TPC-Journal-V2-Issue1

The Professional Counselor \Volume 2, Issue 1 67 growth to student-identified naturalistic experiences and to a researcher-identified 3-hour course designed to facilitate growth (student explanations like: college internship accounted for 30% of my total personal growth, finding a job for 40%, 3-hour course of interest to researchers for 15%, miscellaneous other experiences for the remaining 15%). We refer to these explanations as attributions of cause . Student attributions of cause to academic experiences supported the appealing idea (to counselors and educators) that personal growth as defined and measured by the PTGI can be intentionally facilitated by activities designed to do so. The two studies described in the current paper are the fourth and fifth based on the PTGI to measure college-student personal growth that was not strictly adversarial. Both samples are generally similar to those of our previous studies (Anderson & Lopez-Baez, 2008, 2011). The current studies extend the results of our previous ones by (1) measuring the growth attributed by sample members to substantially longer periods of college life and (2) eliciting separate attributions of cause for academic and non-academic experiences, respectively. The primary purpose of Study 1 was to examine the internal validity of student data collected with the PTGI by comparing the descriptive statistics among the results of Study 1 with those of the three previous studies described above (Anderson & Lopez-Baez, 2008, 2011; Tedeschi & Calhoun, 1996). The primary purpose of Study 2 was to measure graduating college-senior attributions of annual personal growth, in retrospect to their freshman, sophomore, junior, and senior years, respectively. Study 2 was descriptive. Study 1: Cumulative Growth Research questions 1 and 2 are designed to collect descriptive data. Research question 3 is designed to collect information about the internal validity of our data by testing hypotheses on the basis of comparisons of the results of Study 1 with the results of previous studies (Anderson & Lopez-Baez, 2008, 2011). Research question 1. What levels of cumulative personal growth do participants describe for their college undergraduate years (descriptive statistics for PTGI scores)? Research question 2. What cumulative percentage attributions of cause do participants describe for academic experiences (college credit) and non-academic (all other) experiences, respectively, during their college undergraduate years (descriptive statistics for attributions of cause)? Research question 3. To what extent do the results of comparable studies reflect internal validity (comparisons of statistical results across studies)? Method Participants We recruited participants from among the 147 students in a 3-hour elective course, Problems of Personal Adjustment, taught by the first author at a southeastern university. The course covered topics of psychological adjustment and included activities to facilitate student personal growth. Data was collected at the end of the fall semester of 2007. Most students were third- and fourth-year undergraduates in the College of Arts and Sciences or the School of Commerce. A total of 137 students elected to participate (response rate 93.20%). After 15 questionnaires with missing data were eliminated, sample size was 122 (67 men, 55 women). Most participants were Caucasian (4 African Americans, 4 Hispanics, Asians, and Asian Americans) with a mean age of 21.05 (.79) years and a mean college career of 6.54 (1.34) completed semesters. Students were given extra credit for electing to participate. Measures Posttraumatic Growth Inventory. Each of the 21 PTGI items (Cronbach alpha = .90, test-retest r = .71) describes a single positive psychological change (Tedeschi & Calhoun, 1996). Examples (with corresponding subscale and number of subscale items) include: “A sense of closeness with others” (Relating to Others, 7 items), “I developed new interests” (New Possibilities, 5 items), “A feeling of self-reliance” (Personal Strength, 4 items), “A better understanding of spiritual matters” (Spiritual Change, 2 items), and “My priorities about what is important in life” (Appreciation of Life, 3 items). Participants of trauma studies are instructed to describe the degree of each change resulting from their trauma. Responses are positions on a 6-point Likert-type scale anchored by 0 (no change) and 5 (great change). Total score range is 0 to 105 (per-item basis 0 to 5.00). Tedeschi and Calhoun (1996) reported evidence for concurrent and discriminant validity (their second study 1996) and construct validity (their third study). We have previously reported mean levels of college-student