Integrating Theory, Research, and Practice: A Viewpoint from a Member of the Editorial Board of the Journal of Career Assessment

Ensuring Quality in Theory, Research, and Practice: Journal of Employment Counseling

“…As such, the JEC attracts authors from management and human resources backgrounds as well as career counseling and psychology. A similar diversity in authors' backgrounds is reported by the editors of other career journals (Duffy, 2017;Flores, 2017;Gati, 2017;Schultheiss, 2017). The range of academic, theoretical, and experiential author backgrounds can result in complications for integrating research and career practice.…”

“…Howard (2016) provided a summary of the papers presented by Duffy (2017); Flores (2017); Furbish and Smith (2017); Gati (2017);and Schultheiss (2017) during Plenary Panel IV "A View from the Editor's Desk: Ensuring Quality in Theory, Research, and Practice" during the 2016 SVP Conference. She insightfully identified that a unifying theme across the papers was that the integration of career theory, research, and practice is not unidimensional.…”

“…Flores (2017) notes also that involving practitioners as editorial board members and reviewers can provide useful feedback to authors during the review process. Duffy (2017), Flores (2017), Gati (2017), and Schultheiss (2017) all recognize the value interdisciplinary and interprofessional collaboration for career research. By involving researchers and practitioners from different academic backgrounds, the opportunity arises to identify how research results can be applied to a diverse range of career practice settings and issues.…”

Journal of Career Development: Recommendations for Future Journal Practices for Integrating Career Theory, Research, and Practice

“…Others have noted that positivist paradigms are most frequently represented in vocational publications (Furbish & Smith, 2017;Schultheiss, 2017), and these theoretical challenges are further heightened by vocational psychology research designed to largely support, rather than refute, existing career theories (Gati, 2017). We can be more open and encouraging of others in using a variety of vocational theories, including theories of career counseling (Schultheiss, 2017), and we can also encourage the application of theories outside of vocational psychology (i.e., social psychology, industrial organizational psychology) in understanding vocational behaviors (Schultheiss, 2017).…”

“…This can be done via calls for papers for special issues (Duffy, 2017;Schultheiss, 2017), working conferences that bring researchers and practitioners together to address important professional issues, and by encouraging discussions from both researchers and practitioners about these publications within our journals (Gati, 2017). We need to find ways to incentivize researchers who invest in these collaborations, because it is time consuming and can reduce productivity in other areas, which is highly valued in academic settings.…”