Sponsored research in the counseling psychology literature

Abstract

Elliott and Shewchuk (1996) assert that counseling psychology should have considerable potential to influence national healthcare and public policy. A mechanism for realizing this potential entails being responsive to national, state and private funding initiatives for reaearch and other programmatic activities. To examine the extent to which counseling psychology resarch reflects an involvement in these initiatives, we studied the rate of sponsored research in three journals traditionally associated with mainstream counseling psychology research. We compared this rate with that observed in oher applied and theoretically oriented psychological journals. In comparison with the research published in the other outlets, results indicated that the mainstream counseling psychology literature has a disproportionately low level of sponsorship from national and federal sources. The scant representation of federally-funded research in the counseling psychology literature may effectively preclude full participation in addressing and setting national funding priorities and other health care and public policies germane to the field. Several issues are raised and discussed in light of these findings.