| Participants |
Country: USA
Setting: students at private, faith‐based liberal arts institution on the West coast; setting of training not specified
Age: range = 18 – 24 years; 18 years: 16 (39%), 19 years: 14 (34.1%), 20 years: 7 (17.1%), 21 years: 1 (2.4%), 22 years: 1 (2.4%), 23 years: 1 (2.4%), 24 years: 1 (2.4%)
Sample size (randomised): not specified, probably 41
Sex: 31 women, 10 men
Comorbidity (mean (SD) of respective measures in indicated, if available) at baseline: not specified
Population description: traditionally‐aged undergraduate students (18 to 24 years) at a private, faith‐based liberal arts institution on the West coast
Method of recruitment: students enrolled in the following undergraduate courses during the Fall 2013 semester: Foundations of Psychology (for psychology majors), Introduction to Psychology (for non‐psychology majors), and Introductory Statistics
Inclusion criteria: 1) students enrolled in following undergraduate courses during Fall 2013 semester: Foundations of Psychology (for psychology majors), Introduction to Psychology (for non‐psychology majors), Introductory Statistics; 2) students enrolled in these courses required to obtain 4 credit hours of research participation as part of course curriculum
Exclusion criteria: not specified
Attrition (withdrawals and exclusions): 4 cases excluded at 2‐week follow‐up (post‐test 2)
Reasons for missing data: missing data from that post‐test |
| Interventions |
Intervention: Psychological Capital (PsyCap) intervention "Navigating the College Experience" (n randomised not specified; in analysed sample: n = 19)
delivery: face‐to‐face; group setting (classroom setting); guided imagery, visual media, writing exercises, group discussions, brief content‐specific lectures providers: author of the publication (Bauman) duration of treatment period and timing: 2 weeks; two x 1‐hour sessions; session 1: Tuesday evening during the week; session 2: Tuesday evening of subsequent week -
description:
designed to focus on the development of efficacy, hope, optimism, and resilience following STRATEGIES employed in PsyCap curriculum based on review of literature: (a) imagining and writing about a future best possible self; (b) developing personal goals and sub‐goals; (c) generating pathways to goals; (d) identifying personal assets/talents/strengths; (e) considering obstacles in achieving goals; (f) vicarious learning, modeling, and self‐talk; (g) understanding attribution styles; (h) using the ABCDE (Activating event, Beliefs, Consequences, Dispute, Effects) model to reframe negative events; and (i) redistributing control and responsibility in response to unplanned setbacks -
WEEK 1:
Imagine your best possible self (optimism). Write about your best possible self (optimism). visual imagery: Imagine a best possible self and all that it encompasses (optimism/efficacy). based on the best possible version of yourself, what is one goal you have for this semester under your control? Write it down (hope: goals). brief lecture: Ideal design for goals; goals should be personally valuable, be realistically challenging, contain concrete end points, be objective, be task‐oriented, and have an approach framework (hope: agency) brainstorm and generate as many alternative pathways to this goal, regardless of practicality. Write them down (hope: pathways). identify your personal talents/assets/strengths and write down how they contribute to the achievement of your goal (hope: values/resilience: increasing assets) brief discussion on personal assets, strengths, and talents; Give a concrete example; brainstorm and generate more pathways to this goal, considering your assets, strengths, and talents (hope, efficacy) in small groups, discuss goals and pathways with one another, allowing students to hear from others and provide to others alternative potential pathways to various goals (efficacy: vicarious learning/modelling, feedback) make lists of various pathways and consider the resources required to pursue each pathway; deliberate and discard unrealistic pathways (hope: pathway generation) self‐reflection: Consider the potential obstacles or barriers that may get in your way of accomplishing your stated goal. Write them down How will your strengths and assets help you overcome these obstacles? Describe on paper. (efficacy: performance, mastery hope: goal setting) share aloud (as a group/with a partner) students’ obstacles, allowing for students to hear alternative perspectives on potential obstacles and strategies to overcome them (efficacy: vicarious learning/modelling, positive self‐talk/verbal persuasion, optimism: expectancies).
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WEEK 2:
review of last session and connection to current session; Last time we focused on goal setting, pathways, assets, and obstacles video clip: positive psychology (stress and coping) self‐reflection: What happens when life does not work out the way you want? Reflect on a recent time when you had a strong negative emotional reaction that was out of proportion to the event. What were you feeling? What were your immediate emotional and behavioural responses? What did you believe about the situation? (resilience: cognitive reframing efficacy: physiological and emotional states) brief lecture: discussion on ABCDE model; Share personal experience, walking students through the model, giving them a concrete example. Allow students to help reframe facilitator's situation. (resilience: cognitive behavioural technique) group discussion: Students discuss their situations and reactions. As a group, students generate alternative explanations of beliefs and reactions for one another. (optimism/resilience: reinforcing cognitive processes efficacy: modelling) self‐reflection: Reflect on a time when you did not succeed academically (e.g. bad grade, missed assignment, etc.). What did you say to yourself about that? How did you explain that? (optimism: explanatory style) brief lecture: discussion on control and responsibility; personal (interval vs external); permanent (stable vs unstable); and pervasive (global vs specific); provide case sample (optimism: explanatory style, expectancy, perceived control)
compliance: not specified integrity of delivery: evidence of treatment fidelity: significant increase in hope, efficacy, resilience, optimism in IG following participation in PsyCap intervention, whereas CG will not report significant increase from pretest to post‐test 1 or post‐test 2: results of multivariate analyses conducted to establish treatment fidelity revealed significant group differences in PsyCap scores in which 29% of variance in scores at post‐test 1 and 18% of variance at post‐test 2 could be accounted for by the PsyCap intervention implemented in this study; findings similar to Luthans 2006 economic information: several incentives for participation in workshop provided; students could obtain maximum 4 credits (e.g. 1 credit for completing pretest) -
theoretical basis:
content and techniques of PsyCap intervention derived from studies that have used similar techniques to successfully demonstrate growth in the individual areas of efficacy, hope, optimism, and resilience among participants literature review PsyCap intervention presented in Luthans 2010 as foundation for the current investigation with special attention given to specific techniques used to increase individual components of PsyCap
Control: wait‐list control (n randomised not specified; in analysed sample: n = 22)
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| Notes |
Contact with authors: We contacted the authors for the number of participants randomised (41 or more since 4 exclusions?) in total and to each group as well as the amount of missing data in each group. We also asked whether an available‐case analysis post‐test had been performed. In a second inquiry, we also asked whether healthcare students were included in the sample. The author responded and expressed her openness to provide the data (Bauman 2019 [pers comm]). However, the response did not include the information on whether healthcare students were included in the final sample; data have not so far been received
Study start/end date: not specified; recruitment during Fall 2013 semester
Funding source: not specified
Declaration of interest: not specified
Ethical approval needed/obtained for study: approval from Azusa Pacific University’s IRB upon submission of the research design and instruments
Comments by study authors: not relevant
Miscellaneous outcomes by the review authors: dissertation; recruitment at psychology courses, but unclear if final sample included participants who were psychology major students
Correspondence: Leslie Vaccarello Bauman; dissertation committee chair: Laurie A. Schreiner, PhD; School of Behavioral and Applied Sciences, Department of Higher Education, Azusa Pacific University, Duke 502; lschreiner@apu.edu; Phone (626) 815‐5349; Fax (626) 815‐5408 |
