Introduction to the Special Section

This special section in the Journal of Counseling & Development is presented primarily for counselors, counselor educators, and researchers who wish to publish in academic counseling journals, but the content is also relevant to readers who use counseling research findings in their work. Whereas some of the articles in this special section are directed toward aspects of the design, conduct, and publication of research, others are focused on preparing conceptual and practice-focused articles for publication, conducting ethical and responsible counseling research, and engaging in research with an international focus. We sought to cover counseling research broadly by including quantitative and qualitative approaches. We appreciate that we were selected as guest editors and are pleased the people who agreed to contribute to this special section are experienced, well-known, and frequently published authors in counselor education. Although each author was invited to submit a manuscript, each manuscript went through the same review process as other submissions to the journal. Trusty's article is about designing, conducting, and publishing quantitative research. He presents guidelines and processes for developing quantitative studies, including information on identifying research problems, defining the studies' parameters, designing studies, operationalizing variables, and selecting statistical analysis methods. He closes his article with guidelines for preparing quantitative articles for publication. In their article, Balkin and Sheperis examine statistical power, framing the discussion of power in a counseling context. They provide a solid rationale for the salience of power analysis, outline the principles of power analysis, and offer practical ways to calculate power. Particularly useful are their descriptions of how to effectively use the free computer software program G'Power. Whiston and Li's article on meta-analysis outlines the usefulness of meta-analyses for the knowledge base in counseling. They present the meta-analysis process in seven major steps, including rich information on coding and data analysis. Whiston and Li describe important decision points in conducting meta-analyses, and they offer numerous resources for researchers who are interested in performing meta-analyses. Guiffrida, Douthit, Lynch, and Mackie explore action research. They begin by emphasizing the relevance of action research for the field of counseling and then provide four major steps in the processes of planning, conducting, and presenting action research. Within their article, the important intersections of research and practice are illuminated, as are the intersections of quantitative and qualitative research methods. Hays and Wood's article provides a clear and concise overview of six qualitative research traditions used in counseling: grounded theory, phenomenology, consensual qualitative research, ethnography, narratology, and participatory action research. …