The effects of group, group-individual, and individual counseling on changes in self-perceptions of high school sophomores of low-economic background

• Main Author: Atkins, Cary Donald
• Other Authors: Counseling and Student Personnel Services
• Format: Others
• Language: en
• Published: Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University 2016
• Subjects: LD5655.V856 1977.A87
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10919/64770

The central problem of this investigation was to determine the effectiveness of group counseling, group-individual counseling, and individual counseling, on changes in self-perceptions of high school sophomores (boys and girls) of low-economic background, The subjects were selected for the study on the basis of information gathered from free lunch forms that were submitted by parents when the subjects were in the ninth grade, The criteria used was that disseminated as federal guidelines to local governments for identifying low-economic students, A 2 by 4 factorial (Treatment and Sex) with multiple dependent variables was the experimental design for this study, The original sample consisted of forty students who were randomly assigned to four groups; however, during the study twelve students were lost, The four groups were assigned randomly, with the male/female ratio being controlled (five males and five females per group), for treatment with Group 1 receiving client-centered group counseling, with Group 2 receiving client-centered group-individual counseling (alternated weekly), with Group 3 receiving client-centered individual counseling, and with Group 4 as the control group that received no treatment. The students in the experimental groups met once a week for counseling sessions of one hour for eleven ses.ions. The counselor had a master's degree in counseling and two years experience as a high school counselor. He has had courses in group practices and procedures and the experience as counselor and co-facilitator of several structured and unstructured groups. The counseling style used was client-centered as understood by the investigator. A post-hock evaluation of audio-taped counseling sessions revealed a number of counselor variations from what is considered appropriate for counselor behavior in client-centered counseling. To measure changes in self-perception, the Personal Orientation Inventory (POI) was administered in September, 1975, before counseling began, and in December, 1975, when counseling was concluded. The results for the Personal Orientation Inventory (POI) were analyzed with the multivariate analysis of covariance. The four groups were compared with respect to possible differences among the groups at the time of the pretest and at the time of the posttest. It was found that the four groups did not differ significantly from one another. However, the pretest and posttest mean scores for selfregard and self-acceptance indicated that group counseling tended to facilitate positive changes in the self-perceptions of male subjects, and individual counseling tended to facilitate positive changes in the self-perceptions of female subjects. Overall, the results of this study failed to refute the null hypotheses that there would be no statistically significant differences between the control group and the experimental groups that received client-centered group counseling, client-centered group-individual' counseling (alternated weekly), and client-centered individual counseling on the following variables: (1) selfperception, (2) self-regard, and (3) self-acceptance. === ED. D.