Who Let the Docs Out? An Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis of Counselor Educators' Experiences Gatekeeping Doctoral Students

Abstract

Gatekeeping in counselor education is a critical responsibility primarily emphasized for faculty working with master’s-level counselors-in-training. However, counselor educators are also responsible for graduating competent doctoral students in the areas of counseling, supervision, teaching, leadership, and research. Knowledge about faculty’s experiences as gatekeepers of doctoral students is limited. In this qualitative study, five counselor educators (N = 5) participated in semi-structured, individual interviews to discuss their in-depth experiences and perceptions of gatekeeping doctoral-level students. Participants included two assistant and three full professors from different CACREP-accredited institutions across the United States with between five and 30 years of experience (M =16.2). The study’s methodological procedures were driven by interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) to understand how participants made sense of their doctoral gatekeeping experiences, which were then interpreted by the researcher. Individual and cross-case themes were identified. Findings revealed three super-ordinate themes with contextual overlap and connection to six salient sub-ordinate themes. The first super-ordinate theme was "Ambiguity in Gatekeeping and Growing Future Faculty" with two subthemes: (a) Who let the docs in? Screening for goal congruence and (b) Post-admission gates of competency. The second super-ordinate theme was "The Unique Aspects of Corrective Remediation in Doctoral Programs" with two subthemes: (a) Inherent complexities and challenges and (b) The hierarchy of harm in gateslipping. Finally, the third super-ordinate theme was "Developing a Doctoral Gatekeeper Identity" with two subthemes: (a) The impact of program culture and faculty involvement and (b) Experiential learning as gatekeeper training. Results suggest that counselor educators’ experiences as doctoral gatekeepers are both unique from and similar to their master’s gatekeeping experiences. Participants offered several recommendations to improve doctoral gatekeeping and enhance gatekeeper training. Further research is needed to better understand the process of doctoral gatekeeping in counselor education. Implications, recommendations, and future research directions are discussed.