TPC-Journal-V2-Issue1

The Professional Counselor \Volume 2, Issue 1 85 each of the dependent variables to see if they fell between −1.0 and +1.0. Both the SET and EG scores did not violate the assumptions of normality as measured by skewness and kurtosis. However, while the skewness of XG did fall within the appropriate range, the kurtosis score was 1.04. Although this score is above 1.00, we believe this minor violation does not seriously affect the results and their interpretation. Research Question 1 Using the split-plot MANOVA, we found a significant interaction of the three evaluative measures across the four class formats F (6, 106) = 4.47, p < .0005, η 2 = .20. Specifically, there was a significant difference in EG between the four course formats, F (3, 53) = 19.15, p < .0005, partial η 2 = .52. The EG for schedule MTuWTh ( M = 3.50) was significantly higher ( p < .005) than that of formats W, MW/TuTh, and MWF ( M = 3.25, 3.32, and 3.31, respectively). Next, there was a significant difference in XG between the four course formats, F (3, 53) = 3.62, p = .019, η 2 = .02. The means for XG for the W, MW/TuTh, MWF, and MTuWTh were 3.71, 3.57, 3.34, and 3.64, respectively. There was not a significant difference for XG between formats W, MW/TuTh, and MTuWTh. However, there was a significant difference between format MWF and format MTuWTh ( p = .036), and format MWF was trending lower when compared with format W ( p = .097) and format MW/TuTh ( p = .051). Finally, there was not a significant difference on SET scores across the four formats, F (3, 53) = 1.36, p = ns. The mean SET scores for formats W, MW/TuTh, MWF, and MTuWTh were 2.88, 3.15, 3.31, and 3.11, respectively. Research Question 2 When we compared evaluation measures within each format, we found significant differences with each one, F (2, 52) = 23.61, p < .0005, η 2 = .47. We found XG significantly greater than EG within schedule format W (.46, p = .002) and format MW/TuTh (.35, p < .0005). By contrast, the difference between XG and EG was smaller and not statistically significant within format MWF (.13, p = ns) and format MTuWTh (.13, p = ns). This lack of a significant difference between EG and XG indicates that these students earned grades very similar to the grades they expected to receive. It is apparent that the students and instructors used similar evaluation and grading methods. Stated another way, this finding suggests that students in classes meeting more frequently per week have a slightly more accurate perception of how they are doing in the class. We also found that mean XG was significantly greater than mean SET for format W (.83, p =.003), format MW/TuTh (.42, p < .0005), and format MTuWTh (.53, p < .0005). However, there was not a significant difference between XG and SET for format MWF (.13, p = ns). Finally, in comparing the difference between mean EG and mean SET within each of the four formats, we found a significantly higher EG only for format MTuWTh (.40, p < .0005). No significant differences were observed for formats W, MW/TuTh, and MWF, which had differences of .37, .07, and .13, respectively. In summary, we found significant differences in the evaluation measures of XG, EG, and SET across the four different career course formats. Class sections which met four times a week for 6 weeks had a significantly higher EG than classes meeting one, two, or three times a week for a 16-week semester. Interestingly, formats W, MW/TuTh, and MTuWTh all had mean XG scores over 3.55, while format MWF’s XG was not only lower than the other formats, but significantly lower than that of format MTuWTh. Finally, mean SET scores were not significantly different from one another. Notably, they were all well above the rating of “good” (good = 2.0), with a mean of 3.15 on a 4-point scale. Means for the sections ranged between 2.88 and 3.31; thus we concluded that students found the instruction to be very good or excellent. Discussion Career course interventions have been developed to help students improve their academic and career decision-making skills. Comprehensive career courses offered for academic credit represent a cost-effective intervention that could be described as a “mega-dose” of career services (Reardon et al., 2011). While the benefits of college career courses are clear, it is unclear what contributions specific class formats (differing by length of class period, number of classes per week, length of course in weeks) might make to their effectiveness. Thus, the purpose of our study was to analyze the influence of different schedule formats on earned and expected grades and students’ evaluation of their instructors. Previous studies on career development classes have described various limitations (see Gold, Kivlighan, Kerr, & Kramer, 1993; Reese & Miller, 2010), and we attempted to address these in the following ways. First, although we did not