The Interpersonal Risk Awareness Survey: A study of the relationship between counseling and undergraduate students' perceptions of risk related to self-disclosure

This study explores the relationship between counseling and undergraduate students' perceptions of risk related to self disclosure. Self-disclosure risk was measured by the Interpersonal Risk Awareness Survey (IRAS) which was created for this project. Participants were graduate counseling students at a rural regional university, a rural research university and an urban research university as well as undergraduate students at the rural regional and rural research universities. Factor analysis was used to validate and define the subscales of the IRAS and a Cronbach's alpha analysis was performed to test reliability. A t-test and Analysis of Variance were employed to test for differences between and within the subscales and populations studied. The analyses suggest that the IRAS is a reliable measure of self-disclosure with a strong four factor underlying structure. The analyses further suggest that there is no difference between the two populations in terms of overall perception of risk related to self-disclosure. Additionally, significant differences were found between the four factors which comprise the IRAS. This data provided the basis for an IRAS administration and scoring guide.