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Trusting and supportive relationships with school counsellors can help first-generation college students access college despite barriers. In this narrative inquiry, 11 first-generation college students in the United States shared stories of their positive relationships with their former high school counsellors. After an iterative and consensus-based data analysis process, we summarised our participants’ grand narrative with five themes: family context, school counselling delivery, relationships with school counsellors, impact of relationships with school counsellors, and suggested improvements. Participants valued how school counsellors helped them advocate for themselves, build their confidence, and feel encouraged and accountable through individual meetings, career counselling, and college guidance. School counsellors can offer targeted and relational interventions to help first-generation college students access and persist through college.

We conducted a content analysis of generic qualitative counseling dissertations (GQR; N = 70), examining their methodological justifications, coherence, and trustworthiness. Dissertations authors often presented vague methodological justifications. Findings have implications for constructing methodological justifications, integrating relevant literature, and awareness of how GQR compares to other qualitative methodologies.

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As full-time graduate students in the Counseling program, each of us is extremely pressed for time which limits our ability to work on original research. Because we do not complete a thesis for our program, there is little opportunity for research involvement. Each of the group members had an interest in becoming part of the research team, and each individual played an important role in the completion of this research. Tiffany Somerville was a co-leader of the eight-week group, and she also wrote portions of the literature review, results, and discussion sections. Danielle Pincente played a significant role in data organization, scoring, and interpretation; she also contributed to portions of the literature review and the results sections. Kelsey Oglesby was a co-leader of the eight-week group, and she also wrote a portion of the literature review. David Ehlers, Samantha Kledzik, and Jacki Pickowitz contributed significantly to the literature review as well.