Developing Leadership Skills of College Students by Using a Journaling Intervention

The purpose of this study is to examine whether weekly journaling has positive effects on college-aged leaders. You are being asked to participate because you are an active leader of a group or organization on your college campus. About 100 people will take part in this research. The participants of this study will be college students, aged 18-25, who hold a leadership position, such as a club president, a team captain, etc., that involves leading a group of students towards a shared goal. The participants will be recruited from Skidmore College as well as other colleges and universities across the US. There will be approximately 100 participants. The average sample size across previous studies that used proposed measures and/or examined similar research questions typically had 20-50 participants per condition. Additionally, given the specificity of the studied population, 100 participants is a realistic maximum we will be able to recruit in the timeframe of this study. This study will include a reflective journaling condition and a control condition. Both conditions will contain four sets of journaling prompts and the participants will complete one set per week for four weeks. The reflective journaling condition journaling prompts will encourage the participants to reflect on their leadership experience and set goals for themselves as leaders. The control condition will ask generic questions about everyday life and experiences. Each set of journaling prompts will take about 15 minutes to complete. For initial screening, each participant will be asked to reach out to the PI from their college email address and outline their college leadership involvement. If the participant meets the inclusion criteria (noted in 10A), they will be randomly assigned to the reflective journaling or control condition. Each participant will then receive a consent form and be asked to sign it electronically and email back to the PI. The participant will also be assigned a study ID number in order to deidentify their data. The participant will then use the ID number on all questionnaires. Their name will not be directly connected to any questionnaire responses. At the end of their participation, the participant’s name and other identifiable information, such as email address, will be deleted from all study documents. The participant will now receive a baseline questionnaire via Qualtrics. The form will contain three demographic questions as well as the following measures: 1. Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (Leader Form). The Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (Bass & Avolio, 1995) is a 45-item measure assessing leadership behaviors across transformational, transactional, and laissez-faire styles. Respondents rate how frequently they engage in various leadership behaviors on a 5-point scale ranging from not at all to frequently, if not always. The MLQ is one of the most widely used instruments for assessing leadership and has demonstrated strong reliability and validity across diverse organizational contexts. 2. Wong and Law Emotional Intelligence Scale. Wong and Law Emotional Intelligence Scale (WLEIS; Wong & Law, 2002) is a brief 16-item self-report measure commonly used with college student and workplace samples. The WLEIS will assess four components of emotional intelligence: (1) Self-Emotional Appraisal, or the ability to recognize one’s own emotions; (2) Others’ Emotional Appraisal, or the ability to identify emotions in others; (3) Use of Emotion, or the tendency to use emotions to guide thinking and performance; and (4) Regulation of Emotion, or the ability to manage one’s own emotions. The scale is widely used in organizational and leadership research due to its brevity, strong psychometric properties, and relevance to interpersonal functioning. 3. Flourishing Scale. The Diener Flourishing Scale (Diener et al., 2010) is an 8-item measure of the participant’s overall perception of success regarding self-esteem, purpose, optimism, and relationships. This measure has been validated in many samples (Schotanus-Dijkstra et al., 2016), and confirmatory factor analysis revealed a good fir with a one-factor model and good internal consistency (α = .86). 4. Existential Distress Scale (Version 2). This scale has 10 items measured on a 5-point scale, ranging from “not distressed” to “unbearably distressed,” to indicate how distressed participants felt about being alone, having an empty or meaningless life, and being a burden to others (Lo et al., 2015). The scale has sound psychometric properties that have been validated in clinical and nonclinical samples. 5. Perceived Stress Scale. The Perceived Stress Scale (Cohen et al., 1983) is a 10-item instrument designed to assess the degree to which individuals perceive their lives as unpredictable, uncontrollable, and overloaded. Items are rated on a 5-point scale ranging from never to very often. The PSS has been extensively validated and shows good internal consistency (α ≈ .78–.91) across various populations. Participants will be asked to complete the first set of journaling prompts. The participants will be able to skip any question(s) and continue the websurvey in the initial and all following surveys. At the end of each survey, the participants will have an option to withdraw their answers by clicking “Cancel” as opposed to “Submit.” The participants will continue receiving a set of journaling prompts once a week for three weeks after the initial session. The final set of journaling prompts during Week Four will be followed by the post-trial questionnaire, which will include the same questions as the pre-trial questionnaire, with the exception of the demographic questions, which will be absent, as well as open-ended, qualitative questions and quantitative measures that focus on the intervention experience. The following qualitative questions will be asked in the post-trial questionnaire: 1. Please describe your overall experience in the intervention 2. Which parts of the intervention were most helpful for improving your leadership skills and/or psychological well-being? 3. Which parts of the intervention were least helpful? 4. On a scale of 1 to 10, how engaged were you during journaling? 5. Is there anything else you would like to share about your experience? The following quantitative measures will be used in the post-trial questionnaire: 1. AIM. The acceptability of the intervention will be assessed using the Acceptability of Intervention Measure (AIM), a validated 4-item scale that captures the extent to which participants perceive an intervention as agreeable, satisfactory, or appealing (Weiner et al., 2017). AIM will measure participants’ immediate affective responses to the intervention, such as whether it feels appropriate or acceptable to engage with. Items will be rated on a 5-point Likert scale, and higher scores will reflect greater perceived acceptability. 2. IAM. Perceptions of whether the intervention is a good fit for the context will be measured using the Intervention Appropriateness Measure (IAM) (Weiner et al., 2017). IAM is a validated 4-item scale that evaluates the perceived relevance, suitability, and compatibility of an intervention with participants’ needs and environment. This measure will be used to determine whether the intervention “makes sense” to participants. Items will be rated on a 5-point Likert scale, with higher values indicating greater perceived appropriateness. 3. FIM. The Feasibility of Intervention Measure (FIM) will be used to examine participants’ perceptions of how practical and implementable the intervention is (Weiner et al., 2017). This 4-item measure assesses the extent to which an intervention can be realistically carried out given time, resources, and situational demands. Participants will rate each item on a 5-point Likert scale, and higher scores will indicate stronger perceptions of feasibility. FIM will help determine whether the procedures are workable prior to any larger-scale implementation. Two weeks later the participants will receive the follow-up questionnaire, which will be identical to the pre-trial questionnaire (with the exception of the demographic questions). Upon completion of the follow-up questionnaire, the participants will receive compensation (they will also receive compensation if they choose to withdraw at any point during the study). These are the weekly prompts for both the active and control conditions: Active Condition Prompts: Week 1: Question 1: Describe the group you are leading. Question 2: How did you become the leader of this group? Question 3: What are your current biggest successes and challenges in leading your group? Question 4: Describe your relationship with the other members of this group. Question 5: What feels personally meaningful to you about leading this group? Question 6: Which personal qualities make you an effective leader? Question 7: How do you want to grow as a leader? What are you currently working on? Question 8: What is your biggest leadership goal for the upcoming week? Week 2: Question 1: As a leader, what have you been working on this past week? Question 2: What did you and/or your group accomplish this week? Question 3: Have any new challenges emerged? Question 4: Was anything especially overwhelming or outside your control this week? Question 5: What is your plan for tackling the challenges you and/or your group are facing? Question 6: What is one thing that you might be too hard on yourself about in your leadership? Question 7: Do you have a mentor who helps you navigate leadership? If not, can you think of 1-2 people who could act as your mentor(s)? Question 8: What is your biggest leadership goal for the upcoming week? Week 3: Question 1: As a leader, what have you been working on this past week? Question 2: What did you and/or your group accomplish this week? Question 3: Have any new challenges emerged? Question 4: What has been your bigge