| Sixty one male and 146 female participants were solicited from 20 churches conducting Stephen Ministries (SM) Christian caregiving training to identify personal change among participants. The sample included 29 previously trained SM graduates to identify changes due to ongoing caregiving participation, and a control group of 44 Bible Study (BS) participants. Testing conducted at the beginning and end of training included the Gordon Personal Profile (GPP), the Structural Analysis of Social Behavior--short form (SASB), the Helping Beliefs Inventory (HBI), and the Adjective Check List (ACL). Multiple repeated measures analysis of variance procedures with socioeconomic status, gender, and age covariates were used to test hypotheses. Unhelpful beliefs for assisting others with problems, as measured by the HBI, were less strongly endorsed by previously trained SM participants at the initial testing. By follow-up testing, new SM participants developed these same beliefs while BS participants remained unchanged. The ACL, GPP, and SASB showed no evidence of change due to either training or caregiving experiences. Post-hoc analysis suggested previous research with analogous religious caregiving training may have over-interpreted personal change attributed to training by failing to include adequate control groups, neglecting sufficient follow-up, or not giving adequate consideration to the effect of covariates. |
