TheProfessional Counselor-Vol12-Issue3

252 The Professional Counselor | Volume 12, Issue 3 Methods Participants and Procedures Following IRB approval, first author Michael T. Kalkbrenner obtained an email list from the Office of University Student Records of all students who were enrolled in a STEM major at a researchintensive university with four campus locations in three cities located in the Southwestern United States. A recruitment message was sent out to the email list via Qualtrics Secure Online Survey Platform. A total of 407 prospective participants clicked on the survey link. A response rate could not be calculated, as Qualtrics does not track inaccurate or inactive email addresses. A review of the raw data revealed 41 cases with 100% missing data. Likely, these 41 prospective participants clicked on the link to the survey and decided not to participate. Following the removal of those 41 cases, less than 20% of data were missing for the remaining 366 cases. Little’s Missing Completely at Random test indicated that the data could be treated as missing completely at random (p = .118) and expectation maximization was used to impute missing values. An investigation of standardized z-scores revealed six univariate outliers (z > ± 3.29) and Mahalanobis distances displayed eight multivariate outliers, which were removed from the data set, yielding a robust sample of N = 352. Participants ranged in age from 18 to 63 (M = 24.29; SD = 8.59). The demographic profile for gender identity consisted of 65.1% (n = 229) female, 30.4% (n = 107) male, 2.0% (n = 7) non-binary, 1.1% (n = 4) transgender, 0.6% (n = 2) an identity not listed (“please specify”), and 0.9% (n = 3) prefer not to answer. The ethnoracial demographic profile consisted of 2.6% (n = 9) Native Indian or Alaska Native; 3.1% (n = 11) Asian or Asian American; 2.0% (n = 7) Black or African American; 48.3% (n = 170) Hispanic, Latinx, or Spanish origin; 2.0% (n = 7) Middle Eastern or North African; 3.4% (n = 12) Multiethnic; 36.6% (n = 129) White or European American; 1.1% (n = 4) Another race, ethnicity, or origin (“please specify”); and 0.9% (n = 3) preferred not to answer. The present sample was composed of notably more diverse groups of STEM students when compared to national estimates of STEM students (National Center for Educational Statistics [NCES], 2020). The NCES’s estimates revealed fewer women (33.0%, n = 263,034) and Latinx (12.3%, n = 94,927) STEM students as well as fewer White students (49.8%, n = 385,132). But the NCES’s national estimates included larger proportions of Black (7.2%, n = 55,642) and Asian (11.0%, n = 85,135) STEM students when compared to the present sample. Instrumentation Participants completed a demographic questionnaire by indicating their informed consent, then confirming they met the following inclusion criteria for participation: (a) 18 years or older, (b) enrolled in at least one undergraduate STEM course, and (c) currently a STEMmajor. The demographic questionnaire concluded with questions about respondents’ age, gender identity, ethnoracial identity, help-seeking history, and if they had referred one or more peers to the counseling center. The Revised FSV Scale The RFSV Scale is a screening tool that was designed to measure barriers to seeking counseling (Kalkbrenner, Neukrug, & Griffith, 2019). Participants respond to a prompt (“I am less likely to attend counseling because . . . ”) for 14 declarative statements on the following Likert scale: 1 = Strongly Disagree, 2 = Disagree, 3 = Neither Agree nor Disagree, 4 = Agree, or 5 = Strongly Agree. The RFSV Scale is composed of three subscales or latent traits behind one’s reticence to seek counseling, including Fit, Stigma, and Value. Scores on the Fit subscale can range from 5 to 25, with higher scores indicating more restraint from seeking counseling because one believes the process of counseling is not suitable with their personal worldview (e.g., “I couldn’t find a counselor who would understand me”). Scores on the Stigma subscale also range from 5 to 25, and higher scores denote a greater hesitation to seek

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