TPC-Journal-V2-Issue1

68 The Professional Counselor \Volume 2, Issue 1 growth of 59.07 ( SD = 15.77, N = 347; Anderson & Lopez-Baez, 2008) and 60.42 ( SD = 16.61, N = 117; Anderson & Lopez-Baez, 2011). Blank table. We use a blank, 2-column table to elicit attributions of cause (see Appendix A). In column 1, participants list life experiences thought to have contributed most to their growth during their college years. Participants list estimates of corresponding percentage contributions to total growth in column 2. For purposes of this study, we tailored the table to provide subtotals of attributions of cause to academic experiences (lines 1–5) and non-academic experiences (lines 6–10). We pre-labeled Lines 4, 5, and 10. Line 4 refers to the course taught by the principal author from which participants were recruited. Procedure Like subjects in our two previous studies, participants were instructed to complete a preliminary exercise to stimulate thinking about personal growth by answering questions that distinguished between level and salience of growth. We do not report the results because the research questions of the current study do not involve salience. After completing the preliminary exercise, participants were given the following instructions for completing the PTGI (after study 3, Tedeschi & Calhoun, 1996): Consider the degree to which each change listed below [21 items] has occurred in your life during your years as an undergraduate, whether or not the change was directly related to university class work. For each change, select the best response from the following scale [6 Likert-type options of Tedeschi & Calhoun, 1996] and write the number in the space provided. Participants provided attributions of cause by completing the form in Appendix A. Participants were instructed to complete lines 1–10 of column 1 (brief descriptions of experiences thought to have contributed most to total growth) and column 2 (corresponding percentage contributions). Participants also provided 1-line qualitative explanations of how each experience on lines 1–10 of column 1 contributed to their growth (entries not analyzed because not required by research questions). Results Cronbach alphas for each subscale calculated from the data of Study 1 are: .87 (all), .82 (Relating to Others), .65 (New Possibilities), .56 (Personal Strength), .82 (Spiritual Change), and .54 (Appreciation of Life). The mean female PTGI score of 71.71 (11.72) is greater than the mean male score of 66.94 (10.98), t (120) = 2.32, p = .022 < α = .05 (2- tail), d = .42. Male and female scores were combined because no significant gender differences were found by t-tests of corresponding subscale means (Bonferroni-corrected α = .01). Research Question 1 Table 1 contains descriptive statistics for participant PTGI scores on a total and per-item basis. Magnitudes of Cronbach alphas reported above can be seen to reflect the variations in magnitude among the standard deviations reported for per-item subscale scores in Table 1 (larger Cronbach alphas are associated with larger standard deviations). This observation suggests that restricted ranges among our data for Personal Strength and Appreciation of Life account for the low values of alpha for each subscale. The mean total of 69.09 ( SD = 11.52) is greater than the midpoint of 52.50 for the maximum range of 0–105 and greater than the midpoint of 64.74 for the range of 46.00–83.47 reported for trauma studies (Linley & Joseph, 2004). The