A Time and Place for Qualitative and Mixed Methods in Counseling Psychology Research

Fordham University-Lincoln CenterWe are pleased to present this special issue of the Journal ofCounseling Psychology (JCP ) on qualitative and mixed methodsresearch. The major goal of the special issue is to introduce avariety of qualitative and mixed methods approaches to counselingpsychologists and to encourage their increased application in re-search. Qualitative and mixed methods have been underutilized incounseling research, as most counseling psychologists weretrained in the postpositivist research paradigm and associatedquantitative methods (McLeod, 2001; Morrow & Smith, 2000).However, the debate over the credibility of qualitative methods hasbegun to shift toward greater acceptance of such designs (Camic,Rhodes, & Yardley, 2003). We welcome these signs of change.Our position as guest editors, and the position of the many authorscontributing to this special issue, is that the field of counselingpsychology will be enhanced significantly by the increased use ofqualitative and mixed methods research designs rooted in diversephilosophical paradigms.Though counseling psychologists have long endorsed the con-cept of methodological pluralism and have made repeated calls forincreased openness to qualitative research (e.g., Hoshmand, 1989;Howard, 1983; Kopala & Suzuki, 1999; Polkinghorne, 1984), thefield has been slow to expand the research paradigms from whichit operates and the research methodologies it uses (McLeod, 2001).At present, only a minority of published research in psychology,including counseling psychology, is qualitative in nature (Rennie,Watson, & Monteiro, 2002), and only 10% of U.S.-based counsel-ing psychology training programs require a qualitative researchcourse of its doctoral students (Ponterotto, 2005). Gergen (2001)has expressed concern that our reluctance to engage in a postmod-ern dialogue has resulted in a conception of psychological sciencethat is “historically frozen and is endangered by its isolation fromthe major intellectual and global transformations of the past halfcentury” (p. 803).McMullen (2002) has also described the lack of dialogue be-tween proponents of quantitative and qualitative methods. She hasexpressed concern that we are at risk of bifurcation in appliedpsychological research between researchers conversant with alter-native paradigms and their associated ontological and epistemo-logical bases and those who remain grounded within the traditionalmethodologies, with little interest in or knowledge of alternativemethodologies. The risks of such bifurcation are not insignificant;they involve more than a debate over a defensible choice for one’sown research. As McMullen pointed out,