Graduate Program

Clinical Psychology

Degree Name

Master of Arts (MA)

Semester of Degree Completion

2008

Thesis Director

Anu Sharma

Thesis Committee Member

Ronan Bernas

Thesis Committee Member

Cathy Schoonover

Abstract

Enrollment of nontraditional women in colleges continues to increase but despite their academic strengths, nontraditional students have higher attrition rates. Although psychological counseling may support the academic pursuits of nontraditional women, little is known about their attitudes toward help seeking. Recognizing the diversity among nontraditional female students, this study explores factors which predict stress and help seeking among 3 groups of female students: traditional age (24 and younger), nontraditional age (25 and older) non-parents, and nontraditional age parents. One hundred seventy-six female students between the ages of 18 and 57 completed measures of role responsibility and support, the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (Rosenberg, 1989), the Perceived Stress Scale (Cohen & Williamson, 1988), a barriers to help seeking questionnaire, the Attitudes Toward Seeking Professional Psychological Help Scale (Fischer & Turner, 1970), and a demographic questionnaire. Despite reporting greater role responsibility, nontraditional parents had higher levels of self esteem, lower levels of perceived stress, and more favorable attitudes toward help seeking than traditional women. Although traditional students perceived having more social and emotional support than women in both nontraditional groups, they had the highest levels of perceived stress and the least favorable attitudes toward help seeking. Higher self esteem and fewer barriers to help seeking were significant predictors of lower levels of stress and more favorable help seeking attitudes among student parents, and these predictors were more salient to student mothers than women in the other groups. Scores of nontraditional non-parents fell between the two other groups on most of the measures and possible reasons for this pattern are discussed.

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