectives on particular types of geo-engineering), and is an example of how to include social responsibility in doctoral education. The paper describes the workshop from the three different perspectives of the authors: the course teacher, the head of the graduate school, and a graduate student. The elements that contributed to the success of the workshop, and thus make it an example to follow, are (1) the involvement of participating students, (2) the introduction of external expertise and role models in climate science, and (3) a workshop design that focused on ethical analyses of examples from the climate sciences.     

Productivity of doctoral programs in Psychology with Quality Mention in journal articles included in Journal Citation Reports

The main objective of the present study was to classify doctoral programs with Quality Mention in Psychology based on their scientific productivity. For this purpose, articles in the Web of Science published by professors teaching in these doctoral programs were analyzed. In addition, we analyzed scientific journals in which these professors tend to publish more papers and the evolution in the number of papers published until 2009. Results showed that the most productive doctoral program was the Neurosciences program at the University of Oviedo. This program showed a ratio of 40 articles--published in journals included in Journal Citation Reports--by each professor. In contrast, other programs did not reach a ratio of 10 articles per professor. Regarding journals, results showed that 9 out of the 20 most popular journals are Hispanic and a gradual increase in the number of published papers was also observed. Lastly, results and implications for quality assessment are discussed.     

Ethical Issues in Mentoring Doctoral Students in Clinical Psychology

Ethical issues abound in any relationship that is defined by differences between the parties in rank, status, and power. Such is the case in the relationship between a doctoral student in clinical psychology and his or her mentor. In this article, we examine several potential areas of ethical concern within the mentor-student relationship. We present a series of vignettes and our analyses of the issues that arise within them as we examine romantic dual relationships, nonromantic dual relationships, and other ways in which the mentor's power may be intentionally or unintentionally misused for personal gain. We also look at several examples of unhelpful mentoring. Problematic situations often arise when there is the potential for loss of objectivity by either party or exploitation of the student by the mentor. Although the relationship with one's mentor may be one of the most important and gratifying aspects of the graduate school experience, both mentors and students should keep in mind that behavioral choices within this relationship are often complex ones that require forethought, self-monitoring, and discussion between the parties.     

Minority and majority students' retrospective perceptions of social support in doctoral programs

This study examined the perceptions of amount and types of social support reported by minority and majority doctoral students during graduate school. Analysis of responses from 803 White, 292 African-American, 179 Asian-American, 151 Hispanic, and 29 Native American doctoral students (N = 1,454) using the Doctoral Student Survey showed that most doctoral students across groups were moderately satisfied with their programs and they perceived the academic environment and faculty advisors to be strong sources of social support. White doctoral students reported greater program satisfaction, more positive perceptions of the academic environment, and fewer program problems than African-American doctoral students, while the latter reported more negative perceptions of the social environment than the other group.     

Finding The “Self” in Self-Regulation: The Identity-Value Model

Many psychological theories suggest a link between self-regulation and identity, but, until now, a mechanistic account that suggests ways to improve self-regulation has not been put forth. The identity-value model (IVM) connects the idea from social psychology that aspects of identity such as core values and group affiliations hold positive subjective value to the process-focused account from decision making and behavioral economics that self-regulation is driven by a dynamic value integration across a range of choice attributes. Together, these ideas imply that goal-directed behaviors that are identity relevant are more likely to be enacted because they have greater subjective value than identity-irrelevant behaviors. A central hypothesis, therefore, is that interventions that increase the degree to which a target behavior is perceived as self-relevant will improve self-regulation. In addition, identity-based changes in self-regulation are expected to be mediated by changes in subjective value and its underlying neural systems. In this article we define the key constructs relevant to the IVM, explicate the model and delineate its boundary conditions, and describe how it fits with related theories. We also review disparate results in the research literature that might share identity-related value as a common underlying mechanism of action. We close by discussing questions about the model, the answers to which could advance the study of self-regulation.     

Self-regulation and mortality from cancer, coronary heart disease, and other causes: A prospective study

This article introduces a new personality inventory dealing with self-regulation. This is in some ways the opposite of neuroticism, and measures personal autonomy or independence, particularly as far as emotional dependence is concerned. Our concern was the relation between self-regulation and health, and large samples of healthy men and women were tested and followed up to demonstrate high predictability of mortality from cancer, coronary heart disease and other causes of death from scores on the questionnaire. It was also demonstrated that psychological risk factors were largely independent from physical risk factors, and could be changed by behavioural-cognitive treatment, reducing mortality.     

Saving the world by teaching behavior analysis: a behavioral systems approach

This article presents a behavioral systems approach to organizational design and applies that approach to the teaching of behavior analysis. This systems approach consists of three components: goal-directed systems design, behavioral systems engineering, and performance management. This systems approach is applied to the Education Board and Teaching Behavior Analysis Special Interest Group of the Association for Behavior Analysis, with a conclusion that we need to emphasize the recruitment of students and the placement and maintenance of alumni. This systems approach is also applied at the scale of the individual faculty member running a university-based training system and is seen to generate special approaches to textbook preparation, undergraduate research, colloquium and conference attendance, career counseling, preparation for graduate examinations, graduate training and graduate seminars, and classroom alternatives to the traditional lecture.     

Self-Regulation: Learning Across Disciplines

The capacity to self-regulate is a key developmental ability that has become a focal point for research across multiple disciplines. Yet interdisciplinary collaboration on self-regulation is rare and the term is often applied in different ways across studies. Drawing on literature from psychology, medical sciences, sociology, and economics, this article provides a synthesis of disciplinary approaches to research on self-regulation. A review of search returns from one prominent database per discipline is used to investigate overlap and divergence on the topic. This review argues that interdisciplinary collaboration has the potential to integrate perspectives on self-regulation into a more coherent body of work, resulting in advances that could not be achieved through any one discipline alone. The review also identifies and discusses three current impediments to collaboration: terminology, measurement, and disciplinary conventions.     

Stress experienced by women doctoral students,need for support,and occupational sex typing: An interactional view

The present study was concerned with emotional stress experienced by women doctoral students as an interactive function of type of department and personal need for support. Subjects were women registered as doctoral students at a large state university in the fall semester of 1975. Of the total, 86 were from female minority departments, 177 from egalitarian departments, and 114 from female majority departments. Stress from time pressures, marital pressures, and overall stress were all found to be interactive functions of need for support and type of department. The female minority group showed the strongest relationship between need for support and each of the three significant stress variables. Implications of these findings for women in graduate school are discussed.This study was supported in part by a grant from Division 9 of the American Psychological Association and by the Measurement and Evaluation Center at the University of Texas at Austin. It was based on a dissertation, under the direction of H. Paul Kelley, submitted in partial fulfillment of the doctoral degree at the University of Texas at Austin. The author wishes to thank Lucia Gilbert and Charles Holahan for their helpful comments on an earlier draft of this article.