Current Issues: A Grounded Theory of Counseling Students Who Report Problematic Peers

Counselor Education & Supervision June 2014 Volume 53 111
2014 by the American Counseling Association. All rights reserved.

Current Issues
Received 01/07/13
Revised 06/17/13
Accepted 06/22/13
DOI: 10.1002/j.1556-6978.2014.00052.x
A Grounded Theory of Counseling Students
Who Report Problematic Peers
Lindy K. Parker, Catherine Y. Chang, Kimere K. Corthell,
Maggie E. Walsh, Greg Brack, and Natalie K. Grubbs
All counselors, including students, are responsible for intervening when a colleague
shows signs of impairment. This grounded theory study investigated experiences
of 12 counseling students who reported problematic peers. An emergent theory
of the peer reporting process is presented, along with implications for counselor
educators and suggestions for future research.
The ACA Code of Ethics (American Counseling Association [ACA], 2014) calls
for counselors to intervene when their colleagues show signs of impairment
(Standard C.2.g.). According to Foster and McAdams (2009), this aspect of
gatekeeping is the responsibility of all counselors, including counselors-in-
training. There is little research, however, on students intervening when they
are concerned about their counseling program peers and students roles as
potential gatekeepers of the counseling profession while they are in their
counselor training programs.
Extant gatekeeping research has shown that, in some gatekeeping situ-
ations, the peers of a problematic counseling student recognized signs of
impairment and often recognized those signs in their peer much sooner
than did faculty members (Gaubatz & Vera, 2006; McAdams, Foster, & Ward,
2007). Gaubatz and Vera (2006) found that when they compared faculty
and student views of the competency of trainees in counseling programs,
students identifed approximately 21.5% of their peers as being problem-
atic students, whereas faculty members estimated that approximately 8.9%
of students were problematic. Students also reported a signicantly higher
percentage than faculty members of their problematic peers gate slipping,
or moving through the counseling training program without remediation or
dismissal; faculty members suggested that only 2.8% of students gate slipped
through programs, whereas students estimated that as many as 17.9% did so
(Gaubatz & Vera, 2006). Although peer reporting may not be suffcient for
identifying counseling students in need of remediation or even dismissal,
Gaubatz and Vera (2006) suggested that student perceptions could poten-
tially provide valuable insighteither further confrmation or rebuttal of
faculty member concernsand, as noted earlier, these insights by student
Lindy K. Parker, Catherine Y. Chang, Kimere K. Corthell, Maggie E. Walsh, Greg Brack, and
Natalie K. Grubbs, Department of Counseling and Psychological Services, Georgia State
University. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Lindy K. Parker,
Department of Counseling and Psychological Services, Georgia State University, PO Box
3980, Atlanta, GA 30302 (e-mail: LParker@gsu.edu).
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112 Counselor Education & Supervision June 2014 Volume 53
gatekeepers could be available to faculty sooner than their own recognition.
Faster recognition could allow more time to satisfy due process conditions,
as well as more time for students to successfully satisfy remediation plans
(Kerl, Garcia, & McCullough, 2002; Lumadue & Duffey, 1999).
The integration of peer and faculty feedback has been recognized as criti-
cal to the success of other counselor training areas and development models
(Borders, 1991; Paladino, Barrio Minton, & Kern, 2011). Although more
research is needed to explore the appropriate delivery methods of students
feedback regarding their peers, the legal system has already recognized the
signicance of these peer voices. Students who have been identied and
ultimately dismissed as problematic are now bringing lawsuits against these
counseling programs (Keeton v. Anderson-Wiley, 2010; McAdams et al., 2007;
Ward v. Wilbanks, 2010). In some programs, the peers of a dismissed student
have been called to testify in court regarding the behaviors they witnessed
as classmates (McAdams et al., 2007), thus highlighting the importance of
providing opportunities for counseling students to give peer feedback while
in their counseling programs.
Faculty of programs that use more formalized gatekeeping procedures
report signicantly lower gate slipping rates than do programs having less
formal procedures (Gaubatz & Vera, 2002). Although counselor education
programs have begun developing more formalized ways for faculty and su-
pervisors to report and document their observed concerns about students
(Baldo & Softas-Nall, 1997; Kerl et al., 2002; Lumadue & Duffey, 1999), there
is a noticeable lack of research surrounding the process of documenting
students peer reporting and concern for their peers. Moreover, there is
growing literature around the often distressing experiences of counseling
faculty acting as gatekeepers (Foster & McAdams, 2009; McAdams et al.,
2007), but little research explores the experiences of counseling students
acting as gatekeepers. Foster and McAdams (2009) suggested that students
may be reluctant to report their peers at all because the distress for stu-
dents is likely much greater (p. 273) than it is for faculty. The research
presented here takes a careful look at this area, beginning with students
who self-identied as reporters of a peer in their counseling program. The
purpose of this grounded theory was to explore the peer reporting process
as experienced by counseling students who recognized and reported issues
of concern regarding a fellow counseling student. Specically, we were inter-
ested in answering the following research questions: Who reports? How
do they report? and What do they report? Additionally, the immediate
and long-term consequences and outcomes of their peer reporting were
explored. Finally, recommendations for counselor educators and future
directions for research are discussed.
Method
Given our desire to understand the peer reporting process as experienced
by student reporters through a social constructivist lens, we chose a qualita-
tive research method (Charmaz, 2006; Hays & Wood, 2011). The method
was consistent with our aim to gain interpretive understanding of the pro-
cesses, contexts, conditions, phases, actions, and consequences of this peer
reporting phenomenon, with the hope of later informing practices and
policies around peer reporting. Hays and Wood (2011) explained that the
purpose of grounded theory is to generate data that are based or grounded
in participant experiences and perspectives with the ultimate goal of theory
development (p. 288). Because we were exploring the experiences of stu-
dent reporters with the goal of generating a theory for the phenomenon of
peer reporting (Hays & Wood, 2011), we specifcally followed the method
detailed by Charmaz (2006), which offers a grounded theory approach
guided by a trustworthy framework for collecting, analyzing, and reporting
qualitative research data.
Participants and Procedure
Participants voluntarily responded to a call for participants sent out to sev-
eral counseling-related e-mail lists as well as through an e-mail recruitment
sent to 100 randomly selected Council for Accreditation of Counseling and
Related Education Programs (CACREP) faculty program contacts gathered
from the published list of approved CACREP programs. Current and former
counseling students who were interested were able to participate if they
conrmed that they had reported a fellow counseling student peer while
completing their counselor training program. There were 12 participants
in this study. All but two participants conrmed that the program in which
they were enrolled when they reported a fellow counseling student was
CACREP-accredited at the time of reportingone of the two participants
who did not confrm CACREP accreditation declined to answer the ques-
tion altogether, and the other participant stated that her program was in
the process of becoming CACREP-accredited.
Of the 12 participants, eight self-identied as White, and the remaining
four participants self-identied as African American or Black. All but two
participants reported being 30 years old or older at the time of reporting;
one of the two participants who did not identify as age 30 or older declined
to answer the question about age, and the other participant stated only that
she was in her mid-20s when the report was made. Eight participants identi-
ed as female, and four participants identied as male. Three participants
reported their counseling program to be within the Rocky Mountain region
of the Association for Counselor Education and Supervision (ACES), six
participants attended programs within the Southern region, two participants
were students in the North Atlantic region, and one participant opted not
to provide a state or identify his ACES region.
Data Sources
The primary researcher (frst author) conducted a semistructured interview
consisting of 11 questions. Sample questions were as follows: What behav-
iors or actions led you to report your peer? To whom did you report, and
how? and What was the outcome of your reporting? Participants were
given the opportunity to provide additional information they believed to
be important about their peer reporting experience that was not already
discussed in the interview. Interviews with each participant lasted for ap-
proximately 45 minutes.
Research Team
The research team (frst, third, and fourth authors) consisted of three White
women. At the time of the study, one researcher was a counselor educator
and the other two were counselor education doctoral students. Research
team members were selected because of their unique past experiences with
problematic students: One team member had reported a student peer dur-
ing her masters counseling program, another had served as the counselor
educator defending her decient professional performance assessment of a
student, and the third research team member had once been the counselor
educator recipient of reports made by students about a peer.
The research team initially met prior to any interviews for the purpose of
bias identication and peer debrieng, where all team members disclosed
and discussed their possible biases and how these biases might inuence the
research process (Charmaz, 2006). Among the numerous biases identifed,
one member of the research team admitted that she might nd that she was
biased toward students frustration with the counseling programs and the
possible lack of reporting protocols in place for whistle-blowing students.
Other research team members wanted to be aware of their possible bias in
favor of the programs, counselor education faculty, and their handling of
reports and reporting students as they were analyzing the data in this study.
One of the primary issues the research team discussed during the rst
debrieng meeting was establishing a consensus denition of peer report. One
team member initially thought that a peer report should be dened as the
student ling formal documentation with a counselor licensing board, or,
at minimum, ling formal documentation with an ofcial university or col-
lege ofce, such as the ofce of the dean of students. Other members of the
research team thought that a student should be considered to be making a
peer report when the student simply alerts a person in the program who is
perceived to have power, such as a faculty member, course instructor, or advisor.
By following the hermeneutic dialectic process of negation through shared
power across the team members, the team members came to the consensus
of allowing the participants to self-dene what constitutes a peer report for
them. This decision was made because the grounded theory tradition assumes
that each participants truth is contextual, and because participants qualifed
for the study by afrming that they did report a peer, the research team be-
lieved that the participants unique understanding of reporting a peer is what
should be considered (Hays & Wood, 2011). Therefore, for the purpose of
data analysis, if the participants reported a peer by ling ofcial documents
with their licensing board, then that report was as valid as those of participants
who reported a peer by verbally expressing concerns to a faculty advisor, as
long as the participants considered what they did to be a peer report.
Data Collection and Analysis
The research team first coded interviews individually to draft the initial
codebook of open codes, and then engaged in constant comparison
after every two interviews (Charmaz, 2006; Hays & Singh, 2011). After
the fourth interview, the team refined the codebook using axial and
selective codes (Hays & Singh, 2011). Between the sixth and seventh
interviews, the research team reached saturation on identified themes
(Hays & Wood, 2011).
Strategies of Trustworthiness
Promoting the trustworthiness, or validity, of a qualitative study is done
through a variety of methods including triangulation of data across a re-
search team, memoing, member checking, and auditing (Hays & Singh,
2011). Throughout the process, the primary researcher memoed to track
hypotheses and theory development (Charmaz, 2006). Member checking was
completed by providing all participants an electronic copy of the emergent
grounded theory, and participant feedback on this emergent grounded
theory was solicited. All feedback received from participants conrmed that
their experiences and meanings were correctly interpreted by the research
team and, therefore, conrmed the ndings.
Finally, an auditor (sixth author) was provided with all memos, data, and
data analysis, including codebooks, and was asked to conrm that the process
the research team followed was what Guba and Lincoln (1989) described
as an established, trackable, and documentable process (p. 242) and that
the data analysis process accurately represented each participants unique
view. This auditor was selected based on her experience conducting qualita-
tive research, her completion of several advanced graduate-level courses in
qualitative methodology, and her unique status of having been a doctoral
student peer at one time to all members of the research team. The entire
methodological rigor undertaken during the research process increased
the credibility, transferability, dependability, and conrmability of the study
(Guba & Lincoln, 1989).
Results
Figure 1 illustrates a theory of the peer reporting process of counseling
graduate students. The core category, peer reporting, is influenced by
the causal condition of the reporters motivation to address the concerns
about the problematic peer within the contextual condition of their
programs policies on student conduct, reporting, and gatekeeping.
Characteristics of the reporting student and the relationship between
the reporting student and the problematic peer are the intervening
conditions that influence the action strategies used to report the peer.
These collectively create the reporting students expressed outcomes
and recommendations for counselor educators and their counselor
preparation programs.
Core Category: Peer Reporting
All participants began the reporting process by approaching a faculty member
(e.g., class instructor, program coordinator, chair, university administrator)
and verbally relaying their concerns about the problematic peer. Often, par-
ticipants expressed that they started the reporting process verbally because
they did not know what they were supposed to do. Participant 6 began his
reporting process after witnessing a peer display unprofessional behavior
on multiple occasions. He stated, I really didnt know what to do. So I went
to my advisor, and I spoke with her rst, and said, Hey, I got this situation
going on and I dont know what to do. This participant added, And [I]
was like, Well what do you think I should do? Whats the logical thing?
Whats the next step?
Two thirds of the participants verbally reported their concerns about their
problematic peer to more than one faculty member. Participant 1 said, I
reported [the problematic peer] in person to, gosh, I probably discussed them
with about three different faculty members; they were individual conversa-
tions. Participants who initially went to multiple faculty members with their
report often suggested that they did so thinking it was the appropriate thing
to do with regard to each faculty members role and relationship with them
(the reporters), and the faculty members respective roles and relationships
with the problematic peer. Participant 2 explained that he went to his own
dissertation chair because of their existing relationship and because that
individual was also the problematic students supervising professor.
Three participants reported to multiple faculty members because the
rst faculty member to whom they reported was unresponsive. Participant
4 reported her concerns to a faculty member with whom she was really
FIGURE 1
The Peer Reporting Process as Experienced by Student Reporters
Note. This gure illustrates how counseling students recognize and report issues of concern in their
fellow counseling students, as well as the consequences and outcomes of their peer reporting.
Core Category:
Peer Reporting
Causal Conditions:
Reporters Motivation to
Address the Problematic
Peer
Contextual Conditions: The Programs Policies on
Student Conduct, Reporting, and Gatekeeping
Intervening Conditions:
Characteristics of the
Reporting Student and the
Relationship Between the
Reporting Student and the
Problematic Peer
Consequences:
The Reporting Students
Expressed Outcomes and
Recommendations
close after she and her peers originally approached the faculty advisor of
the problematic peer to make their report. [The problematic students]
advisor, also a faculty member of course, heard our concerns and seemed
really not invested in following up or being invested in it, she said. Finally,
two of the participants said that they approached multiple faculty members
to improve their odds of receiving a conrmation from a faculty member
that the faculty, too, had either witnessed or shared the reporters concerns.
The prevalence of verbal reporting does not suggest that reporting stu-
dents do not also document their concerns. Participant 7 reported that
she rst verbally reported her concerns, but after encouragement from a
faculty member, she also put her concerns in a written e-mail. She added
in her interview, I also [later] sent a formal e-mail [to the faculty member
I verbally reported to] because I like to keep things documented, indicat-
ing an agreement with her faculty members direction to document her
concerns. Participant 8 was advised by faculty members and supervisors to
document what had happened in the event she was later called to testify
before an ethical review board. None of the participants went beyond verbal
reports to faculty before receiving specic instructions, encouragement,
or support from a faculty member. Finally, all participants afrmed that
their verbal report constituted an ofcial report regarding a peer or, at
minimum, the rst ofcial step in the reporting process.
One third of the participants stressed that they originally kept the identity
of their problematic peer anonymous in their reports to counselor educa-
tors in their program and did not disclose identities until asked to do so by
faculty members. Participant 6 said,
So I went to my advisor, and I spoke with her frst, and said, Hey, I got this situation
going on and I dont know what to do. I did not name namesI used gender neutral
languageso she couldnt fgure anything out, because she is also the professor of these
classmates, and I didnt want her to risk any potential biases or putting myself in a posi-
tion where I look bad for reporting other people.
Some participants indicated that they were uncomfortable when they
made a verbal report to program administrators and faculty. Participant 8
elaborated on her hesitation to report by saying, I didnt know how that
[the report] would be taken. You know, like maybe the faculty would be like,
Oh no, this isnt a legitimate enough conversation to have. Before they
began the reporting process, seven participants consulted with their peers
about the problematic student.
Causal Conditions: Reporters Motivation to
Address the Problematic Peer
Nine participants had little doubt that the identied issue regarding their
peer was a problem. Participants had a variety of reasons for reporting a
problematic peer, including clinical incompetence, multicultural incompe-
tence, unprofessional behavior such as tardiness and gossiping, substance
abuse, and unresolved or untreated mental health issues. In three situations,
the reporter was concerned about interpersonal issues and social oddities
displayed by the problematic student.
Six participants felt strongly that something needed to be done to address
the problematic peer. Participant 6 said, I didnt really know what to do.
But I kept feeling like something needs to be done; I could see a problem
happening in my program. Participant 9 stated that she did not specically
know she could report or how she would go about doing so, but did so anyway
because, Like, you just know, you have a gut feeling that this is a concern. I
felt comfortable reporting. Some stated that their concerns began to distract
them from their own program studies. When probed, participants indicated
that their reasons for this feeling or compulsion varied from a concern for
clients, to a concern for the problematic peer, to a concern for the program
and its other students, to adherence to ACA principles and virtues.
Eight participants directly confronted the problematic peer with or
without the encouragement of faculty immediately before reporting or
in response to their reporting. However, none of these peer-to-peer con-
frontations seemed to satisfy the study participants. Often, they simply
led to uncomfortable outcomes for the reporting student. Participant 6
was encouraged by his faculty advisor to confront two problematic peers
whom he thought were engaging in inappropriate classroom dialogue
that offended some minority students. His faculty advisor indicated that
peer-to-peer dialogue was the appropriate start of the reporting process
and should be done before proceeding to other gatekeeping steps. Par-
ticipant 6 described the aftermath of his peer dialogue:
So what I, I just kind of sat there, and I felt pretty horrible about myself, and then they
just sort of cussed at me and threw accusations at me, at which point I just sort of backed
off and stopped. And I just gave up on the situation. It almost felt like what was intended
on my part, I was hoping, I started out to play peacemaker, but it turned into shoot the
messenger really.
Contextual Conditions: The Programs Policies on Student Conduct,
Reporting, and Gatekeeping
Throughout the interviews, participants stressed that the existing charac-
teristics of their counselor training program and its faculty inuenced their
reporting process more than did any other factor. Participant 9 appreciated
that her program had a verbal reporting system. She said, And I felt good
about the fact that there was a system in place where, um, others are open
to hearing when a student has a concern like mine, and willing to hear it.
However, nine participants thought that their programs reporting, gate-
keeping, and conduct policies were insufcient or nonexistent. When asked
about the existence or possibility of professional performance reviews, student
development, or dismissal and retention policies, Participant 12 succinctly
responded, Never heard of it. Regarding the expectations for professional
behavior, Participant 10 said, Even though it is in the [student] manual,
its not really clear. Regarding the existence of retention and dismissal
policies in her program, Participant 10 added, I think so, I think they do
[exist], but Im not sure. I think they have a protocol of some sort, but its
not shared with the students. Participant 6 refected on his programs insuf-
cient policies by recalling the following story:
And I remember there was one point where during a presentation [at orientation], a
professora faculty memberwas giving, he was saying, If you ever have problems with
faculty, this is how you go about reporting it. If you ever have an issue with your advisor,
and you want to switch advisors, this is how you go about doing it. If you have a complaint
about this or that, this is how you going about doing it. There was not one mention about
what to do if there was ever a problem between you and another student.
One participant viewed the systemic issues stemming from the counseling
eld at large, perhaps from CACREP or ACA. Participant 4 said,
They [ACA] need to have a specifc process for students. There were no mechanisms in place
for students to have this type of peer reporting. In our situations, my peers and I just sort
of felt our way through it, consulted the ethical code that says to approach a colleague, and
we did. We also approached faculty, but they ended up doing nothing. So there needs to be
something in place for students, and it needs to be disseminated throughout the programs.
Participant 9 expressed a similar thought:
I think it would be great if CACREP or the credentialing agencies would incorporate the
whole idea of peer gatekeeping, you know, incidences like this, in the curriculum. You
know, in the rst class or an ethics class. I think its important and should be tailored
into the curriculum.
Intervening Conditions: Characteristics of the Reporting Student
and the Relationship Between the Reporting Student and
the Problematic Peer
On average, participants were 38.2 years old (SD = 7) when they reported a
problematic peer. Some participants described their maturity, life experience,
and nontraditional student age as catalysts for reporting their problematic
peer. Participant 7 described her ease with reporting to faculty members by
saying, Well, it did not bother me to go and talk to them. But, I am older;
I have children that are college aged, and added, But younger students,
like [age] 24, I think they just dont want to hurt other peoples feelings.
You know, Ive moved passed that stage.
It was surprising that the relationships between the reporters and their
problematic peers varied greatly and appeared to have little inuence on their
decision to report. Some reporters and their problematic peers were members
of the same academic cohort. Others only shared classes in the same depart-
ment, whereas some reporters and their problematic peers had no shared class-
room experience together at allthey had become acquainted only through
department-related professional and social gatherings and connections.
Consequences: The Reporting Students Expressed
Outcomes and Recommendations
Faculty members immediate responses to participants reporting of a prob-
lematic peer and the participants reactions to those responses varied. Some
reporters were referred to other faculty members who had more gatekeeping
expertise than did the faculty member receiving the report. Five participants
experienced no effective response to their report, and two participants in-
dicated that there seemed to be a lack of interest in their report from the
beginning. Participant 4 recounted the following:
[The problematic students] advisor, also a faculty member of course, heard our concerns
and seemed really not invested in following up or being invested in it. From my perspec-
tive, though, it seemed like a situation that was continuously put off to the next faculty
member. It reminded me of my school background where a child who has not met the
requirements of a grade level, but continues to be promoted and pushed on to the next
teacher. [The problematic student] continued to be able to matriculate through the pro-
gram, with this obvious [multicultural incompetence] impairment. And not just participate
in the program, but be involved in other activities like research, and also teach, which I
can imagine was very problematic. So my experiences with the gatekeeping on this stu-
dent were pretty inactive and it was an ineffective process that continues to frustrate me.
The most satisfying response occurred when the report-receiving faculty
member was receptive to the report and afrmed the reporters actions.
Participant 8 said,

This is the only experience I have had with [reporting]. I dont think any of my other
fellow classmates have reported anything of that nature, or Im really not aware. So I re-
ally dont know, you know what Im saying. This is really the rst time Ive dealt with this.
And Ive had a good experience with this, so I dont really have any suggestions to offer.
Again, both faculty members I went to, they were both very open, they were both very
honest, and they were both very willing to hear what I had to say. So I could only assume
that that was just their standard procedure of how to handle that.
Five participants indicated that they were satised at the end of the report-
ing process because the faculty members who received their reports were
engaged in and appreciative of participants efforts. Participant 12 recalled
his professors response to his report this way: He didnt agree nor disagree,
but just listened very intently. Now Id say he was very professional about
it. When asked about how that response felt, Participant 12 said, It felt
very good in the end. It gave me a chance to voice frustration that I had.
When they reported a problematic peer to a faculty member, some par-
ticipants were coached on how to deal with the issue. Such interventions
left reporters dissatised. When Participant 10 reported the unprofessional
classroom behavior of a peer to her department chair,

[the chair] more counseled me on dealing with individuals like this. Which, I understood
why she did that, but I also felt like, it did make me feel a little bit like she was seeing it
as my issue and not an issue of professionalism in our department.
Faculty members included two participants in the remediation of the
problematic student. Participant 1 explained, It was strange, because I kept
getting put in the position of having to provide feedback on assignments
or that sort of thing, you know, or read this particular students writing and
provide a critique. Although this participant provided feedback to the
peer, It was always sort of very uncomfortable, because there was just kind
of this friction where, you know, you didnt want to make anybody angry.
The participant was not clear on whether the faculty members inclusion
was intentional. For Participant 4, the faculty member who received her
report devised a group intervention wherein Participant 4 was encouraged
to confront the student in the classroom where the problems were happen-
ing. In recalling the confrontation, Participant 4 said, And the advisor just
treated it like that was just a student discussion happening in front of her.
I know it doesnt sound this way, but it felt like . . . very casual, at least the
reaction from the advisor did. She didnt follow a formal process or any-
thing in terms of gatekeeping that we knew of. When asked if this faculty
members reaction would affect how she felt about reporting other concerns
about peers she might encounter in the program, she said, It would feel
like an obligation for me to handle and document and would fall on deaf
ears with the faculty, suggesting that she probably would not report again.
The most troubling outcomes to the research team were those in which a
participant recalled his or her disappointment with a faculty members interven-
tion, and the participants suggestion that he or she might not report concerns
about colleagues in the future. Participant 1 stated, You know, the bottom
line is [the problematic student] went on, got their degree, and is out there
practicing like everyone else. And so Im not really sure that it was worth it in
the end. I think it only caused a fair amount of friction. She added, I think
the friction was mainly between the [problematic] student and the cohort.
With regard to recommendations, the participants expressed the desire for
better reporting protocols. Some responsive suggestions, such as that offered by
Participant 9, included better stated expectations and facilitation of peer reporting:
Yes, I think there should be some sort of direct protocol. Students need to feel comfort-
able enough to report that sort of gray area concerns. And there should be some stuff
incorporated in the program, you know, at the beginning, to let you know that, If you
ever need to do this, you can. These are the steps you would take. And that things can be
condential. That sort of stuff. Because I think that sometimes students may not know
that thats an option, and since its not an option, they dont think its their responsibility
to report if they have concerns about their peers.
Given the frequency of anonymous reporting that appeared in this study,
we were not surprised when several participants recommended that programs
facilitate anonymous reporting for students concerned about their peers.
Participant 2 said, It needs to be like any whistle-blower program; it needs
to be anonymous, because some people, the good part is people will actually
report if they know its anonymous.
A clear preventive theme to emerge from almost all participants was the
recommendation for better screening of prospective students prior to admis-
sion to the counselor training program. Participant 9 stated succinctly, I
think that in the interview process, [the faculty] could have caught [impair-
ments] before [the problematic students] were accepted into the program.
Some students believed that the lack of admission standards left them in
vulnerable situations with their peers. Participant 11 expressed her dismay
over decient admission standards:
But having basically no admission standards to me is just kind of surprising. Its caused a
lot of problems in classes, too. You know, youre just in graduate classes with students who
basically have no idea what they are doing. And so, its been challenging, especially from a
student perspective. You know, if you have group work and youre working with someone
who plagiarizes and then you have to challenge them on it, then they tell you that youre
wrong; even thats happened. There really just doesnt seem to be a really good set of ad-
mission standards for these programs, and I guess Ive been really surprised by that. I had
higher expectations of the counseling feld. But again, it could just be the school Im at.
Discussion
Despite scarce, unknown, or nonexistent peer reporting and gatekeeping
protocols and mechanisms, students are still reporting their concerns about
problematic peers. Some student reporters endure internal pressure to
report; the pressure is distracting to them and their graduate work and is
relieved only after the report is made. The reports are rst made verbally,
and many of the participants in our study considered these verbal reports
to constitute an ofcial report.
The immediate and long-term responses of faculty members to student
reports about problematic peers should be carefully and thoughtfully deliv-
ered. Some students are willing to complete more formal, written reports, but
will do so only at the direction of a faculty member. Students who perceived
that no appropriate action was taken by faculty, or who were encouraged to
handle the issue themselves through peer-to-peer confrontation or through
an active role in the remediation process, were largely left feeling dissatis-
fed; often, they were left discouraged, embarrassed, or frustrated. Student
reporters generally felt most satised when their report was received by a
thoughtful faculty member who appeared to appreciate the report and made
the reporter feel condent that the faculty would appropriately handle the
issue, even if the reporters did not know how or if the issue was ultimately
addressed by faculty. This is consistent with earlier literature on the impact
of faculty members gatekeeping communication (Foster & McAdams, 2009).
Student gatekeepers want to see more formal student reporting pro-
cedures outlined by their program faculty, accreditation bodies, or ACA.
These students also hope to see more preventive gatekeeping measures
taken by programs in the future, such as better screening processes during
the program admissions.
Implications for Programs and Training
Because the data from our study showing that some students report their
problematic peers despite nonexistent or insufcient reporting protocols,
counselor education programs should be prepared to receive these reports.
More specically, counselor educators and program coordinators should be
prepared to respond to the verbal concerns of a potential student gatekeeper.
A formalized procedure for peer reporting is recommended, as is inform-
ing students about this procedure at the outset of their training programs.
Several participants noted the value, or potential value, in the ability of
students to express their concerns about a peer anonymously to a program
leader or faculty member. However, in their report of a students remedia-
tion and dismissal that was challenged in federal court, McAdams et al.
(2007) noted that promising confdentiality to students who expressed their
concerns about a problematic peer as perhaps the most regrettable error
(p. 223) they made. When the dismissed student fled a lawsuit against the
university, McAdams et al. were required by law to break the confdentiality
that had been promised to the reporting students. Therefore, the limits to
condentiality should be included in a programs peer reporting procedure.
We believe that this would help counselor educators refrain from making
the binding promises of condentiality that McAdams et al. described.
Finally, almost half of the participants in this study stated that they were
enrolled in doctoral counselor education programs. While in their post-
masters doctoral programs, the participants sought faculty input on dening
a qualifying, reportable concern or explaining the appropriate reporting
process for their identied concern. This deciency in reporting protocol
knowledge among doctoral-level students who had already completed masters-
level counselor training is consistent with earlier research ndings, which
demonstrated that more than half of students did not retain the gatekeep-
ing information that was given to them at the beginning of their counselor
training programs (Foster & McAdams, 2009; Rust, Raskin, & Hill, 2013).
We agree with Rust et al.s (2013) recommendation for a preventive inter-
vention by faculty members that includes continual communication with
students in all counselor training programs regarding gatekeeping issues
and policies. The ndings of our study demonstrate the importance of the
counselor educators response to a students report of a problematic peer.
Thus, we believe that doctoral-level counselor education courses should
include training on how to respond to student reports on problematic peers.
Limitations and Direction for Future Research
The results of this study need to be considered within the following limitations.
One possible limitation in this study is the use of the primary researcher as
interviewer. The primary researchers bias could inuence these interviews
and, in turn, the results. However, we took steps to minimize and regulate
biases. More specically, triangulation through regular research meetings
and validation of the emergent theory with raw data helped to decrease the
impact of bias on the research (Hays & Singh, 2011). Another limitation
in this study was selecting participants through self-response to an e-mail
request. This self-selection undoubtedly eliminated participants who did
not feel comfortable talking about their experiences or simply responding
to an e-mail. This limitation was even more evident when more than one
participant responded to our study from an anonymous e-mail account that
was created expressly to provide anonymity to study participants. Future
research in this area should attempt to overcome this sampling limitation,
perhaps through different research designs that make participants feel more
comfortable because the sample size was a limitation in this study (Hays &
Wood, 2011). Also, it should be noted that most of the participants in this
study were older than average graduate students. This fact could be consid-
ered a limitation to the present study, as well as an opportunity for further
research in the future.
Because each students reporting process seemed to be dependent upon
a counselor educators receipt and response to the initial verbal report,
future research might explore the experiences of faculty members who
receive reports of problematic peers from students. Just as there is a lack of
direction and protocol for how students should report their peers, there is
an equal lack of direction and protocol for how counselor educators should
handle these reports from students.
An unexpected issue that arose for the research team during this study was
the conrmation by a limited number of participants that they were peers
of the problematic student; in addition, they functioned in a supervisory
role with the problematic student, such as a doctoral supervisor-in-training.
For example, after the interviewer heard the story of one participant, the
transcript of the interview shows that the interviewer asked, So just to
clarify, was she more of your supervisee, rather than a peer? The partici-
pant responded, No, we were peers. But I was a PhD student and she was a
masters student in the program. The research team members noted that
the former ACA Code of Ethics (ACA, 2005) even labeled these exchanges
between students serving as supervisors-in-training and other students serv-
ing as their supervisees as peer relationships (Standard F.6.e.). Although
the most recent ACA Code of Ethics (ACA, 2014) now labels these exchanges
as student-to-student supervision and instruction (Standard F.7.g.), inves-
tigating peer gatekeeping specically in these types of supervisory but still
student peers relationships where roles can become blurred would certainly
be an area for future research.
An area that was surprising to us was the participants responses to ques-
tions about their programs existing reporting, gatekeeping, and conduct
policies. More than three fourths of the participants, including those who
were currently students in their counseling and counselor education pro-
grams, said that they had heard of such policies, knew that handbooks or
manuals existed, but had difculty recalling details about those policies. The
processing and understanding of these reporting, gatekeeping, and conduct
policies by students in counseling programs might be interesting research
topics. Foster and McAdams (2009) noted this same need for research and
also proposed a framework for creating a climate of transparency to foster
counseling students investment in gatekeeping practices. Rust et al. (2013)
also urged future research on gatekeeping plans and policies with the aim
for future standardization across the eld.
We hope that this study will have positive effects on counseling programs
and their faculty and students, as well as the eld at large. By learning more
about students who report their counseling peers, programs can expand their
knowledge of how to teach and facilitate these professional behaviors for
all counseling students; these are the same professional behaviors that are
required of all professional counselors. Moreover, earlier intervention can
create greater time for remediation of concerning students, as well as limit
possible harm to clients. More thoughtful and deliberate protocols can also
help protect programs, counselor educators, and the eld of counseling.
This understanding can create a better experience for students, programs,
counselor educators, clients, and all individuals involved with and served
by the counseling eld.
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