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Given the lack of agreement over the factor structure and scoring system used with the Expectations About Counseling Inventory (EAC-B), the primary purpose of this investigation was to reevaluate the factor structure of the EAC-B and to construct factor scales based on that structure. After constructing these scales, the second objective was to evaluate the relationships among expectations about counseling, the five-factor model of personality (FFM), and gender-related variables. The responses of 460 undergraduate students to all 66 items on the EAC-B suggested three factors: facilitative conditions, counselor expertise, and client involvement. Expectations for facilitative conditions were positively correlated with extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, masculinity, and femininity; expectations for counselor expertise were negatively correlated with openness and agreeableness and positively correlated with masculinity; and expectations for client involvement were positively correlated with extraversion, openness, agreeableness, conscientiousness, and femininity. Femininity was the strongest predictor of the facilitative conditions and client involvement scales when the effects of all the other variables were partialled out, whereas openness to experience and gender were the best predictors of counselor expertise when the effects of all the other variables were partialled out.

This investigation examined the extent to which premature termination from counseling could be predicted from selected scales on the Butcher Treatment Planning Inventory (BTPI). Ninety-five new clients at a university counseling center agreed to participate in the study and completed the BTPI as part of the intake evaluation. Premature termination occurred when a participant missed a scheduled appointment and unilaterally dropped out of counseling. Higher scores on Closed-Mindedness, Problems in Relationship Formation, Somatization of Conflict, Self-Oriented/Narcissism, Perceived Lack of Environmental Support, and the Treatment Difficulty Composite were associated with premature termination. The General Pathology Composite, a general index of symptomatic distress, also enhanced the prediction of premature termination by suppressing irrelevant variance in other BTPI scales. The results provide support for the validity of the BTPI in identifying clients at risk for premature termination from counseling.

The present study evaluates a prospective observer form of the Coping Inventory for Stressful Situations (CISS) by comparing the two forms in terms of factor structure, mean differences, reliability, and examining correlations between self-report and peer ratings. A total of 163 pairs of friends complete the CISS and an observer form of the CISS. Confirmatory factor analysis results indicate that for both rating forms, the four-factor solution fits better. Although self-rating data fit the theoretical model better, the peer ratings show higher reliability. The correlation between self and peer latent factors is moderate for Avoidance-oriented coping and for its subscales, but low for Task-and Emotion-oriented coping. Internal consistency coefficients for the CISS scales are high across type of rating, and a significant cross-form mean difference is found on the Task latent factor. Overall, the results provide evidence of substantial measurement equivalence between the self-rating form and the observer form, and the authors propose its use in dispositional coping research.