TPC-Journal-V2-Issue1

74 The Professional Counselor \Volume 2, Issue 1 Current study results include attributions of cause for a single academic course designed in part to facilitate growth. The course is generally similar to that described by Hassan (2008) in a study of growth attributed to a health education course. The percentage attributions of cause to the course described in the current study (Table 2) are consistent with percentages reported in our previous study (Anderson & Lopez-Baez, 2011). The results of that preceding study and the study of Hassan (2008) strongly suggest that personal growth can be intentionally facilitated if not taught explicitly. The results of the current study suggest that substantial growth is attributed by students to coursework in general. Current study results include subtotals of attributions of cause for academic and non-academic experiences, respectively. Sample members report attributions of almost 40% of total personal growth to academic coursework and provide further evidence that personal growth can be intentionally facilitated. Study 2: Annual Growth Taken as a whole, the results of Study 1 and three previous studies (Tedeschi & Calhoun, 1996; Anderson & Lopez- Baez, 2008, 2011) suggest that college students like those in the samples attribute substantial personal growth to both academic and non-academic experiences of their college years. These conclusions lead us to wonder just how much growth graduating seniors attribute to each college year. We believe the answer is of interest to college educators and administrators charged with fostering student growth. Answering this question requires a descriptive study of a representative sample drawn from a population of interest. Study 2 uses a simple descriptive design to answer the question for the population of students similar to those in the sample of Study 1. Research Question What levels of personal growth do members of a sample of college seniors attribute to each year of their 4-year college careers and what percentages do they attribute to academic and non-academic experiences, respectively? Method Participants Participants were recruited from graduating college seniors enrolled during the spring semesters of 2009 and 2010 in the course described in Study 1. Students earned extra course credit for participating. A total of 117 participants were recruited (70 of the 84 graduating seniors among the 142 students enrolled in the spring of 2009 and 47 of the 67 graduating seniors among the 144 students enrolled in the spring of 2010). A total of 108 participants (59 women and 49 men) remained after eliminating 9 questionnaires with missing data. Most participants were Caucasian (5 African American, 9 Hispanics, Asians, Asian Americans and other). Mean age was 21.64 ( SD = .48) years. Academic concentrations (and number of students) were: college of arts and sciences (77), commerce school (18), college of engineering (12) and school of architecture (1). Participants completed the survey at the end of the last class meeting, approximately three weeks before graduation. Measures We used the PTGI to measure total personal growth. We used the table in Appendix B to elicit attributions of cause. Participants completed the table with annual estimates (in percent) of their personal growth, growth from academic experiences, and growth from non-academic experiences. We also asked participants to identify on a separate page (not shown in Appendix B) the experiences that they thought contributed most to their growth each year and to identify these experiences as either academic or non-academic. Procedure The first two pages of the Study 1 and Study 2 questionnaires (warm-up exercise and PTGI) were identical. Study 2 participants followed the instructions in Appendix B to provide attributions of cause.