Counselors are asked to use evidence-based practices. That only works if someone is producing the evidence. Counseling Outcome Research and Evaluation (CORE) exists to publish exactly that kind of work: studies of whether counseling helps.
This article, led by first author A. Johnson, takes stock of the journal’s first decade, 2010 to 2019. I was one of four authors on the team that coded every article for who wrote it, how the study was designed, and how the results were analyzed and reported. It was one of my first publications.
2010–2019
the journal’s first ten years
75%+
of articles were original research
Stable
publication patterns across the decade
What stood out
Research-heavy
More than three quarters of what CORE published was research, a much higher share than many counseling journals.
Strong designs
CORE led other counseling journals in true experimental and quasi-experimental designs.
Focus on interventions
It also led in intervention studies, the kind of research that tests whether a practice helps clients.
Outcome research is how counseling shows that what we do makes a difference.
Why this matters
Many counseling journals publish mostly conceptual pieces, surveys, and descriptive studies. Those have real value, but they can’t tell us whether an intervention causes change. CORE’s record shows what a journal looks like when it commits to answering that question. Its patterns stayed steady across the decade, which suggests the commitment was built into the journal rather than tied to a single editor or special issue.
For students and new researchers, a meta-study like this one is also a practical guide. It shows which designs a journal values, how authors report their statistics, and where the gaps are.
Looking closely at research design is a habit I bring to how I read studies and how I teach students to judge evidence. It also carried into the scoping review I co-wrote on generative AI in counselor education, where the big gap turned out to be the same one: whether an approach truly changes outcomes.
The article
Johnson, A., West, C., Erford, B. T., & Karkhanis, S. (2020). A meta-study of Counseling Outcome Research and Evaluation (CORE): An analysis of publication characteristics from 2010–2019. Counseling Outcome Research and Evaluation, 13(2), 134–144.
