نبذة مختصرة : The promotion of the evidence-based practice concept is widespread across mental and behavioral health professions (Baker, 2012). The popularity of evidence-based practices lies in their ability to merge the experience and expertise of the clinician with systematically obtained scientific evidence to form high-quality services reflecting the interests, values, needs, and choices of the clients served. For counselors, transitioning from the long-standing connection with the best practice orientation to a new evidence-based practice orientation can be quite beneficial. According to Sexton (1999), evidence-based practices provide a source of clinical knowledge that potentially can increase a counselor's effectiveness with clients and serve as a unifying force for the profession. Like many other counseling venues, this paradigm shift is also being experienced in college counseling centers on campuses nationwide. As noted by Birky (2005), college counseling center administrators and counseling staff face the increasing challenge of providing best practice counseling in all aspects of their work. To meet this challenge, college counselors will need to keep abreast of the research-based literature. Emphasizing this point, Baker (2012) contended that the responsibility for engaging in evidence-based practice falls primarily on counseling practitioners. Because college counseling is a specialty field (Sharkin, 2012), those counselors who practice in this field will need resources that are specifically tailored to the unique issues and challenges they can expect to face. As a result, my goal as editor of the Journal of College Counseling is to provide a venue for college counselors to share their research and help advance the profession. The six articles included in this issue were selected based on the contribution they are expected to make to the college counseling research literature. As the demographics of the college student body continue to change, so too will the types of services and interventions counselors will be asked to offer to best meet the needs of these new groups of students. I believe that these articles will assist college counselors in making a positive impact on their campuses, including by addressing student attrition and improving students' overall quality of life and well-being. The first article, authored by Stebleton and his colleagues, addresses a growing population on college campuses: first-generation college students. In their study, they compared first-generation and non-first-generation students regarding several variables, including sense of belonging, mental health status, and use of mental health services. Their results appear to support the idea that there are distinct differences in the collegiate experience of first-generation and non-first-generation students. As the number of first-generation students on college campuses continues to increase, knowledge of the specific counseling needs and service utilization patterns of these students will prove useful to college counselors. In the second article, Gibbons and Woodside continue the focus on first-generation students by reporting on the results of their recent study in which qualitative interviews of men and women from low-education backgrounds were conducted to better understand the experiences of these first-generation students regarding their career development and the influence of family on this development. Three themes emerged from these interviews, and Gibbons and Woodside share how counselors can be more proactive in designing interventions to meet the unique needs of the increasing number of first-generation students on today's college campuses. …
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