Unsupported Causal Inferences in the Professional Counseling Literature Base

Abstract

At the heart of many counseling research interests and questions is a desire to understand causal relationships between variables. However, inferring causation from correlational studies ranges from difficult to impossible, and researchers have found that various literature bases contain large proportions of studies that draw unsupported causal inferences. We examined articles published in seven top professional counseling journals over a 2‐year period to determine the degree to which causal inferences were present in quantitative studies that could only support correlational inference. We found that 61% of 103 correlational studies contained unsupported causal inferences. We discuss the importance of addressing this methodological problem in counseling research and provide recommendations for drawing valid inferences from correlational studies.